Nineteenth-century Japanese artists who made a art of lacquer into a medium for painting and design. Zeshin was born in Edo (now Tokyo) and learned lacquer making from Koma Kansai II from a young age, and painting under the Maruyama-Shijō style, which is a style that emphasizes observation of nature. The technical skills and painterly education came to define his art. The Edo period was a time of transformation, and the Meiji period was a time of great modernization, and Zeshin’s career reflects this transformation in the art world. In addition to using lacquer as a decorative material, he tried out the colors, textures and surfaces of the lacquer and imitated materials like metal, wood and stone as well as lacquer painting on paper. Among his works are lacquerware, paintings, inrō, writing boxes, etc., revealing an unnatural gap between fine art and craft. Eventually, he was recognized when he was appointed Imperial Household Artist in 1890, a few months before his death in 1891.
Early Life
Shibata Zeshin was born in Edo (now Tokyo), in the last ten years of the Tokugawa shogunate, in 1807. The city in which he was born was more closely associated with artistic craftsmanship, and from an early age he was introduced to the techniques and discipline involved in the decorative arts. Zeshin already displayed his great passion for art when he was a child and, later on, directed it towards the very specific art of Japanese lacquer. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art says that he was apprenticed as a boy to a lacquer craftsman who would shape his artistic identity.
Zeshin began his studies of maki-e, the art of decorating lacquer with powdered gold and other materials, at the age of about eleven when he joined the studio of Koma Kansai II (1766–1835), a well-known member of the Koma family. His apprenticeship involved learning the tedious processes and uses of lacquer, which carried him through his career. Zeshin’s professional artistic development was unusual and began at the age of 11 when he was taught by Koma Kansai II, as noted in the British Museum records.
The influence of Zeshin’s childhood on his work is thus an important factor in the development of his unique style. Having been trained in the craft of lacquer from an early age, he became familiar with the materials, surfaces, and decorative techniques, and he grew up in Edo, one of Japan’s most significant cultural and artistic hubs. This early training is said to have laid the groundwork for his later highly evolved use of lacquer and painting, as seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
As he was exposed to a variety of artistic fields, instead of specializing in one, Zeshin chose to shift his practice from lacquer to painting. This partnership was to become one of his most important and would enable him to break down the traditional barriers between fine art and craft. The apprenticeship was a period of his childhood; therefore, not just the start of a technical career, but the base for the innovative art practice that he was now known for in nineteenth-century Japan.
Education
Shibata Zeshin’s education was unique in forming two intertwined but separate art practices: lacquer and painting. His formal art education started around the age of 11 when he joined the studio of Koma Kansai II, one of the best lacquer craftsmen of the Koma school. There he acquired the very difficult art of maki-e, a traditional decoration using powdered gold, silver and other substances. This is a very early apprenticeship that gave Zeshin an unusually deep knowledge of the material and its use as an art medium.
When Zeshin was sixteen years old he started to study painting under the tutelage of Suzuki Nanrei, who was a member of the Shijō school. It was a significant event in his artistic training, opening him to a painterly expression that was rooted in observation and naturalistic depiction. The training did not, therefore, limit itself to the decorative traditions of lacquer, but led to the comprehension of painting and craft as art forms working together.
He went to study in Kyoto from 1830-1833 under Okamoto Toyohiko, a leading artist of the Shijō school. During this time he was introduced to the intellectual and artistic atmosphere of Kyoto, and his exposure to the naturalistic orientation of the school. These experiences turned to be an essential background to Zeshin’s future career. He learned to work in both painting and lacquer and was able to blend the two in original ways, rather than limiting himself to a traditional technique. In fact, his education was not a set course of academic study, but an emergent exploration of new art forms with lacquer, one that enabled him to reimagine its potential.
Artistic Journey
Shibata Zeshin’s artistic life was a period of the most dramatic change in Japan. He came back from Kyoto to Edo where he became a painter and lacquer artist in the last decades of the Edo period. By training him to do this at the same time, he could overcome the bounds of craft and compose works with the precision of lacquer and the observation of painting. He often used his subjects in the natural world and in daily life, and his lacquer techniques enabled him to replicate the metallic luster and feel of objects such as bronze, iron and wood. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Zeshin’s most significant work was in the field of painting on paper using the paint and medium of urushi. He used lacquer not just as a medium for making objects but as a painterly medium using its weight and the confluence of lacquer’s gloss and texture to develop effects he would normally associate with ink and colour painting. The technique involved demanded a high degree of control as lacquer was not a good painting material. This became an artistic asset to him in his experiments and one of his hallmarks of his later style.
Also in 1868, the Meiji Restoration had a significant impact on his career. Zeshin somehow prospered in this new art and politics, and began to be more visible outside of Japan, being commissioned by the Imperial government. His artworks were exhibited in Vienna and Paris and contributed to the introduction of his unique style in Western countries. By the end of the 19th century he was one of the most famous Japan lacquer makers. He had been continuously changing traditional techniques into innovative forms of modern Japanese art and in 1890, just before his death, he was appointed an Imperial Household Artist.
Influences
Shibata Zeshin’s art language was the product of the convergence of lacquer making, realist painting and the visual cultures of the nineteenth century Japan. His first teacher was Koma Kansai II, where he started his lacquer decoration studies at age of 11. This training led Zeshin to an awareness of surface, texture and material, which were later to be vital to his art, and at the age of sixteen he started to study painting with Suzuki Nanrei, a close associate of the Maruyama-Shijō tradition, who opened Zeshin’s eyes to the importance of close observation of nature and realistic representation. LACMA states that this training could have inspired Zeshin to be able to replicate materials with lacquer.
This was further enhanced by his study with Okamoto Toyohiko in Kyoto. Selected brushwork and the study of the natural world were hallmarks of the Shijō approach, and these can be seen in the paintings of Zeshin. Instead of following these traditions, he made experimentation with them.
The broader art world in which he lived also had an impact on Zeshin. The British Museum’s records show that he met with the ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi, and he developed his humorous and inventive personality. His compositions were restrained, and inspired by Japanese poetic and visual traditions. These influences eventually led to Zeshin breaking down the distinction between painting and craft and developing a new language in which lacquer could appear to replicate nature, objects and textures with great subtlety.
Signature Works
A remarkable body of work for Zeshin is not one defined by a particular series of work but by a series of transformations of ordinary subjects to show the possibilities of lacquer. His urushi-e, or lacquer paintings, on paper, were his most distinguishing achievement. Lacquer Paintings of Various Subjects (1881–82) shows how he was able to range from the intimate to the natural, with works including butterflies, peonies and bonsai, tea utensils, rice and birds. A few leaves from this group are present in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in the Howard Mansfield Collection.
He was equally varied in other aspects in other formats. His Pilgrims on Mount Fuji (1880), which is in the British Museum, London, features coloured lacquer throughout its composition, even on the figures, landscape and on the signature too. According to the museum, it is a technique Zeshin mastered himself. His Tea Vessels on Tray (1879) is also a good example of his skill in imitating the properties of various materials with lacquer.
Zeshin also made inrō, boxes, and panels, all of which are lacquer wares. The Inrō, Ojime, and Netsuke at LACMA shows his interest in craftsmen and materials, whereas a 1877 panel of a greenhouse for bonsai has been preserved in the Museum of the Imperial Collections in Tokyo.
Awards and Recognition
The recognition of Shibata Zeshin grew as Japan became a modern nation. He was also becoming popular with his international patrons; his works were exhibited at numerous world’s fairs abroad and he received a Progress Prize Medal at the Vienna World’s Fair of 1873 for his Fuji at Tago Bay. Japanese lacquer was promoted by his involvement in international exhibitions, not only as a decorative craft but as an art form that could compete in the international arena.
The reputation of his work grew with the national and international exhibitions and his works were collected by westerners such as Christopher Dresser and the important figure Samuel Bing (1844–1935), who was a major influence on the development of European Art Nouveau. In the Musée Cernuschi Zeshin’s works are mentioned as having won numerous awards and contributed to the change of taste and perception on the part of westerners towards Japanese art.
The Tokyo National Museum suggests that the system had been launched in 1890 for the recognition of excellent artists in fine and decorative art, and that his is still in the museum’s collection.
He has left a legacy that continues to live on after his passing. Zeshin’s works are now held in many important collections such as that of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tokyo National Museum and the British Museum, and specific exhibitions have introduced Zeshin to new audiences. It is especially important that his work continues to be maintained—this is not just his mastery of traditional lacquer; he sees new possibilities in lacquer and managed to connect Japanese art with international modern art.