Yokoyama Taikan
A Nihonga painter from Mito. Under Okakura Tenshin he sought a new Nihonga, and is known for the "moroto" style that softens outlines and for his paintings of Mount Fuji. The 40-meter "Metempsychosis" is an Important Cultural Property.
Yokoyama Taikan was born in 1868 (Meiji 1) into a Mito domain samurai family. In 1889 (Meiji 22) he entered the newly opened Tokyo School of Fine Arts as a member of its first class, studying under the principal Okakura Tenshin and Hashimoto Gaho. When Tenshin left the school in 1898 (Meiji 31), he went with him and joined in founding the Japan Art Institute (Nihon Bijutsuin). In 1897 (Meiji 30), the year before, he had painted "Innocence," a work that tries to express a Zen state of mind through the figure of an artless child.
At the Japan Art Institute, with Hishida Shunso and others, he worked on a method that conveys air and light through gradations of color without clearly drawn outlines. It was derided at the time as "moroto" (hazy style), but it was an attempt to open up new expression in Nihonga. In 1914 (Taisho 3) he revived the Japan Art Institute, which had once lapsed. In 1906 (Meiji 39) he had moved the institute with Tenshin to Izura in Ibaraki Prefecture (now Kita-Ibaraki), where he devoted himself to work by the sea.
"Metempsychosis" (1923, Taisho 12; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) is a long ink handscroll that follows a single drop of water in the mountains as it becomes a river, flows into the sea, and rises to heaven as a dragon. He painted Mount Fuji many times into his later years and received the first Order of Culture in 1937 (Showa 12). The Adachi Museum of Art in Shimane Prefecture holds many of Taikan's works, including "Autumn Leaves" (1931). He died in 1958 (Showa 33) at his home in Ikenohata, Tokyo.