Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art

The absolute highlight to our trip to Japan this September was our visit to the Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art.  On display was a group of works called The Avant-Garde of Nihonga: 1938-1949 from the museum’s collection. I was most fascinated by the break with the formal Japanese art forms I’d seen and studied in the past.  

From the museum pamphlet, and what we English speakers were provided in entirety was this, copy and pasted (sorry.  It's all I have!):

Shinoda Toko

Hokuto Tamamura

Traditional aesthetics in "Nihonga" used to be depicting beautiful scenery of nature on the earth. However, an artists' group,"the Rekitei Bijutsu Kyokai" established in 1938, started developing a new art form in the world of "Nihonga" against the creation of traditional aesthetics. Although the activity did not move forward smoothly due to the expansion of the World War 2, they tried to associate with western-style painters and add the elements of abstract expression, surrealism and compositions introduced by the Bauhause to "Nihonga". After the war, they established "Pan Real" as a re-birth of the Rekitei Bijutsu Kyokai, and continued to pursue new expressions.

Insho Domoto

Yamaoka Ryobun

That the contemporary Japanese painters  were looking to the west, not just Europe but to America also for inspiration sent me spinnin'!  The work I saw was incredible.  Lines and blends had serenity and sensitivity of past Japanese sumi painting, but now with new composition and subjects.  Impossible to describe nor photograph; I bought the collection book which so typically sadly lacks the richness of brush strokes, color blending, line....  So off I am on a new learning venture and oh, what a challenge!  It is so hard to find reference to these artists; indeed I can barely find them on the web but for a few of their images.  I'll be working to search them out.

I'm totally stealing some of these images from around the net, but perhaps you may enjoy them as I continue to, and as I research this generation of Nihonga painters further.

OMG.  I just found The New Modernism: Japanese Modernist and Avant-Garde Poetry, Translations, Explorations, a blog.  Shoot me now.  Can I possibly reconcile this stuff with the Modernist novelist I just finished reading (in Japan)-Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle?  (Recommended reading!)  My head is hurting simply in that it's ALL so wonderful.