Tsuchida Bakusen
was the art-name of a Japanese painter in the Nihonga style, active during the Taishō and early Shōwa eras. His birth name was . Biography He was born on Sado island in Niigata Prefecture into a wealthy and influential family. His younger brother was the noted philosopher Tsuchida Kyōson (1891-1934). As an adolescent, Bakusen's father put him on the career path of a Buddhist priest, but he fled the temple where he was apprenticed in order to study art instead. He was accepted as a student by painter Takeuchi Seihō, and later studied at the Kyoto Kaiga Senmon Gakko (present day Kyoto City University of Arts) from which he graduated in 1911. In 1918, Bakusen established a painting collective together with Murakami Kagaku, Ono Chikkyō, Sakakibara Shihō, and Nonagase Banka called the Kokuga Society (Kokuga Sōsaku Kyōkai, or "Society for the Creation of National Painting"), which was used as a vehicle to disseminate the group's eclectic style combining western yōga and Japanese (Nihonga) painting techniques and styles. His favorite subjects were women (bijinga), especially portraits of maiko, but he also painted flowers and still life themes. The Kokuga Society established its own annual exhibition, the Kokuten (abbreviation for "Kokuga Sōsaku