Vincenzo Ragusa

Vincenzo Ragusa ( born July 8, 1841 in Palermo, † March 13, 1927 ) was an Italian sculptor, known for the art exchange with Japan when he lived there from 1876 to 1882 during the Meiji period.

Ragusa came from a modest family in Palermo, and learned ivory carving. He participated in the Second Italian War of Independence in part ( the train Thou among Nino Bixio and Battle of the Volturno 1860). After that, he continued his work as a sculptor and won on the issue of the Academy of Fine Arts in Brera in 1872 the highest price. Due to a competition he was chosen in 1878 to travel to Tokyo to build there at the request of the Japanese government an art school ( Kobu Bijutsu Gakko ), art in the western style of teaching ( Yōga ). They were joined by the painter and architect Giovanni Antonio Fontanesi Cappelletti. Ragusa taught there until the closure of the school in 1882. Afterwards he returned to Palermo, where he took the Japanese lacquer artist Kiyohara Einosuke and his wife, an experienced embroiderer in Japanese style, and their daughter Kiyohara Tama ( 1861-1939 ). They taught, which was founded in Palermo Ragusa Superiore Scuola d' Arte Applicata (now Istituto d'Arte di Palermo), but in 1888 they returned to Japan.

Her daughter was married and Ragusa 1889. Kiyohara Tama was herself a painter and taught the class woman in Ragusa 's art school.

She took the name Eleonora Ragusa and returned only in 1933 returned to Japan when she was six years a widow. A Japanese newspaper had reported on their fate, which gave her acquaintance in Japan. Many of his works gave the Imperial Art School and they are now in the Museum of the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. Even the imperial family in Japan has some of his works of art, including a statue of Napoleon I.

Gallery

Japanese Actor, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts

Kiyohara Tama 1883