Nihonga Series (Japanese Style Painting Series)

The Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art held a retrospective of Shunko Mochizuki (1893-1979), my great uncle in 2013. Nihonga or Japanese Style Painting became a genre in Japan after Western Style Painting was introduced in the Meiji Period after the Japanese isolationist time. Mochizuki was a Maruyama School artist painting mostly flowers realistically at first and then in a stylized modernist manner in the 1950’s onward.

Seeing his works again in the exhibition, I began to see Nihonga images in the beads I handle: cherry blossoms, of course, Japanese gardens with rocks and koi ponds, even the ripples in the water of the pond, family crest mon in cloisonne beads.

TOPPI (突飛) NYC - sumi nakazato -