Maruyama Ōkyo

, born Maruyama Masataka, was a Japanese artist active in the late 18th century. He moved to Kyoto, during which he studied artworks from Chinese, Japanese and Western sources. A personal style of Western naturalism mixed with Eastern decorative design emerged, and Ōkyo founded the Maruyama school of painting. Although many of his fellow artists criticized his work as too slavishly devoted to natural representation, it proved a success with laypeople.

Early career Ōkyo was born into a farming family in Ano-o, in present-day Kameoka, Kyoto. As a teenager, he moved to Kyoto and joined the townspeople (chōnin) class. He apprenticed for a toy shop, where he painted the faces onto dolls. The shop began selling European stereoscopes, novelties that when looked into presented the illusion of a three-dimensional image. It was Ōkyo's first look at Western-style perspective, and in 1767 he tried his hand at one of the images. He created Harbour View, a small picture in single-point perspective. Ōkyo soon mastered the techniques of drawing stereoscope images (, eyeglass pictures). During these formative years, Ōkyo studied Chinese painting as well. He particularly admired the works of Qian Xuan, a 13th-century painter known for his detailed flower drawings, and Qiu Ying, a 16th-century figure painter. In fact, the "kyo" in Ōkyo's name was adopted in tribute to Ch'ien Hsüan. Ōkyo even briefly adopted the Chinese practice of signing his name with one character, so for a time he was known as Ōkyo En. He also studied Ming and Qing paintings. Perhaps most significantly, Ōkyo eagerly studied any Western paintings or prints he could find.

Success Ōkyo's first major commission came in 1768 from Yūjō, abbot of a temple in Ōtsu called Enman'in. Over the next three years, Ōkyo painted The Seven Misfortunes and Seven Fortunes, a depiction of the results of both bad and good karma. The three scrolls total about 148 ft (45 m) in length. Ōkyo tried to find models for the people depicted in them, even for the shocking images such as a man being ripped in two by frightened bulls. His introduction to the work states that he believed that people needed to see reality, not imaginary images of Nirvana or Hell, if they were to truly believe in Buddhist principles.

Other painters were critical of Ōkyo's style. They found it to be overly concerned with physical appearances, alleging that he was too beholden to the real world and produced undignified works. Ōkyo was probably the first Japanese artist to do life drawings from nude models.

The public's perception of Ōkyo's skill is evident in a legend recounted by Van Briessen. The story goes that a daimyō commissioned Ōkyo to paint a "ghost image" of a lost family member. Once the work was completed, the ghost image came off the painting and flew away.

Maruyama school Success prompted Ōkyo to start a school in Kyoto, where he could teach his new style. He was a talented art teacher, Goshun later went on to found the Shijō school.

Style

Maruyama style is a school of painting founded by the mid-Edo period painter Maruyama Okyo. One of the leading schools of early modern Japanese painting, the Maruyama style was based on the realistic sensibilities of the emerging townships of Kyoto in the mid-18th century and had a major influence on Japanese painting with its new style that fused realism with traditional decorative elements. It is characterised by the use of a technique known as tsukeitate, in which a frame is not drawn and ink shading is added.

Ōkyo's painting style merged a tranquil version of Western naturalism with the Eastern decorative painting of the Kanō school. His works show a Western understanding of highlight and shadow.

Still, Ōkyo's works remain Japanese. Unlike European painting, Ōkyo's images have very few midtones. Moreover, he follows the Eastern tradition in depicting objects with very little setting; often his pictures feature a single subject on a plain background. Nature was not his only subject; many works by Ōkyo depict normal scenes from life in Kyoto's commercial area. The bark is painted in the tsuketate technique, which uses no outlines, just dark and light shades to create the illusion of volume.