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• 1 media/guo xuehu 1928 scenery near yuanshan.jpg 2019-11-18T17:20:13-05:00 Career Guides 27 Bijutsuka o kokorozasu hito no tame ni; Nakagawa Kigen; Yokogawa Kiichiro; Ishino Takashi plain 2020-08-25T21:51:50-04:00 Magdalena Kolodziej

  In general, painters in Japan in the first half of the twentieth century specialized in one of the two modes of painting: nihonga, or yōga. The distinction between the two modes was based on the medium, painterly technique, and the presumed set of traditions and masters each mode was indebted to, not on the nationality of the painter or the subject matter of the work.
  
  By the early 1920s, the knowledge of artistic professionalization became codified and made available in how-to-paint books and career guidebooks for aspiring artists. Such publications propagated painting as a modern career that one could pursue by studying artworks in reproduction and in original, by receiving direct instruction at an art school, and by networking.

  For example, painter Nakagawa Kigen (1892-1972) and art critic Yokogawa Kiichirō (1895-1973) co-authored a specialized guide entitled Bijutsuka o kokorozasu hito no tame ni (For People Aspiring to Become Artists). Published in 1933, it belonged to the Gendai shokugyō gaido bukku (Guide Books to Modern Professions) series, which included guides on how to become a journalist, musician, writer, pilot, filmmaker, business executive, lawyer, beautician, working woman, and soldier. The book emphasized how art education and a stellar exhibition record constituted the two key paths to establishing oneself as a professional artist.

  Bijutsuka o kokorozasu hito no tame ni outlined four methods of studying oil painting, listed according to their desirability and effectiveness: entering an art school, entering an oil painting research studio, receiving individual instruction, and studying from books. The authors indicated that the last method was least effective. However they considered it an option for people who were unable to pursue any of the other three methods. They also suggested that the last option was less desirable in the case of nihonga because of its difficult technique and so the authors strongly encouraged aspiring artists to seek other options beyond studying books (Nakagawa Kigen, and Yokogawa Kiichirō, Bijutsuka o kokorozasu hito no tame ni, Gendai shokugyō gaido bukku (Tokyo: Genninsha, 1933), 159.).
  
  Ishino Takashi's (1897-1967) Shuppin kara nyūsen made (From Submission to Acceptance at an Exhibition, 1934), and Zenkoku bijutsuten shuppin annai (The Nationwide Guide to Participation in Exhibitions, 1942) provided detailed guidance on successful exhibition participation. The author explained the characteristics of each exhibition and advised potential participants to submit their work to the exhibition with the best fit. He suggested that the work should attract attention of jurors and future audiences by making a lasting impression. He also advised perseverance, as one's work would typically be rejected two or three times before finally securing acceptance.
  
  According to Ishino, artists should create a good working environment by visiting exhibitions and collecting reproductions from art magazines and materials that might make good sources for still lifes. When learning how to paint, artists should engage in critically evaluating their own works, practice painting on a large-sized canvas that one would use to submit to an exhibition, send their work by post to receive a critique through mail (tsūshin hihyō), join a group of fellow painters, and inform themselves about the art establishment. He also suggested that it was possible for a self-taught oil painter to exhibit in any art society, in contrast to nihonga painters, who would typically exhibit only with a group of their artistic affiliation. Having introduced the most important developments in oil painting over the past twenty years, such as fauvism, cubism, futurism, expressionism, abstraction, and constructivism, he strongly advised against blindly copying any of these styles. He stated that painting was akin to science (kagaku/saiensu) and also entailed individual expression. Overall, the author balanced between not imposing anything on the painters while pointing them towards the type of painting that would be accepted at exhibitions.
  
  Ishino's two books were aimed at empire-wide audiences. Shuppin kara nyūsen made directly addressed instructors of drawing and encouraged them to participate in art exhibitions to reap the benefits, such as consolidating one's reputation, having a motivational impact on one's own students, achieving personal cultivation, and gaining an opportunity to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of one's own work in comparison to others on display. The author often addressed the particular situation of artists and art instructors living in the provinces (chihō), for example, by providing detailed information on transport companies that handled artwork for submission to exhibitions. Although the scope of the provinces was left unsaid in his first book, the second book included a typology of exhibitions with official salons in Seoul and Taipei discussed under "regional exhibitions" (chihōten). The book provided a short history of the two salons and reprinted an excerpt of their respective regulations pertaining to eligibility requirements. Clearly, the author recognized that his readership extended to the empire.

• 1 media/guo xuehu 1928 scenery near yuanshan.jpg media/guoxuehu.jpg 2019-11-18T17:20:14-05:00 Guo Xuehu's Early Career and Paintings 25 Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition; image_header 5113 2020-08-23T22:20:32-04:00 Magdalena Kolodziej

  Born in 1908, Guo Xuehu belongs to the first generation of artists in Taiwan who grew up under the Japanese colonial rule and who achieved professional recognition at the annual Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition (est. 1927). In 1931, Guo Xuehu traveled for the first time to Japan, visiting museums, temples, and artists in Kyoto and Tokyo. He returned to Japan in the 1950s and then moved there more permanently in 1964. In 1978 he settled in Richmond, California, and passed away in 2012 (ADD REF: Ex. cat. 1989 p. 25 + newer cat).

  In comparison to a figure such as "migrant," which instantly evokes spatial imaginaries, the figure of an artist is less obviously defined in spatial terms. However, it is well documented that many artists traveled or resettled in search of art education, subject matter, or art markets. More importantly, place plays an important role in landscape and figure painting. It is also evoked through references to an artist's country of origin, nationality, or ethnicity. Art historians, often un-selfconsciously, mobilize these spatial categories when working within an established canon.

  This pathway examines Guo Xuehu's early career to illuminate how the artistic infrastructures of the Japanese empire influenced his early development as an artist, and how in turn, his work shaped the boundaries of nihonga and tōyōga (ADD explanation of these terms or reference to other place where I explain them). Moreover, by using Guo Xuehu as an example, it reconstructs the figure of an artist in the Japanese empire in the 1920s and 1930s. Guo Xuehu did not follow a typical path to artistic success because he was a largely self-taught artist. Yet, as a an artist with an excellent exhibition record, he demonstrates well the what it took to succeed in the imperial art establishment.

  Questions for the classroom:

  • What are the points of convergence and the respective silences in the histories of modern Taiwanese and Japanese art?
  • How would Japanese modern art history look like if it featured Guo Xuehu as one of its protagonists?
  • Why would art historians of Japan include him in their history? Or shouldn't they (we)?
• 1 media/guo xuehu 1928 scenery near yuanshan.jpg 2019-11-18T17:20:13-05:00 Art Schools 17 Tokyo School of Fine Arts; Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko plain 2020-09-03T20:05:09-04:00 Magdalena Kolodziej

  Tokyo School of Fine Arts (Tōkyō Bijutsu Gakkō) constituted the pinnacle of professional training in Japan. It administered entry exams and required its applicants to have graduated from high schools. Many of its graduates went on to work as art teachers at middle and high-schools throughout Japan and in colonial Korea and Taiwan (See Kaneko's work).

  Tokyo School of Fine Arts and other specialized art schools, such as the Imperial Art School, Culture Academy, Tama Imperial Art School, and the Women's Art School, as well as art schools in Kyoto and Osaka accepted students from Korea and Taiwan as well as Japanese who were born or grew up in the colonies. Because no public art schools were established in Taiwan before 1945, some aspiring artists moved to Japan or Europe to enroll in such an institution.
  
  Tokyo School of Fine Arts accepted in total 30 male Taiwanese students and 89 male Koreans in the pre-1945 period (Yoshida:10). The majority of male students from the colonies came to Japan to pursue oil painting. The numbers of those interested in studying nihonga increased only gradually. In general, aspiring artists from Taiwan enrolled at these institutions came from wealthy backgrounds. (See also: Kate McDonald's discussion of mobile students from the colonies and their experiences in Tokyo, path titled "Moving Subjects" in the "Cai Peihuo's Inner Territory" module; see also Aida Yuan Wong on Lin).