NIHONGA

The Dillon Gallery is proud to exhibit represent an extraordinary group of contemporary artists who practice the ancient Japanese art of Nihonga, including Norihito Saito, Hiroshi Senju, Yuzo Ono, Reiko Bando, Makoto Fujimura, Masatake Kouzaki, Kiezaburo Okamura, Asami Yoshiga and Chen Wenguang. Since our first exhibition of Nihonga in 1995, featuring two of the technique’s most powerful and popular artists, Senju and Fujimura, Dillon Gallery has expanded its presentation to become the foremost Western gallery presenting contemporary Nihonga, encompassing an aesthetically diverse group of the finest Asian artists.

Nihonga's roots extend back several millennia to Tang Dynasty China. The term, created in the nineteenth century to distinguish traditional Japanese painting methods from Western-influenced art, literally means “Japanese-style painting.” It encompasses an aesthetic approach and the use of time-honored materials such as ground semi-precious minerals (particularly azurite, malachite, and cinnabar), oyster shell, sumi ink, gold and silver leaf, rice and mulberry papers and silk. The mastery of these complex and subtle elements has been maintained for many centuries by unbroken links from Master to apprentice, manifesting most notably in the glorious flowering of Japanese screen and scroll painting.