A matter of temperament was said to distinguish the two major regional centers of nihonga (Japanese-style painting), Tokyo and Kyoto, at the turn of the 20th century. Tokyo painters imbued their works with "brain" by way of complex content, while Kyoto artists held firm to their "brush" in a looser style and with lighter subjects. Each city searched for its own paradigm in which to develop the modern genre (before the Meiji Restoration, there was no category of painting in Japan titled nihonga), and the titular heads became Takeuchi Seiho (1864-1942) of the West and Yokoyama Taikan (1868-1958) of the East.
The western Japan style arose from a veneration for Matsumura Goshun (1752-1811), who opposed the sharp realism embraced by fellow Kyoto painter Maruyama Okyo (1733-95) with the blurry, Chinese-inspired Literati painting of his teacher, Yosa Buson (1716-83). The style that Maruyama established waned following his death, while Matsumura's wet and atmospheric idiom became the meaningful one for modern artists of the Shijo School.
Takeuchi was the principal inheritor of these traditions, and an exhibition at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, "The Studio of Painter Takeuchi Seiho," showing till March 29, explores his artistic process, from outdoor sketches and preparatory drawings to completed compositions.