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Abstract

This essay examines the tumultuous shift the Meiji Era of Japan encountered towards conventions of arts and the notion of ‘beauty,’ visually analyzed through the collisions in the depiction of nudes. Nudity identifies westernization and a new input in the Japanese arts system, becoming a hybrid of tradition and modern. Accompanied by the early influence pioneered through Kuroda Seiki and the creation of a lineage and teaching of yoga art—the appropriation of Western art practices. This essay highlights that this convention of beauty, wherever it comes from and taught by precursors, capturing and expressing an ambiguous concept of ‘beauty,’ can result differently, as exemplified through one of Kuroda’s students, Teotsugoto Yorozu. Yorozu and Tetsugoro’s nudes encompass the genre of nudity, each in a distinctive way. Juxtaposing these two artists’ most notable works, a culmination of how artists during the era approached the radical idea of unified beauty is interpreted as a vindication of Japan’s breakthrough towards modernity and a realization of balance, personality, and an acknowledgement of subjectivity.

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