Maruyama Okyo: Shaseiga – Challenging a New Frontier presents a comprehensive view of the founder of the shasei tradition of painting. Maruyama Okyo (1733-1795) adopted techniques from both China and the West to create, in the mid-Edo period, a new style of painting based on direct sketching from life (shaseiga) and transformed the traditional Japanese view of painting.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the painting circle in Kyoto, which emphasizes the importance of sketching, and early modern nihonga painters can trace their origins back to Okyo. Along with that of Sesshu, one of the greatest Japanese ink painters, Okyo’s appearance marked an important turning point in the history of painting in our country.

This exhibition has brought together almost all of Okyo’s important paintings, from his representative works in Japan, including those designated as important cultural properties, to newly discovered works and those from collections abroad, and various new ideas have also been incorporated in the display. In particular, we have recreated three rooms from the well-known Daijo-ji Temple, familiarly known as “Okyo’s temple,” with their screen and wall paintings - probably Okyo’s most definitive works – in hopes that viewers can experience the grandeur of the environment he created by merging the “space” in the paintings with the real “space” in the room.

Along with the viewers, we would like to take a new look, based on the results of recent studies, at what the characteristics of Okyo’s shaseiga paintings were and what the ideal form of painting was that he sought.