Japanese Laborers Scroll

During Japan’s Meiji period (1868–1912), artists were exposed to Western art through more open diplomatic and trading relations. Artists began experimenting with unfamiliar techniques such as also modeling and pictorial perspective, incorporating these elements with traditional painting styles as they sought to create a modern Japanese style rooted in the past. Dating from around the turn of the 20th century, this scroll shows the artist showing off his understanding of Western perspective in the carefully modeled wood beams that line up to various vanishing points. However, the painter chooses to convey the scene in the traditional manner of monochromatic grey tones. Largely absent of outlines, the surrounding landscape is rendered in washes and repetitive brushstrokes to suggest foliage. In its marriage of old and new styles, the work perfectly captures the era’s stimulating confluence of ideas.