The great points of Yumeji Takehisa
The artist who pioneered the new possibilities of Japanese art
Yumeji Takehisa is a Japanese painter, famous for leaving many beautiful paintings, but also acting as a poet, he created numerous original works across a wide range of fields. Yumeji’s drawing of beautiful women is full of its own aesthetic sense, and its style was called “Yumeji-shiki-bijinga”. Although he was a writer who expressed the beauty of women, he was also famous for lots of scandals even in real life, the stories of Oyoh who was the model of painting and the his wife, Tamaki, appeared as fragments of Yemeji’s art work.
Yemeji Takehisa not only created artists works but also a lot of works rooted in popular culture. He drew illustrations of a magazine for children and other advertising designs, which both made commercial success. Illustrations and designs with the unique atmosphere representing the romanticism of Taisho era grabbed the public’s mind and opened up new possibilities of Japanese fine arts. In the era when commercial art that was integrated with advertisement and publicity was not clearly formed yet, the work of Yumeji Takehisa permeated the public’s mind as a pioneer. Art was not something special that belonged to only a few people, but proved to be accepted by people as the popular culture rooted in life, and to have a new commercial aspect.
