was a Japanese painter, noted for his pioneering work in developing the ''

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 distingui ...

'' (Western-style) art movement in late 19th century and early twentieth-century

Japanese painting is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the 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 and competiti ...

Biography

Asai was born to an ex-

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

class household in

Sakura The cherry blossom, or sakura, is the flower of trees in ''Prunus'' subgenus '' Cerasus''. ''Sakura'' usually refers to flowers of ornamental cherry trees, such as cultivars of ''Prunus serrulata'', not trees grown for their fruit (although ...

, in the

Kantō region The is a geography, geographical region of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures of Japan, prefectures: Chiba Prefecture, Chiba, Gunma Prefe ...

of Japan, where his father had been a retainer of the Sakura Domain. He attended the domain school, where his father was principal, and left home in 1873 to pursue

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

studies in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

. However, he became interested in the arts, and enrolled as a pupil of Kunisawa Shinkuro in western

oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...

classes. In 1876, he enrolled as one of the first students in the ''Kobubijutsu Gakkō'' (the Technical Fine Arts School), where he was able to study under the Italian foreign advisor

Antonio Fontanesi Antonio Fontanesi (23 February 1818 – 17 April 1882) was an Italian painter who lived in Meiji period Japan between 1876 and 1878. He introduced European oil painting techniques to Japan, and exerted a significant role in the development of mo ...

, who had been hired by the

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji ...

in the late 1870s to introduce western

to Japan. In 1889, he established the ''Meiji Bijutsukai'' (Meiji Art Society), the first group of Western-style painters in Japan, and in 1898, he became a professor of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (present day

Tokyo University of the Arts or is a school of art and music in Japan. Located in Ueno Park, it also has facilities in Toride, Ibaraki, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Kitasenju and Adachi, Tokyo. The university has trained artists in the fields of painting, sculpture, crafts, inter ...

. However, in 1900 he resigned his post and travelled to

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, where he spent the next two years refining his techniques in the

impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

school. On his return to Japan in 1902, Asai obtained a position as professor at the ''Kyoto Kōtō Kōgei Gakkō'' (present-day Kyoto School of Arts and Crafts of the

Kyoto Institute of Technology is a national university established in 1949 in Kyoto, Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and ext ...

), and founded the ''Kansai Bijutsu-in'' (the Kansai Arts Institute). Asai taught numerous students who later became famous in the Japanese art world, including Sōtarō Yasui and Ryuzaburo Umehara. He also tutored the noted poet Masaoka Shiki in the techniques of western art, and was the model for a character in

Natsume Sōseki , born , was a Japanese novelist. He is best known for his novels ''Kokoro'', ''Botchan'', ''I Am a Cat'', ''Kusamakura (novel), Kusamakura'' and his unfinished work ''Light and Darkness (novel), Light and Darkness''. He was also a scholar of Br ...

's novel ''Sanshirō''. A number of Asai’s works have been recognized by the Japanese government's

Agency for Cultural Affairs The is a special body of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). It was set up in 1968 to promote Japanese arts and culture. The agency's budget for FY 2018 rose to ¥107.7 billion. Overview The age ...

as Important Cultural Properties.

Noted works

*, 1903, Tokyo National Museum, National Important Cultural Property *, 1904, Tokyo University of the Arts, National Important Cultural Property.

Gallery

Image:Asai chu morning.jpg, ''Morning Sun'' Image:Asai Chu - Woman Sewing - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Sewing Woman'' Image:Asai_chu_kotaba.jpg, ''The Village Kotaba'' Image:Asai_chu_pulling.jpg, ''Pulling Boat'' File:Asai chu vegetable.jpg, ''Spring Ridge''

References

* 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. * Shiki, Masaoka. ''Masaoka Shiki: His Life and Works''. Cheng & Tsui (2002). * Weisenfeld, Gennifer. ''MAVO: Japanese Artists and the Avant-Garde, 1905–1931''. University of California Press (2001).

External links

National Diet Library biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Asai, Chu 1856 births 1907 deaths 20th-century Japanese painters Japanese educators People from Sakura, Chiba People of the Meiji era Yōga painters Artists from Tokyo Metropolis