Hakuba-kai

The Hakuba-kai, or White Horse Society, was founded in Tokyo in 1896 by Kuroda Seiki, Kume Keiichirō and fellow painters who broke away from the Meiji Bijutsukai, Japan's first Western-style art society, in frustration at its rigid, bureaucratic management. The name came almost as an afterthought: the founders settled the plan over unfiltered sake - nicknamed 'white horse' - at a tavern. The group staged thirteen exhibitions before dissolving in 1911. These shows were the main stage for yōga, Western-style oil painting, in Meiji Japan, and the society championed plein-air naturalism, fresh Impressionist-inflected color, and Japanese subjects handled with French technique. Members included Okada Saburōsuke, Wada Eisaku, Aoki Shigeru, and Fujishima Takeji. Together with the Nihonga-oriented circles around Okakura Tenshin, the Hakuba-kai defined the terms of modern Japanese painting at the turn of the century.

Defining characteristics

• En plein-air painting: natural light and atmosphere studied out of doors
• Fresh, sketch-like brushwork with Impressionist-inflected color
• Oil paint, Western perspective, and tonal modeling applied to Japanese subjects
• Luminous landscapes and scenes of everyday modern Meiji life
• Airy surfaces that keep the freshness and immediacy of a study

Key figures

• Kuroda Seiki (1866-1924) — Co-founder and leader who brought French plein-air painting home from Paris
• Kume Keiichirō (1866-1943) — Co-founder and leading yōga painter of the group's first generation
• Wada Eisaku (1874-1959) — Member who became a senior teacher of Western-style painting in Japan
• Aoki Shigeru (1882-1911) — Young romantic painter of the group, dead at twenty-eight
• Fujishima Takeji (1867-1943) — Member who became one of the foremost yōga painters of the next generation

Example works

• Lakeside — Kuroda Seiki (1897)
• Bounty of the Sea — Aoki Shigeru (1907)

Sources

• Hakuba-kai - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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