Kuroda Seiki

Kuroda is credited with bringing western art theory to Japan, where he has come to be known as 'the father of Western-style painting'. kuroda ...

He was also invited to teach the Western Painting Department at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. He was named a viscount while Kuroda was young. In 1910 he was appointed a court painter at the Imperial Court. He also served as the President of the Imperial Art Academy and was made a viscount in 1917 after the death of his uncle. Perhaps Kuroda’s greatest contribution to Japanese culture, however, was the broader acceptance of Western-style painting he managed to instil in the Japanese public. In 1986, he founded the Hakuba-kai – also known as the White Horse Society – a group of Japanese practitioners of yoga and painting. He was the son of a samurai of the Shimazu clan, but was adopted as his uncle’s heir at birth and moved to his estate in Tokyo. His uncle, Kuroda Kiyotsuna, served in high positions in the imperial government.