When speaking of modern Japanese-style painting, the
names Taikan YOKOYAMA and Seiho TAKEUCHI always arise. These two
painters introduced European painting styles into traditional Japanese
painting and harmonized them. Seiho was born in Kyoto in 1864. As a
child, he loved to draw and wanted to become a painter. He developed
his own style by adopting techniques from Western painting and
blending them with the traditional styles of the Maruyama-Shijo
school. His reputation grew not only through recognition of his
greatness as a painter from his youth but also because of the effort
and enthusiasm he put into teaching the younger painters he met at the
Kyoto Municipal College of Painting, where he was a professor, and at
Chikujokai, his own private school. After Seiho received the first
Order of Cultural Merit in 1937, a number of his pupils went on to
receive the same Order.
