Web content “KURODA MEMORIAL HALL: KURODA Seiki Oil Painting Optical Survey” is released
KURODA Seiki (1866–1924) left a significant mark on the history of modern Western-style painting in Japan as a painter and educator. The Japan Art Academy–affiliated Institute of Art Research was established as an institution to conduct research on art as part of KURODA’s will. The Institute’s successor, the Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties (TOBUNKEN) has, to this day, as one of its activities, conducted research on KURODA’s paintings and his activities.
From October to December 2021, as part of its research on KURODA Seiki, TOBUNKEN conducted an optical survey of 148 oil paintings by KURODA that are housed in the KURODA MEMORIAL HALL. In the optical survey, color photographs were taken to record colors, shapes, and textures at high resolution; near-infrared photographs to record differences in the reflection and absorption of near-infrared rays; and fluorescence photographs to record the fluorescence emitted by a material when irradiated with light of a specific wavelength on a screen to obtain information that cannot be read by the naked eye. In addition, X-ray fluorescence analysis was conducted on KURODA ‘s representative works such as “Lakeside,” “Maiko,” “Reading,” and “Wisdom, Impression and Sentiment,” as well as on the palette used by KURODA, to determine the elements contained in the painting materials. These photographs and the results of the analysis were published as the web content “KURODA MEMORIAL HALL: KURODA Seiki Oil Painting Optical Survey” on March 31, 2023.
(https://www.tobunken.go.jp/kuroda/image_archives/main/)
In “Lakeside,” for example, the artist drew every hair on the model’s eyebrows, used uneven white paint to express the stripes on the clothing, and changed the size of the fan held by the model several times based on the lines of the rough sketch. Currently, the above four works and color photographs of all 148 oil paintings in the KURODA MEMORIAL HALL collection are available on the web for your viewing and research.