Wednesday, March 20, 2019

FUJIYAMA / 富士山 BY TAKEUCHI SEIHO / 竹内 栖鳳


TAKEUCHI SEIHO / 竹内 栖鳳 (1864-1942)
Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)
Japan

In Mount Fuji from distant hills,  Private collection 

The mountain 
This is the legendary Mount Fuji or Fujiyama (富士山).
It is located on Honshu Island and is the highest mountain peak in Japan at 3,776.24 m (12,389 ft). Several names are attributed to it:  "Fuji-san", "Fujiyama" or, redundantly, "Mt. Fujiyama". Usually Japanese speakers refer to the mountain as "Fuji-san".  The other Japanese names for Mount Fuji,  have become obsolete or poetic like: Fuji-no-Yama (ふじの山 - The Mountain of Fuji), Fuji-no-Takane (ふじの高嶺- The High Peak of Fuji), Fuyō-hō (芙蓉峰 - The Lotus Peak), and Fugaku (富岳/富嶽), created by combining the first character of 富士, Fuji, and 岳, mountain.
Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08. Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day.
Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.
Mount Fuji is one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains (三霊山) along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. It is also a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japan's Historic Sites.
It was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22, 2013. As per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has “inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries”. UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality.... 
Full Wandering vertexes  entry 

The artist 
Takeuchi Seihō (竹 内 栖鳳) is the artist's name of a Japanese dowering painter of the nihonga genre who was active in the Meiji era in the Shōwa era. His work spans half a century and is considered one of the masters of the pre-war circle of Kyoto painters.
His real name is Takeuchi Tsunekichi.
Very young, Seihō, who was born in Kyoto, likes to draw and wants to become an artist. He is then a student of Shijō School of Traditional Painting.
In 1882, two of his paintings were awarded at Naikoku Kaiga Kyoshinkai, one of the first modern painting competitions in Japan, which launched his career.
During the Universal Exhibition of 1900 in Paris, he traveled to Europe where he studied Western art. After returning to Japan, he created a unique style, combining the realistic techniques of traditional Japanese Shijō-Maruyama schools with Western forms of realism borrowed from Turner and Corot techniques. The result of this meeting becomes one of the main styles of modern ni-honga. His favorite subjects are animals, often in fun poses like a monkey riding a horse. He is also noted for his landscapes.
 In 1909, he became a teacher at the Kyoto Municipal Painting College and also founded his own private school, Chikujokai.
In 1913, Seihō was appointed court painter to the Imperial Agency and in 1919 to the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts (Teikoku Bijutsuin). He is one of the first people to be awarded the Order of Culture when this distinction is made in 1937.
___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau