If there’s an incredibly difficult way of making something and it takes a lifetime to master, you can be sure Japan has perfected it. That is especially true of nihonga, the vanishing art of painting with pigments ground from precious stones. But what makes nihonga so special, when there are so many easier ways to paint a picture?
Let’s visit the Yanaka studio of master nihonga painter Allan West and find out…
First of all, what the heckin’ heck is nihonga?
If you’ve ever swooned over a brilliantly colored Japanese scroll or a folding screen painted on gold or silver leaf, you’re already a nihonga fan. Unlike Western forms of painting that have embraced better living through chemistry, nihonga paint is still made from ground-up minerals and animal glue. Deer glue, to be exact, which supplies a perfectly gooey translucent base to suspend the particles of stone so it can be brushed onto a prepared surface. This miracle combination dries to the kind of immortality that makes Japanese nihonga paintings from the eleventh century still wow as brilliantly as if they were painted yesterday.
But besides having to compete with the jewelry trade for your raw materials, what makes nihonga so different from other kinds of painting?
1: Colors have to be matched, not mixed
See the shading in all those autumn leaves? Feel the roughness of the tree bark? Each shade and highlight has to be painted using different minerals to make the leaves look like they’re transitioning from yellow to orange, and give the impression that some parts of the bark are catching the sun and others are in shadow.
But why can’t you just mix brown and white to get light brown, like you might with oils or watercolors? Because the minerals used for nihonga all have slightly different weights, so if you mix a heavier one with a lighter one, the lighter particles will float to the surface and the heavier ones will sink. When it dries, all you see is the color on top. (Allan laughed when he told me that one of the first painful lessons nihonga painters learn is that it’s usually the expensive colors that hide behind the cheaper ones.)
2: You can’t see through paint that’s made from rocks
Nihonga paint is unforgivingly opaque. So, why does it look like you can see the plum tree and the gold leaf background through the places where those energetic green elements cross them? Unlike with oils, acrylics and watercolors, the lighter bits that make it look like you’re seeing what’s behind aren’t made by diluting the color or layering the paint—you actually have to find a mineral that’s the right color and paint each and every “overlapping” bit with it.
3: Your new best friend better be a custom brushmaker
Feast your eyes on the silver background of this lovely autumnal screen. The background pattern was painted in one continuous stroke, with a superwide horsehair brush that’s not exactly an off-the-rack item from Dick Blick—it had to be custom-made for this piece.
And that’s not even the most astonishing thing about it. The screen stands over five feet tall, so picture the gymnastics required to make that one stroke. Nihonga paint is runnier than oils, so works like this have to be painted lying flat on the floor to avoid dripping before drying, and Allan says he vastly enhanced his eccentric artist status with the neighbors by practicing the stroke with his new brush and water on the street outside his house, leaping and dancing from one side to the other as he drew it the length of the screen.
4: Every color has to be mixed fresh every day
If your paint comes from the same basic source as venison, it’s going to smell like day-old meat if you leave it sitting out on the counter overnight. Which means that not only do nihonga painters have to mix their own colors from crunched-up rocks, they have to whip up a fresh batch every day.
The one thing nihonga shares with other venerable painting techniques is that it can be used to portray an infinite number of subjects in a dazzling array of styles.
From spare stems of bamboo…
to this lavish spray of cherry blossoms.
From this dark and fiery abstract…
to this serene series that seems to depict Japanese rock gardens…
but was actually sketched from the mountains surrounding Lake Lugano, in Switzerland.
These are just the pieces he happened to have in his studio the last time I was there—it’s an ever-changing mix, because new commissions come in as old ones go out. But no matter what’s in the studio, it’s always worth seeing because it’s pretty clear Allan West isn’t constrained by the daunting requirements of nihonga, he’s inspired by them.
By the way, if you’d like to know how that screen he was working on in the first photo turned out…
If you’d like to see his work for yourself the next time you’re in Tokyo, drop by his Yanaka studio on any afternoon but Thursday. He usually opens the door at 13:30, but be sure to check the closing times for each day on the Google map info, because it varies. If you’re lucky, he’ll be there himself, and you’ll never meet a more delightful artist who’s more willing to share his passion for Japan and all things nihonga.
•
If you’re interested in seeing more & different nihonga paintings, the Yamatane Museum near Ebisu Station is an excellent place to get an idea of the wildly different effects achieved by the famous artists in its collection.
They range from Shoen Uemura’s scenes from the lives of beautiful women…
to Gensō Okuda’s eye-popping seasonal landscapes
•
Click here for more The Thing I Learned Today posts
•
Or get more amusing Japan stuff sent to your email every month when you subscribe!
•
Jonelle Patrick writes novels set in Japan, and blogs at Only In Japan and The Tokyo Guide I Wish I’d Had
Japanagram 