How a winter scene tells a bigger tale: Discover influential monk painter Hidaka Tetso and the Nagasaki School | Honolulu Museu
Archived: 2026-04-23 17:09
How a winter scene tells a bigger tale: Discover influential monk painter Hidaka Tetso and the Nagasaki School | Honolulu Museum of Art
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Fri Dec 19 2025
How a winter scene tells a bigger tale: Discover influential monk painter Hidaka Tetso and the Nagasaki School
Now on view in the Japan gallery through February 22, 2026, is a selection of landscape paintings from the 19th century. Included in this rotation is the painting Snowy Landscape, an example of a brief period in Japanese art history when its creator, Hidaka Tetsuo, led the way. It’s also an appropriately chilly scene for the season!
For more than a thousand years, Japanese painting has been part of a larger East Asian tradition that originated in China. This in turn was part of a cultural legacy that included literature and all the ideas it expressed. As late as the 19th century, educated Japanese trained in the Chinese classics, wrote Chinese poetry, played Chinese musical instruments, drank Chinese-style tea, and painted Chinese landscapes, even though few of them ever had the opportunity to visit China.
When the Tokugawa shogunate, fearful of foreign (mostly European) influence, closed its borders starting in the 1630s, one of the unintended results was that Japan became cut off from the Chinese font that had long served as a source of inspiration for its elite. For the next two centuries, Japanese scholars were only able to indirectly access the smallest trickle of new literary and artistic ideas from the continent. Severely limited trading was only allowed through the port of Nagasaki at the western edge of Japan, far removed from the main cultural centers. A few trained Chinese artists came to Nagasaki together with traders, where they taught Japanese students. For the most part, though, artists in Kyoto and Edo (modern Tokyo) could only imagine the latest continental movements through the few rare and highly coveted paintings by Chinese masters that made their way into Japanese collections.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, the previously sleepy port of Nagasaki became a cultural center in its own right, with its own style of Chinese-influenced painting. Tetsuo, a monk painter, was a leading proponent of the Nagasaki School. He was invited to Kyoto, where he introduced the newest trends. Through his students, he defined a novel tradition of landscape painting that dominated the 19th century, producing many of the most important painters and calligraphers of the late Edo period.
Around the same time that Tetsuo was teaching in Kyoto, the American Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Edo Bay in 1853, and within a few years the shogunate was forced to open its borders. Just a year before Tetsuo painted
Snowy Landscape
, the shogunate finally collapsed. Soon Japanese artists were traveling to China to learn directly from the painters whose works previously they had known only through vague rumors, and inviting them to come to Japan, where they were welcomed as celebrities. The influence of Tetsuo and other Nagasaki artists was eclipsed and today they are mostly remembered as footnotes in the long cultural exchange between Japan and China. But for a brief time, Japan's cultural elite called Tetsuo master, and he was one of the most important artistic influences of his generation.
—Curator of Asian Art Shawn Eichman
Hidaka Tetsuo (1791-1871).
Snowy Landscape.
Japan, Edo period, dated 1869. Hanging scroll; ink on silk. Gift of Griffith and Patricia Way, 2008 (13914.1)
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Something went wrong. Please call to be put on the waiting list.
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To the main content
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Fri Dec 19 2025
How a winter scene tells a bigger tale: Discover influential monk painter Hidaka Tetso and the Nagasaki School
Now on view in the Japan gallery through February 22, 2026, is a selection of landscape paintings from the 19th century. Included in this rotation is the painting Snowy Landscape, an example of a brief period in Japanese art history when its creator, Hidaka Tetsuo, led the way. It’s also an appropriately chilly scene for the season!
For more than a thousand years, Japanese painting has been part of a larger East Asian tradition that originated in China. This in turn was part of a cultural legacy that included literature and all the ideas it expressed. As late as the 19th century, educated Japanese trained in the Chinese classics, wrote Chinese poetry, played Chinese musical instruments, drank Chinese-style tea, and painted Chinese landscapes, even though few of them ever had the opportunity to visit China.
When the Tokugawa shogunate, fearful of foreign (mostly European) influence, closed its borders starting in the 1630s, one of the unintended results was that Japan became cut off from the Chinese font that had long served as a source of inspiration for its elite. For the next two centuries, Japanese scholars were only able to indirectly access the smallest trickle of new literary and artistic ideas from the continent. Severely limited trading was only allowed through the port of Nagasaki at the western edge of Japan, far removed from the main cultural centers. A few trained Chinese artists came to Nagasaki together with traders, where they taught Japanese students. For the most part, though, artists in Kyoto and Edo (modern Tokyo) could only imagine the latest continental movements through the few rare and highly coveted paintings by Chinese masters that made their way into Japanese collections.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, the previously sleepy port of Nagasaki became a cultural center in its own right, with its own style of Chinese-influenced painting. Tetsuo, a monk painter, was a leading proponent of the Nagasaki School. He was invited to Kyoto, where he introduced the newest trends. Through his students, he defined a novel tradition of landscape painting that dominated the 19th century, producing many of the most important painters and calligraphers of the late Edo period.
Around the same time that Tetsuo was teaching in Kyoto, the American Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Edo Bay in 1853, and within a few years the shogunate was forced to open its borders. Just a year before Tetsuo painted
Snowy Landscape
, the shogunate finally collapsed. Soon Japanese artists were traveling to China to learn directly from the painters whose works previously they had known only through vague rumors, and inviting them to come to Japan, where they were welcomed as celebrities. The influence of Tetsuo and other Nagasaki artists was eclipsed and today they are mostly remembered as footnotes in the long cultural exchange between Japan and China. But for a brief time, Japan's cultural elite called Tetsuo master, and he was one of the most important artistic influences of his generation.
—Curator of Asian Art Shawn Eichman
Hidaka Tetsuo (1791-1871).
Snowy Landscape.
Japan, Edo period, dated 1869. Hanging scroll; ink on silk. Gift of Griffith and Patricia Way, 2008 (13914.1)
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Bodhisattvas and Bart Simpson: All about Tsherin Sherpa and his work
Explore Tsherin Sherpa’s journey from traditional thangka painter to global contemporary artist blending Buddhist iconography with pop culture in Divine Disruption.
Story
New jewelry line is inspired by HoMA artworks
GAMAR x HoMA collection reimagines HoMA artworks as ethically crafted gemstone jewelry, inspired by O’Keeffe, Hokusai, Guanyin, and more.
Story
The Garden Club of Honolulu wants you to “Imagine That!” May 8-10
Experience Imagine That!—the Garden Club of Honolulu’s Major Flower Show at HoMA, May 8–10, featuring stunning floral design, sustainability, and community inspiration.
Story
We have received your application. We will contact you when tickets become available.
Something went wrong. Please call to be put on the waiting list.
Added:
To wishlist