was a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

painter, noted for development of ''

yōga is a style of artistic painting in Japan, typically of Japanese subjects, themes, or landscapes, but using Western (European) artistic conventions, techniques, and materials. The term was coined in the Meiji period (1868–1912) to distingu ...

'' (Western-style)

portraiture A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this re ...

in early twentieth-century

Japanese painting is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese art, Japanese visual arts, encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the long history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis a ...

Biography

Yasui was born to a merchant class household in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ...

, but dropped out of commercial high school against his family's wishes to pursue a career in the arts. He studied

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest ...

under

Asai Chū was a Japanese painter, noted for his pioneering work in developing the ''yōga'' (Western-style) art movement in late 19th century and early twentieth-century Japanese painting. Biography Asai was born to an ex-samurai class household in Sakur ...

at the Shōgōin Yōga Kenkyujō and ''Kansai Bijutsu-in'' (Kansai Fine Art Academy) together with Ryuzaburo Umehara. In 1907, at the age of nineteen he moved to Paris, France to study at the

Académie Julian The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the numbe ...

under

Jean-Paul Laurens Jean-Paul Laurens (; 28 March 1838 – 23 March 1921) was a French painter and sculptor, and one of the last major exponents of the French Academic style. Biography Laurens was born in Fourquevaux and was a pupil of Léon Cogniet and Alex ...

.Grove Art Online
/ref> During this seven years, from 1907 to 1914, he was strongly influenced by the realistic styles of

Jean-François Millet Jean-François Millet (; 4 October 1814 – 20 January 1875) was a French artist and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his paintings of peasant farmers and can be categorized as part of the Realism ...

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that " ...

and, in particular,

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...

. Forced to return to Japan with the outbreak of World War I, in 1915, he made his debut at the ''Nikakai'' (Second Division Society) Exhibition, where he displayed forty-four paintings he had made in Paris. For the next ten years, Yasui suffered from recurring health problems and did not participate in exhibitions, while he attempted to perfect his style, which incorporates clear outlines and vibrant colors in portraits and landscapes, combining western realism with the softer touches of traditional ''

nihonga ''Nihonga'' (, " Japanese-style paintings") are Japanese paintings from about 1900 onwards that have been made in accordance with traditional Japanese artistic conventions, techniques and materials. While based on traditions over a thousand years ...

'' techniques. In 1930, he displayed these techniques in "A Portrait of a Woman" to wide critical acclaim, and was nominated for membership in the prestigious Imperial Fine Arts Academy in 1935. From 1936, he cooperated with

Ikuma Arishima was the pen-name of Arishima Mibuma, a Japanese novelist and painter active in the Taishō and Shōwa period. He also used ''Utosei'' and then ''Jugatsutei'' as alternative pen names. Early life Ikuma was born in Yokohama into a wealthy family ...

to establish the ''Issui-kai'', a rival organization to the ''Nikakai''. In the postwar period, many of his works were selected as ''cover art'' for the

literary magazine A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evalu ...

''Bungeishunjū''. From 1944, he was a professor at the

Tokyo University of the Arts or is the most prestigious art school in Japan. Located in Ueno Park, it also has facilities in Toride, Ibaraki, Yokohama, Kanagawa, and Kitasenju and Adachi, Tokyo. The university has trained renowned artists in the fields of painting, sc ...

. In 1952, he received the

Order of Culture The is a Japanese order, established on February 11, 1937. The order has one class only, and may be awarded to men and women for contributions to Japan's art, literature, science, technology, or anything related to culture in general; recipient ...

from the Japanese government. He died in 1955 of acute

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...

. His grave is at Shokaku temple in Kyoto.

Noted works

*, 1924, BB Plaza Art Museum *, 1930, Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art *, 1934, Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art

Bibliography

* Keene, Donald. ''Dawn to the West''. Columbia University Press; (1998). * Mason, Penelope. ''History of Japanese Art ''. Prentice Hall (2005). * Miyoshi, Masao. ''Postmodernism and Japan''. Duke University Press (1986) * Sadao, Tsuneko. ''Discovering the Arts of Japan: A Historical Overview''. Kodansha International (2003). * Schaarschmidt Richte. ''Japanese Modern Art Painting From 1910 ''. Edition Stemmle. * Weisenfeld, Gennifer. ''MAVO: Japanese Artists and the Avant-Garde, 1905–1931''. University of California Press (2001).

References

External links

*
''Woman Head'' (1905)Profile at Artnet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yasui, Sotaro 1888 births 1955 deaths Artists from Kyoto Académie Julian alumni Japanese portrait painters 20th-century Japanese painters Imperial household artists