This 1931 painting of a young Japanese woman with wheat-colored skin and long black hair pulled back is by western-style painter Wada Eisaku (和田英作). In front of patterned fire red background, she casually sits in large chair wearing a sleeveless sunshine yellow dress with a dignified, almost thoughtful gaze that avoids eye contact. Wada was a yōga (洋画) painter of the Meiji through Shôwa periods, and director of the Tokyo bijutsu gakkô (Tokyo Art School which is now the Tokyo University of the Arts). Born in Kagoshima prefecture in 1874, Wada was the oldest of seven children. His father was a Christian minister and ran the family strictly. In 1878, the Wadas moved to Tokyo. His parents, sensing Eisaku's budding artistic talent, enrolled him in an academy which eventually became the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. He studied art in Germany and France for 5 to 6 years, but by the age of 29, in 1903, he was working as a teacher at the Tokyo Art School. Wada became head of the school at the age of 58. In 1943, he was awarded the Japanese Order of Culture. He passed away in 1959 at the age of 84.

黄衣の少女 (Girl in a Yellow Dress) by 和田英作 (Wada Eisaku / Japanese) - Oil on canvas / 1931 - Yamatane Museum of Art (Tokyo, Japan) #womeninart #art #womensart #artwork #和田英作 #portraitofawoman #JapaneseArt #山種美術館 #JapaneseArtist #WadaEisaku #EisakuWada #oiloncanvas #洋画 #fineart #ArtText #artoftheday

Painted by Japanese artist Eisaku Wada (和田英作), an old woman walks supported by an umbrella with the sun setting. Dressed in traditional Japanese clothing for the early 1900s and hunched over with age she makes her way to her destination. There is a quiet sadness to this portrait as she looks at the ground, walking alone. Where is she going? What kind of hardships has she encountered? Wada's depiction of a radiant body of water beneath a setting sun, focuses on the single figure of an old Japanese woman, bent in profile on the right, her left hand gripping her long umbrella as if it were a cane, while she focuses on the path in front of her feet. She walks along a dirt road, bordered by grasses, plants, and a bit of shore that gives way to luminous gold and rosy waters, illuminated by the horizontal line of the sun's light intersecting the canvas on the right. The contrast between the flowing forms of water and land and the upright form of the woman and vertical line of reflected sun suggests the transitory nature of human life. The woman ignores the sublime view, focusing intently at the step before her, and the setting sun alludes to her age, still leaning forward into the flow of the water and road but already bent by natural forces. The painting's subject, a humble person in an ordinary activity, draws upon the Edo period's portrayal of everyday life and Japanese leisure activities Yet, this work's effect is almost photographic, and shows the influence of Jules Bastien-Lepage's Naturalism, to which Wada as part of the first graduating class of the Tokyo Art School's Western Painting Department was introduced while studying with Kuroda. Wada was a luminary of the yōga (洋画 or Western-style) art scene in the late Meiji, Taishō, and Shōwa eras. As a member of the Japan Art Academy and an Imperial Household Artist, he was a recipient of numerous awards and honors in Japan throughout the first half of 20th century.

おうな (Old Woman) by 和田栄作 (Wada Eisaku, Japanese) - Oil on canvas / 1908 - The National Museum of Modern Art (Tokyo, Japan) #womeninart #art #oilpainting #和田栄作 #WadaEisaku #artwork #JapaneseArtist #JapaneseArt #womensart #NationalMuseumofModernArt #東京国立近代美術館 #fineart #paintingofawoman #oldage #walking