Undated photo of the artist
Born in Osaka, Nomura Yoshimitsu was a fourth generation ukiyo-e painter of the Utagawa School. His father and first teacher was Nomura Yoshikuni 野村芳国 (Yoshikuni III; 1855-1903), a direct descendant of Utagawa Yoshikuni I, a student of Utagawa Kuniyoshi 歌川 国芳 (1797-1861). At the age of fourteen, he began studying painting under the tutelage of the first-generation Yoshikuni, who was a distant relative. By the age of sixteen, he had moved to study under the second-generation Yoshikuni in Kyoto adopting the name Yoshimitsu. While still a teenager, Yoshimitsu exhibited sufficient talent to establish his own school.1 In 1891, at the age of 21, he began studying Western and panoramic painting in Kyoto under the French painter and etcher George Bigot (1860-1927) frequenting Bigot's lodging near Kodai-ji Temple, where he seems to have also learned Western copperplate engraving and drawing.
Bigot took a liking to Yoshimitsu and intended to invite him to France. However, Yoshikuni, unwilling to part with Yoshimitsu, reportedly hastily arranged his marriage to his eldest daughter to prevent him from leaving. In the 1930s, Yoshimitsu seemed to have exhibited oil paintings at the Kansai Bijutsu Kai (currently Kansai Bijutsuin), but he did not pursue a career as a Western-style painter.
Nomura was to paint over thirty panoramic pictures, two of which, one of the Satsuma Rebellion and the other, in 1895, of the Japanese attack on Port Arthur, were to bring him fame. The Port Arthur battle scene was exhibited at the Fourth Industrial Exhibition held in Kyoto in 1895 and later exhibited at the Panorama Hall [Nisshin-no yaku kōkai sensō], in Tokyo’s Ueno Park2. The English language Japan Weekly Mail was to note: “The Port Arthur Panorama at Uyeno Park, Tokyo was courteously thrown open to the representatives of the foreign press on Wednesday afternoon. The painting was carried out by Nomura Yoshikuni and Nomura Yoshimitsu, of Kyoto, old pupils of Mr. Bigot, and is a spirited performance.”3
Starting in about 1915 and continually until at least 1936, Nomura designed the scenery for Kyoto’s annual Miyako Odori dance festival, using his expertise in both ukiyo-e painting and panoramic landscape.
Yoshimitsu was primarily a painter who designed a limited number of prints4, the most famous of which are a 1931 series of six landscape prints published under the title “Kyōraku Meishō” 京洛名所 (Famous Places of Kyoto) by the Kyoto publisher Shōtarō Satō.5 The prints were priced at 20 yen in an edition size of 200. Exhibited at the 1936 Toledo Exhibition, the prints were described in the catalog as skillfully harmonizing “the style of Ukiyoe painting and the method of European panoramic sceneries…”
For images of the six prints in the series see this collection's print Autumn Scenery at Takao from the series Famous Places of Kyoto.
The Artelino archive displays eight watercolors by the artist, most depicting bijin (beautiful women), two of which are shown below.
芳光
Yoshimitsu
芳光
Yoshimitsu
三光會
sankō kai
三光會
sankō kai
三光會
sankō kai
三光會
sankō kai
三光会印
sankō kai in
click on thumbnail for print details