Japanese-style painter Kiyokata Kaburaki's 93 years (1878-1972) spanned Japan's great modern transformation. As a popular illustrator he chronicled the changing Japanese lifestyle; as an artist he played an important part in the great wave of creativity in nihonga (Japanese-style painting) during the first half of this century. A major retrospective is at the National Museum of Modern Art through May 9.

Born Ken'ichi Kaburaki, the son of Yamato Shinbun publisher and popular novelist Saigiku Jono, he grew up surrounded by journalists, artists and literary figures. The experience both fostered his own interest in art and literature and instilled a deep respect for the popular foundations of both.

The Yamato Shinbun, like other Japanese newspapers of its time (and still today), published serialized novels by popular novelists, and illustrations by popular artists. These newspapers provided a vehicle for ukiyo-e artists like Yoshitoshi Tsukioka, enabling them to make the transition to the new media age.

Yoshitoshi was a regular contributor to the Yamato Shinbun until his death in 1892, and his most successful student Toshikata Mizuno followed him. At age 13, young Kaburaki became Toshikata's apprentice, taking the name Kiyokata, and by age 17 his illustrations were being published regularly in his father's newspaper.

Kiyokata's skills as an illustrator won acclaim, and his interest in literature made him popular with writers. He formed a close relationship with novelist Kyoka Izumi, and they published a series of novels together, written by Kyoka and illustrated by Kiyokata. He also wrote fiction himself and published it with his own illustrations.

Yoshitoshi had spent his life as an ukiyo-e artist, a popular illustrator; he was the best and saw no need to be anything else. Toshikata, discontented with being dismissed as a machi eshi ("street artist"), aspired to be accepted as a hon-gaka, a fine artist. He joined in the efforts of the new generation of nihonga artists and submitted paintings to exhibitions, earning respect as a painter of historical figures and scenes.

The Ugo-kai founded by Toshikata's students, including Kiyokata, became a force in the new nihonga movement. Kiyokata submitted a painting to the Ministry of Education's first Bunten competition in 1907, and thereafter put increasing efforts into fine art painting, gradually abandoning his commercial illustration work. In 1919, he was appointed one of the judges at the Teiten competition, cementing his position as a leading figure in nihonga.

Still, the themes and interests of the ukiyo-e tradition continued to infuse Kiyokata's work. He is best known as an artist of bijin-ga, paintings of beautiful women, a classical ukiyo-e genre which he transformed for the 20th century. His influence can be seen in magazine illustration to this day. He also was a great chronicler of the passing scene, the rowdy life of the streets and the home life of ordinary people, and painted many scenes from well-known kabuki and bunraku plays.

His greatest strength, which underpinned his more famous bijin-ga and genre scenes, is revealed in a small section of formal portraits ("nonliterary biographies") of prominent figures in the arts. They include powerful portraits of his own teachers Toshikata and Yoshitoshi, but also literary figures like Bakin Takizawa, Encho Sanyutei and Ichiyo Higuchi, and, interestingly, the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu.

The portraits show deep insight into the character of their subjects, and it is that insight which also gives life to his bijin-ga. His beauties are not mere elegant mannequins to display fancy kimono; they are real women with real faces, and, one feels, real lives. They are caught in reflective or playful moments, sometimes hard at work, sometimes relaxing with a cup of tea or a kiseru pipe. They range from schoolgirls to mature women.

Perhaps one of the most moving works is the twofold screen "Shoto no Hana (Early Winter Flowers)." Against a plain, dull gray background we see only the figure of a woman (the model was a Nihonbashi geisha, Kogiku), quietly lighting her kiseru in a hibachi. No flowers can be seen except the chrysanthemum pattern on her obi. She wears a simple striped kimono, nothing fancy.

Looking closer, though, we see the fine lines around her eyes, the trace of a double chin. This is no fresh spring flower, no dreamy young girl. This is a grown woman, one who has weathered the storms of youth and the droughts of adulthood, and has come through it all. The expression on her face is one of deep calm, a calm not merely of resignation or acceptance, but of experience and confidence. She has earned the right to sit and smoke her pipe in peace.

Besides the monumental screens and other large-format paintings, Kiyokata did countless small drawings and sketches, meant to be enjoyed at close range. The museum cleverly exhibits a dozen or so in a chest of drawers, one to a drawer, for the visitor to pull out and examine.

As he rose in the art world Kiyokata moved away from his old shitamachi home to live in artistic Hongo, near Ueno, but he did not forget. After the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 destroyed much of the city Kiyokata embarked on a long project of depicting the scenes and people he remembered from the Meiji Era Tokyo of his youth. This was not just nostalgic reminiscence, but a conscious effort to conserve and preserve the lives and traditions of Tokyo's common people, and to assert their importance in the face of the cultural elite who bought his paintings. As a fine artist, he never lost the common touch.

In 1954 Kiyokata was awarded the Order of Culture. He continued working until the end of his life; the last picture included in the show, "Lamp-lighting in Shitamachi," was painted in 1969.