Makuai (Intermission)

Hatanaka Kōkyō’s love of India is well known. Starting in 1974, he made numerous trips to India. His admiration of the Indian culture led him to depict its customs of manners in his work and also made him a serious collector of Indian textiles, miniature painting, and Buddhist art. Many of his paintings have portrayed the life of Buddha, revealing his profound veneration of Buddhism. One such work was Teaching in the Bamboo Grove, a contemplative representation of Buddha and his followers on a monumental scale, shown at the first Next Exhibition in Kyoto in 1998. Today, Kōkyō continues to paint Buddhist-inspired subjects as his lifework. 

The Intermission—an image of a woman dressed in pink and sitting on a sofa— represents Kōkyō’s unique figural style. Her exotic profile, especially in the treatment of her nose and lips, recalls the facial characteristics seen in Indian miniature painting. The small floral patterns on her dress and on the red background are inspired by Indian textiles. Kōkyō highlights the languid form of the woman by surrounding her with the crashing colors of red, green, and blue. At first glance, the bold juxtaposition of colors gives the viewer an impression of an abstract composition. Yet, Kōkyō’s respect for ink line is evident in the figure’s fine outline and the folds of her dress. Intermission is an excellent example of contemporary bijiga (painting of beautiful women) by one of today’s nihonga artists of international renown.

Kōkyō represents the postwar generation of nihonga painters who matured during the 1970s and 1980s. Born in Nara, he first studied literature at Ōtani University in Kyoto, and completed a degree in nihonga at the Kyoto City University of Arts in 1978. By then, Kōkyō had not only held several one-person shows in Kyoto but participated in competitive exhibitions both in Kyoto and Tokyo, winning the Grand Nihonga Prize at the First Tokyo Central Museum Exhibition of 1977. Emerging as one of the leading nihonga painters in the next decade, Kōkyō founded the Yoko no Kai (Lateral Group) with nineteen other artists from Kyoto and Tokyo, all in their thirties or early forties. The group’s goal was to provide a venue for the artists to freely express themselves without the constraint imposed by the traditional teacher-pupil allegiance or the politics of art organizations such as Nitten and Inten. Launching the first exhibit at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art in 1984, the members’ works demonstrated an innovative use of nihonga materials, blurring of the nihonga and yōga styles, and a yearning for the spiritual traditions of Asia. 

In the next ten years, the Lateral Group played a key role in revitalization of the representational approach in nihonga. While choosing to stay outside the established art organizations, Kōkyō has continued to exhibit his paintings at museums throughout Japan. For his ongoing contribution to the nihonga field, he received the Kyoto Prefecture Cultural Merit Award in 2004. The Adamson-Eric Museum in Estonia and the National History Museum of Latvia held Kōkyō’s one-person show in 2009. Most recently, several Japanese museums have arranged exhibitions to re-examine the significance of the Lateral Group in the evolution of nihonga in the late twentieth century. One was held at the Ōita City Museum in 2011 and another at the Niitsu Art Museum in Niigata in 2013.

Today, a respected “elder” in the Japanese art world, Kōkyō remains independent and firmly engaged in the advancement of contemporary nihonga. Kōkyō and two other original members of the Lateral Group, Nakajima Chinami (b. 1945) and Nakano Yoshiyuki (b. 1946), established the Artist Group Kaze (Wind) to provide a new venue for young painters to exhibit large-scale nihonga without any restrictions. The three artists acted as a jury and selected works to be shown at their first show scheduled to open at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in October, 2013.

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