Rethinking Nihonga from Okinawa: Transmission, Institutionalization, and Japanese Art History

Abstract

This article reconsiders nihonga (Japanese-style painting) through the case of Okinawa. While often framed as the bearer of “Japanese tradition,” nihonga emerged as a modern institutional category shaped by state policy and art education. In Okinawa, its transmission followed a discontinuous trajectory marked by annexation, war, and delayed institutionalization. Through an analysis of works by Taira Yūki (b. 1989), Nizoe Marina (b. 1993), and Kyan Chie (b. 1969), this article demonstrates how contemporary artists engage and reconfigure nihonga from within. Their practices reveal the genre not as a stable inheritance, but as a historically mediated framework shaped by uneven transmission and institutional structures.