15 Finest Japanese Drawings You Should See

by Jes Kalled | ART

Monk Rensho Riding His Horse Backwards by Matsumura Goshun, around 1784

The breadth and variation of Japanese drawing over the centuries is hard to grasp in a few masterpieces. Naturally, when zooming in on a time and place one can begin to try and unpack the metaphors, symbols, and refinement of Japanese art as it carries itself through each period. From the famous (and ironically ever-changing) Hokusai, to the modern illustrations of today that we see in anime and manga, here is a small curation of the range and detail of Japanese drawing and illustrations, each with their own unique story to tell.

1. From Ora Ora Exhibition by Shohei Otomo, 2017

Shohei Otomo, son of Akira’s Katushiro Otomo, draws almost exclusively with a ballpoint pen, preferring not only its aesthetic but its humble ¥80 price tag. This drawing of a young school girl brandishing knives is from his Ora Ora exhibition in 2017. Ora Ora is an angsty cry, a sound that one might hear in the fight scene of an anime or manga. This fitting title illustrates Shohei’s rebellious cyberpunk style, combining modern western cliches and perceptions of Japan with elements of traditional Japanese art. He describes the city of Tokyo as “suffocating” and “stressful,” his art reflecting this sentiment in its chaos, energy and symbolism. “...Underneath the surface there is a lot of unhappiness,” he said in an interview with ABC in Australia about his hometown of Tokyo. In the same interview, Shohei sheds light on his belief that Japan’s adults “neglect children.” The drawings in Ora Ora exhibit a kind of revenge fantasy, where the children regain their autonomy and power. Each illustration takes about one month to complete.

2. Sixteen Arhats by Gessen, unknown date

The artist and monk, Gessen (1741-1809), was known for his willingness to paint on various surfaces, even that of a Geisha’s skirt. It’s said that he often insisted on being paid in advance. His popularity grew, and although his work varied in quality, it seems his ardor for getting the highest price was so that he could feed those in need. Gessen studied with Sakura Sekkan and other painters who seemed to have shared interest in new styles of painting, including those of western influence. This drawing, Sixteen Arhats, depicts the legendary sixteen men from the Buddhist tradition who were entrusted with the teachings of Buddha before he departed to Nirvana. Interestingly the legend expanded to eighteen arhats in China, but the sixteen arhats remain symbols of worship and exemplary behavior in Japan. This particular drawing was done by Gessen with Chinese ink on paper.

3. Spoon by Hidemi Ito, 2017

Soft pastel colors and shadows emphasize the innocence and simplicity in Hidemi Ito’s modern message. Seen here in this illustration, the bent spoon is the result of ESP, a kind of matrix level brain control that lends itself to the minds of the girls whom Ito depicts. Despite the playful and curious atmosphere in Ito’s drawing, there is also a kind of intensity that swallows the girls in concentration, leaving the viewer wondering how the spoon was manipulated to their will. According to Ito, her work is inspired by the movies and her imagination. She related to us that the ideas behind the young girls and their ESP comes from a “romantic sense” of interpreting the world and its mysteries. The rounded shape of the bodies and the focus on young women evoke memories of nihonga or bijinga, but Hidemi says that the influence of such must have been subconscious. Unsafe Day from her exhibition in 2017 seems to rebel against the modern day compulsion to smooth things over and say everything is okay. Hidemi’s drawing makes use of female messengers to convey modern tension in a “subtle” manner. “When I draw I want to convey a moment that can’t be described with language. An emotion that I’m having.” She says. Hidemi Ito is one of many Great Japanese Women Artists You Should Know!

4. Flower Basket I by Uemura Shoen, 1915

Uemura Shoen was the pseudonym for the incredibly successful Kyoto-born artist, Uemura Tsune. Flower Basket I appears to be a sumie-ink sketch on paper of the famous color on silk painting, Flower Basket. For more information on Sumie, check out Everything You Need to Know about Japanese Ink Painting. Uemura typically drew in the bijin-ga style, although she chose to draw ordinary women as opposed to performers and entertainers of the courtesan genre. Flower Basket I is inspired by a Noh play, which is a theme also often found in her work. Uemura was the first woman to receive the prestigious Order of Culture award during a time when women were not allowed to receive training at a professional school. Despite the circumstances, Uemura’s mother, a widow who ran a tea shop, encouraged Uemura to pursue painting and sent her to a painting school where she studied under Suzuki Shonen.

5. Drawing from Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli)

© Studio Ghibli, Sketch from Spirited Away

In the hardcover art book titled, The Art of Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, one can find several sketches of the original storyboard, including this illustration of a transparent Chihiro walking over the bridge to the bathhouse. In an interview with Miyazaki in the Japanese magazine, Animage in 2001, the Japanese animator expressed his desire to make a movie for five young girls who were the children of his family friends. “And so I wondered if I could make a movie in which they could be heroines…” says Miyazaki, who was sure that the content of shojo manga wasn’t fulfilling what these ten year old girls truly wanted to see and/or read.

All of Miyazaki’s works are first hand drawn. He shares the fundamental belief that the spirit of animation is in the foundation of drawing by hand, something he has reiterated throughout the years which has drawn much attention to the laborious efforts needed in order to create an animation of his standard. Miyazaki recalls that the reason he chose a bathhouse as the location to submerge an audience in fantasy was that bathhouses are “mysterious.” He reflects how “fun” it would be if such a bathhouse for gods and spirits existed in our world. In this illustration, the viewer can see the beginnings of Chihiro, transparent in form but not yet known from the inside out, her deeper innerworkings about to unfold inside the playful and at times dark bathhouse she’s about to enter.

6. Monk Rensho Riding His Horse Backwards by Matsumura Goshun, around 1784

Remorseful of those he killed in the Genpei War (1180–1185), military soldier, Kumagai Naozane gave up his life in the material world and sought peace in the following of a Buddhist sect. Kumagai had been regarded as a hero in the outcome of the national civil war, and somewhat of a legend in Noh plays and haikus that told his story. Filled with regret, he renounced his name and became Rensho (or Rensei) in order to follow the teachings of Buddhism. Illustrated here by artist Matsumura Goshun, Rensho is traveling from Kyoto to the Kanto region by horseback, his backwards position a symbol of the promise he will not break which was to never turn his back on Buddha. This famous Japanese illustration by Goshun is drawn in the style of haiga, which usually depicts illustrations paired with haiku poems. It’s simple style draws from Goshun’s learnings from his teachers who practiced nanga, a traditional Chinese painting style whose propnents often considered themselves the literary and intellect elite.

7. I Hate Summer by Sakiyama, 2018

I Hate Summer, an illustration, by young Japanese illustrator Sakiyama, is reminiscent of some of the dark themes that can be found in the plethora of ukiyo-e prints that reflect the popular culture of the late Edo period. Ukiyo-e ranged from educational purposes to erotica, and among those themes were ghost-like figures which are not so unlike Sakiyama’s characters in I Hate Summer, which depicts a demon-like creature opening its mouth to swallow us whole into the night. The artist says her enjoyment comes from creating atmospheres that are both “unpleasant” and “decadent.” Mainly using digital software engines like Photoshop and After Effects, Sakiyama places her characters in cities that are eating themselves or else in decay, crawling with monsters or morally depraved humans. Titles like I Hate Summer, or others like “I wish it was midnight all the time” imply an emotional underbelly world where the viewer can explore the imaginative shadows of worlds within worlds that are falling apart.

8. Iconic Drawing of Saturn, 12th Century

Doyo, or Saturn, is characterized here as a man in a robe with a bull’s head sitting on top of his head. This classic Japanese illustration is now mounted as a hanging scroll. The planet Saturn, along with nine of its celestial contemporaries or “Nine Luminaries” were part of the stellar system that was introduced to Japan and China in the 12th century. These Luminaries were first seen in Indian texts that were later included in Buddhist teachings.

9. Woman With Tousled Hair by Chihiro Iwasaki, 1946

© Chihiro Iwasaki, Woman With Tousled Hair, 1946

Before she became well known for her watercolor paintings, and before she won any awards for her children’s book illustrations, the still yet unknown artist Chihiro Iwasaki sat up late at night with pencil and paper. This drawing, Woman With Tousled Hair, was drawn when Iwasaki returned to Tokyo after World War II had ended. Her family home had been destroyed during the war which led to her evacuation to her grandmother’s house in Nagano. This particular drawing was one she did while under the tutelage of husband and wife artists Iri Maruki and Toshiko Akamatsu who ran a studio that was part of the Japan Communist Party. Woman With Tousled Hair was one of several works she drew whilst trying to become an established painter and illustrator. During the day, Iwasaki worked as a writer and illustrator at a newspaper called Jinmin Shimbun (People’s Paper), and throughout the night she sketched her way closer to her dream.

10. Snow by Uemura Shoen, 1940

Uemura’s close attention to the details of the fabric is shown here in one of several paintings she made having to do with snow. Known as one of the stand out nihonga artists of her time, Uemura was well known for the detailed work that surpassed that of her male colleagues. As a woman herself, it is said that she gave the female subjects of her paintings more agency, using small details in color to enhance their liveliness and making the drawings look less like polite, immobile dolls, and closer to real women doing real things in their daily lives. In Snow you can see some red color on her face, her lips and ear lobe, which adds some movement to the still, suggesting that the subject of the painting is slightly flushed as she walks briskly through the cold. Uemura Shoen is one of our 10 Favorite Female Painters in Japanese Art.

11. Dragon Girl #32 by Katsuya Terada (Rakugakingu)

Dragon Girl #32 is one of many line drawings of this unique character brought to life by the famous Katsuya Terada, also known as Rakugakingu (the doodling king), aptly named for the sheer amount of illustrations he creates. This particular Dragon Girl is a line drawing on a wooden panel labeled “mixed media on canvas”. Katsuya Terada is a multifaceted illustrator, dabbling in both the fine arts of illustration and also in the worlds of digital art and manga. He is often paired with a black marker when creating his next piece, but can also be found weilding a small iPad and sketching for long hours in the day. His major works, such as Dragon Girl, or Monkey King, come to him as he draws. Unlike many of the Japanese artists before him, he never uses a draft to guide him, only his imagination and the inspiration or impressions he has inside his mind. In a short documentary entitled Katsuya Terada - Life Drawing, Terada says, “When I start a live drawing and I am in front of a blank sheet of paper, I always think that I won’t be able to finish.” Such is the level of detail and heart that translates onto paper.

12. Preliminary Drawing of Three Deer Mounted on a Hanging-scroll Painting of Flowering Bush Clover by Ogata Korin, 18th century

This drawing and painting is unique in a very collaborative sense. The drawing of the three deer in the center was illustrated by the famous Ogata Korin during the 18th century. The painting of a plant in the background was completed a century later by Suzuki Kitsu. Both artists practiced the Rinpa style of illustration, and both works are left somewhat unfinished, but beautiful in their simplicity and partnership. Kitsu and the patron that commissioned this artistry were “paying homage to Korin,” and attempting to rejuvenate the art and study of Rinpa the same way Korin did a century before them.

13. Cranes, Pines, and Bamboo by Ogata Korin, early 18th century

Ogata Korin was an artist from Kyoto who became well known for his mastery of decorative painting. Korin had a lavish upbringing, but was disinherited for breaking a law at the time that forbade the sharing of silver and gold with the common people. After losing his inheritance, Korin returned to his life as a painter. This illustration titled Cranes, Pines, and Bamboo is likely one of his earlier sketches, which over the years was remounted as a folding screen. The cranes, pines, and bamboo are thought to be symbols of longevity, elements of nature that come and go with the two seasons that are subtly represented here: spring and autumn. Korin is credited with renewing the Japanese traditional painting style of Rinpa, which is an art form that focuses on natural subject matter such as flowers, plants, and birds. Rinpa was practiced in different forms, ranging from screen prints, woodblock printed books, ceramics and even kimono textiles. Korin was known especially for his use in refining his Rinpa technique with color gradation, and use of gold.

14. Daishojin Bosatsu attributed to Takuma Tameto, 12th century

Dating back to the 12th century, this well preserved ancient Japanese drawing depicts a Buddhist deity named Daishojin Bosatsu. The calm-looking bodhisattva is one of sixteen guardian deities. The illustration is one of hundreds that were originally part of an album of iconographic illustrations of the metaphysical world of the Diamond World Mandala, a particular realm that was especially significant to the Japanese buddhist practice of Esoteric Buddhist teachings. This painting is noted for the quality of the drawing and its rainbow colors.

15. Sketch by Katsushika Hokusai, 1836

Originally meant for a picture book, this ink on paper illustration by the famous Katsushika Hokusai depicts a warrior named Wada Heita Tamenaga stabbing a snake. Although a warrior series had advertised this drawing’s coming publication, for reasons unknown they were never published. The illustrations would have been pasted onto woodblocks in the tradition of ukiyo-e, but are now preserved as they are: thin pieces of paper. Hokusai, who is internationally known for his iconic print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, made thousands of works throughout his lifetime. Before his death he had changed his name 30 times. By the time of this drawing in 1836 he was going by the name Gakyou Roujin which roughly translates to “The Old Man Mad About Art.” It was in the later part of his life that he reflected on his art and the influence that age and experience had on his work. He was a diligent illustrator and painted well into his late years, always wanting to improve upon his last painting, print, or sketch.