Eight Sights of Omi (Ishiyama) (study)
近江八景（小下絵）（石山）
- Birth Year
- 1880
- Death Year
- 1916
- Date
- 1912
- Technique, Material, Format
- color on paper, one of the set of eight
- Dimension
- 45.5 x 15.8 cm
- Donor name
- Mr. Hara Noriyuki and Mrs. Hara Etsuko
- Category
- Nihonga (Japanese-style Painting)
- Inventory Number
- 88-JP-016-03
Imamura Shiko’s creative activities can be broadly divided into two periods based on their themes. The first is the Meiji Era (1868–1912), during which he frequently depicted historical figures and scenes from well-known stories. The second is the Taisho Era (1912–1926), during which he incorporated Western painting techniques and experimented with new approaches to landscape painting.
The series Eight Sights of Omi is representative of his Taisho Era work. It depicts eight beautiful landscapes around Lake Biwa in Omi Province (present-day Shiga Prefecture) in a series of eight paintings. Drawing on his own local research, he depicted these famous landscapes, which had for centuries been celebrated in poetry and paintings, using a brush with the tip cut off and by incorporating new techniques like pointillism, a favorite of the Neo-Impressionists. This type of preliminary sketch is known as a kojitae (small sketch), in which the artist sketches his or her final intended image on a small piece of paper.
(KASHIWAGI Tomoh)