The Maruyama-Shijō School in the Stylistic Context of Japanese Nihonga Painting after 1868

The Maruyama-Shijō school, which includes Maruyama, Shijō and Mori workshops, was founded in the last quarter of the 18th century and made an attempt to synthesize Japanese, Chinese and European art traditions. This study traces the key stages of the Maruyama-Shijō style development from the late 18th to the 20th century. However, the main focus of the study is on painting at the turn of the Edo and Meiji eras, which did not attract much attention of scholars earlier, as well as on the period after 1868, when the traditional workshops were abolished, but the style remained existing within the conceptual framework of the national Japanese painting (nihonga). The purpose of the study is to find out whether we can talk about the new unified Maruyama-Shijō style in the institutional and ideological conditions that have changed after the Meiji Restoration. Or, vice versa, the differences between the Maruyama, Shijō and Mori sub-schools are remained or new stylistic branches are formed within the Kyoto Prefectural School of Painting, private workshops and art association. For the stylistic analysis, a detailed succession scheme of the Maruyama-Shijō artists was made. The results of the study revealed the only artist who managed to unite all the components of the eclectic Maruyama-Shijō style was Takeuchi Seihō (1864–1942).