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

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 ...

.There were many Japanese painters who tried Western painting and Western style painting in the modern age, but Yuichi is said to be the first "Western painter" in Japan who learned full-scale oil painting techniques and was active from the late

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

to the middle of the

Meiji era The was an Japanese era name, era of History of Japan, Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feu ...

Biography

Takahashi was born to a

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 at the Edo residence of Sano Domain, a subsidiary han of Sakura Domain, where his father was a retainer of the Hotta clan. Interested in art from childhood, he apprenticed to the

Kanō school The is one of the most famous schools of Japanese painting. The Kanō school of painting was the dominant style of painting from the late 15th century until the Meiji era, Meiji period which began in 1868, by which time the school had divided i ...

, but later became fascinated with western-style art through lithographs which were being available in Japan during the Bakumatsu period. In 1862, he obtained a place in the arts department of the '' Bansho Shirabesho'', the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

's research institute in western learning, where he studied under Kawakami Togai, and where he began experimentation with

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 ...

. In 1866, he went to

Yokohama is the List of cities in Japan, second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous Municipalities of Japan, municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a popu ...

to study under the English artist and cartoonist

Charles Wirgman Charles Wirgman (31 August 1832 - 8 February 1891) was an English artist, caricaturist and editorial cartoonist, the creator of the '' Japan Punch'' and illustrator in China and Meiji period-Japan for the '' Illustrated London News''. Wirgman w ...

, who was so impressed with his talent that he sponsored his participation in the Paris World Exhibition of 1867. After the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

, despite his largely self-taught credentials, he was appointed a professor of art at the ''Kobubijutsu Gakkō'' (the Technical Fine Arts School) by the new

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 ...

, and was a student and an assistant for the Italian foreign advisor Antonio Fontanesi, who had been hired by the

in the late 1870s to introduce western oil painting to Japan. In 1879, he entered a contest sponsored by the Kotohira-gū shrine in

Shikoku is the smallest of the List of islands of Japan#Main islands, four main islands of Japan. It is long and between at its widest. It has a population of 3.8 million, the least populated of Japan's four main islands. It is south of Honshu ...

for ceiling panel paintings, donating all of the paintings to the shrine after the contest. The shrine still displays a collection of 27 of his paintings. Also in 1879, Takahashi was recommended by the ''

Genrōin The was a Government of Meiji Japan#Establishment of a national assembly, national assembly in early Meiji period, Meiji Japan, established after the Osaka Conference of 1875. It is also referred to as the Senate of Japan, being the word used ...

'' to become a

court painter A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or princely family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Painters were the most common, but the cour ...

, and was commissioned to paint a portrait of the

emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

. In 1881, he received a large commission from Viscount Mishima Michitsune to paint scenes of

public works Public works are a broad category of infrastructure projects, financed and procured by a government body for recreational, employment, and health and safety uses in the greater community. They include public buildings ( municipal buildings, ...

projects in

Yamagata prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. It has a population of 1,005,926 (1 February 2025) and an area of 9,325 Square kilometre, km2 (3,600 Square mile, sq mi). Its neighbours are Akita Prefectu ...

. Takahashi produced mostly portraiture and

landscape painting Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction in painting of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a cohe ...

s, but also

still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...

works. His best-known painting is a

salmon Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...

hung up to dry, which has been recognized by the

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 ...

of the Japanese government as an Important Cultural Property of Japan. He died at home in 1897.

Noted works

*, 1872, Tokyo University of the Arts, National Important Cultural Propert

*, 1877, Tokyo University of the Arts, National Important Cultural Propert

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. * Weisenfeld, Gennifer. ''MAVO: Japanese Artists and the Avant-Garde, 1905–1931''. University of California Press (2001). *　MoMAK　京都国立近代美術館 https://www.momak.go.jp/Japanese/exhibitionArchive/2012/393.html * ネット美術館「アートまとめん」 http://artmatome.com/高橋由一%E3%80%80【略歴と作品一覧】/ *中右恵理子; 長峯朱里. "II 高橋由一作《鮭図》の絵画材料および技法について". 2018.平成30年度文化財保存修復研究センター紀要,15-28 *高階, 絵里加. 高橋由一<山形市街図>と江戸名所絵. 人文學報 2011, 101:19-35 *隈元謙次郎(Kenjiro Kumamoto)"高橋由一の風景画(Landscape Paintings by Takahashi Yuichi)"美術研究(The bijutsu kenkyu : the journal of art studies),160:31 - 44 ��京藝術大学大学美術館収蔵品データベース"美人(花魁)" http://jmapps.ne.jp/geidai/det.html?data_id=4124 ��京藝術大学大学美術館収蔵品データベース"鮭" http://jmapps.ne.jp/geidai/det.html?data_id=4126

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Takahashi, Yuichi 1828 births 1894 deaths Court painters Japanese portrait painters People of the Meiji era Yōga painters 19th-century Japanese painters Painters from Tokyo Artists from Tokyo Metropolis