Japanese artistic styles

The Japanese aesthetic is indifferent from that includes calligraphy, flower arranging, woodblock prints, lacquerware, tea ceremony, incense appreciation, and traditional dance. Japanese art is substantial inspirations for the impressionist movement both in America and Europe. The artistic styles have evolved in various periods from the beginning of human inhabitant in Japan during the 10 BC to contemporary Japan. The Muromachi period led to more aristocratic cultural expression and elitist character with various painting by the priest-painter Kao. During the Edo period, there was a significant development that allowed the individual to focus on significant aspects of life, such as peace, education and increased literacy, and woodblock printings. The war resulted in the collapse of the Shogunate’s power and destruction of Kyoto.

Despite the current political and social upheaval during the Muromachi period, the era observed tremendous artistic and economic innovation. The period contributed to the initial step in the establishment of modern transportation, commercial, and urban networks. The Muromachi period includes the interaction with China that had resumed from the Kamakura which, transformed and enriched the Japanese enthusiastic and thoughts significantly. Zen Buddhism was one of the imports that had a substantial impact which, was embraced by the military class in the thirteenth century and later impacted all the societal life aspects including commerce, government, education, and arts. The most recognized work of the Sesshu is the four seasons landscape portraying an ongoing landscape through the four seasons. The landscapes were prevalent in Muromachi paintings; the most famous landscape was Sesshu’s winter landscapes from 1420 to 1506.

The art was thick, jagged tear or crack that runs down the middle of the upper portion of the artwork to the right of the rough rock face and the left of the crack of the temple. Chinese painting techniques and ideas influenced Sesshu where the painting contained nature’s primordial creative forces. The fissure dwarfs’ human structure in the winter landscape indicates the tremendous power of nature. The Ukiyo painting was linked to the woodblock painting during the Edo period, which described the daily lives of the leading people in the society. Hokusai and Hiroshige were the dominant figures in the nineteenth century, where the latter developed romantic and sentimental landscape prints. The odd shapes and angles were landscape while the work of Utamaro and Kiyonaga put more emphasis on the sharp linear outlines and flat planes which, had a significant impact to the western artists such as Vincent van Gogh and Edgar Degas.