Modern Japanese painters developed and deepened relationships with one another, not only in private painting schools, but also in public art schools. Painters who had the same aim for Japanese painting formed art associations for intense study. At governmental exhibitions, many painters who had different sensibilities collaborated, and aimed to enhance their skills by a mutual understanding through their works. Today, knowing these correlations, which developed while each painter eagerly pursued unique art, could offer an opportunity to more deeply understand the painters who lived at that time in the nation.
This exhibition will display works by Taikan, a great master of Japanese painting, and other painters, who were associated with Taikan. We will mainly display Taikan works, and arrange other painters' works, as well as a correlation diagram around Taikan. These will include works by Hishida Shunso, Taikan’s ally who studied at the Tokyo Fine Art School, and who helped establish the Japan Art Institute, Yasuda Yukihiko and Kobayashi Kokei, who learned from Taikan at the Institute, and Takeuchi Seiho, who flourished in Kyoto and was regarded as the archetypal painter in the western part of Japan, as Taikan was to the eastern part of Japan. We hope that you will enjoy these great pieces by Taikan and his contemporaries.

When depicting something in motion, painters take a single instant from a series of movements to produce a picture. Here, we have selected works that capture momentary, beautiful scenes, such as the instant that a bird takes flight or when water falls fiercely.