Kishida Ryusei

Tokyo, 1891 - 1929, Tokuyama

Biographyhttp://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79099096

Grove Art online, accessed 8/29/2017
(b Tokyo, 23 June 1891; d Tokuyama, Yamaguchi Prefecture, 20 Dec 1929).

Japanese painter and collector. Son of the progressive journalist Gink? Kishida (1833–1905), he decided to leave school when he was 15, became a Christian and devoted himself to church activities. At the same time he painted and struggled with the decision of whether to live as a Christian or as a painter. In 1908 he entered the Aoibashi Western Painting Study Centre and studied plein-air painting under Seiki Kuroda (1866–1924), exhibiting two years later at the fourth Bunten, a show sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education. From the end of 1911 to early 1912 he was inspired by the work of modern French painters, which he discovered through the magazine Shirakaba (‘White birch’) and through illustrated books. The Self-portrait Wearing a Coat (1912; Tokyo, priv. col., see Hijikata, ed., 1980, pl. 1) was clearly painted under the influence of Vincent van Gogh and Tsukiji Settlement (1912; Aichi Prefect., priv. col., see Hijikata, ed., 1980, pl. 6) under the influence of Henri Matisse and Fauvism.

Kishida soon became dissatisfied with these modernist tendencies, however, and returned to a realistic style modelled on the work of such Old Masters as Jan van Eyck and Albrecht Dürer. He regarded realistic depiction of the subject as an attempt to reach the ‘inner beauty’ or ‘intangible mystical border between this world and another’. With Sh?hachi Kimura (1893–1958) and Kazumasa Nakagawa (1893–1991) he formed the small group the Grass and earth society (S?dosha); the paintings that he showed at their exhibitions, for example Sketch of Road Cut through a Hill (1915), An Apple Sits on Top of the Jar (1916) and Portrait of Yoshio Koya: Man Holding a Plant (1916; all Tokyo, N. Mus. Mod. A.), are representative of this period in which he established an individual style.

Strongly attracted by classical European painting, Kishida discovered c. 1920 that there was also a profound realm of beauty to be found in the ancient arts of China and Japan. This new interest is clear in the well-known paintings of his daughter Reiko; the first of the series, Portrait of Five Year Old Reiko (1918; Tokyo, N. Mus. Mod. A.), was strongly influenced by Dürer, but gradually the works are imbued with the feeling of beauty that he had found in 16th- and 17th-century Japanese genre paintings and early ukiyoe works; Portrait of Standing Reiko Ready for a Visit to Sumiyoshi Shrine (1922; Tokyo, priv. col., see Hijikata, ed., 1980, pl. 41) and Reiko Twice (Little Girls Fixing their Hair) (1922; Kyoto, priv. col., see Hijikata, ed., 1980, pl. 42) are among his finest works.

From 1917 Kishida lived in Kugenuma, Kanagawa Prefecture, but after his house was damaged in the great Kanto earthquake of 1923 he moved to Kyoto. His collection of ancient Japanese and Chinese art grew, and he became increasingly fascinated by the teahouses of Kyoto, which contained the last vestiges of the ‘pleasure-seeking world’, as known from the society of the Edo period and after. His interest in ukiyoe and Song (960–1279) and Yuan (1279–1368) painting also developed, although as he tried himself to express their sense of beauty, it became apparent that this conflicted with the realistic style he had established in 1915–16. When he finally realized that he would have to convert to a new style, he travelled to China for the first time. On his return he stopped at Tokuyama, where he died suddenly.
Bibliography

T. Hijikata: Kishida Ry?sei (Tokyo, 1941)

T. Hijikata, ed.: Kishida Ry?sei gash? [Collection of paintings of Ry?sei Kishida] (Tokyo, 1980)

T. Asano: ‘Kishida Ry?sei to S?dosha’ [Ry?sei Kishida and the S?dosha], Taishoki no saimitsuby?sha [An eye for minute details: realistic painting in the Taisho period], ii of Shajitsu no keifu [Development of western realism in Japan] (Tokyo, 1986), pp. 68–75

H. Tomiyama: Kishida Ry?sei (Tokyo, 1986)

N. Kitazawa: Kishida Ry?sei to Taish? Avant-garde [Ry?sei Kishida and the Taish? Avant-garde] (Tokyo, 1993)

Toru Asano

Person TypeIndividual

Last Updated8/28/24

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