Bakusen Tsuchida

Background

Bakusen Tsuchida was born on the 9th of February, 1887 in Sado, Niigata Prefecture, Japan in a wealthy and influential family. His birth name was Tsuchida Kinji (土田金二).

Education

As an adolescent, Bakusen's father put him on the career path of a Buddhist priest, but he fled the temple where he was apprenticed in order to study art instead.

Bakusen Tsuchida joined Takeuchi Seihô’s (1864–1942) school, thriving under his tutelage in a nurturing environment. He was accepted as a student by painter Takeuchi Seihō, and later studied at the Kyoto Kaiga Senmon Gakko (present day Kyoto City University of Arts) from which he graduated in 1911.

Career

In 1918, Bakusen established a painting collective together with Murakami Kagaku, Ono Chikkyō, Sakakibara Shihō, and Nonagase Banka called the Kokuga Society (Kokuga Sōsaku Kyōkai, or "Society for the Creation of National Painting"), which was used as a vehicle to disseminate the group's eclectic style combining western yōga and Japanese (Nihonga) painting techniques and styles. His favorite subjects were women (bijinga), especially portraits of maiko, but he also painted flowers and still life themes.

The Kokuga Society established its own annual exhibition, the Kokuten (abbreviation for "Kokuga Sōsaku Kyōkai Tenrankai") in competition with the increasingly restrictive Bunten Exhibitions in 1918. Seven Kokuten exhibitions were held between 1918 and 1928.

In 1921, the Kokuga Society went on hiatus when Bakusen traveled to Europe with Ono Chikkyō to tour Western art museums. They returned after a little more than a year, and resumed the Kokuga Society in 1923.

Bakusen was particularly fond of French Impressionism and post-impressionism, especially the works of Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne, and collected several of their works while in Europe. The Kokuga Society broke up in 1928, due to financial difficulties and internal disagreements. In 1934, Bakusen was appointed to the Teikoku Bijutsuin (Imperial Art Academy).

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Maiko in Landscape

    1924

  • Still life

  • Women of Ōhara

    1915

  • painting

    1908

  • Peony

  • Vegetable

    1924

  • Ohara women

    1927

  • painting

  • painting

    1933

  • painting

    1920

Connections

His younger brother was the noted philosopher Tsuchida Kyōson (1891-1934).

Brother:

Kyoson Tsuchida