Sculpting studio, Imperial School of Art, Tokyo, c. 1910.

“Recently the Imperial School of Art, Tokio, the premiere institution of the kind in Japan, celebrated, with appropriate ceremonies and with an exhibition of its treasures, the twenty-fifth anniversary of its foundation.

“The Imperial School of Art came into existence by imperial order on Oct. 4, 1889, and came to occupy the present splendid position in Uyeno Park which was formerly used by the Educational museum. The curriculum then consisted of painting, lacquer work, wood carving and metal chasing.

“The Imperial School of Art, Tokio, is now equipped for the training of students in the following seven courses: Japanese painting, European style of painting, sculpture, design, metal work, casting and lacquer work, and it also offers a special course for the training of teachers of drawing in normal, middle and girls’ high schools.

“… The work done by the graduates in the Japanese style of painting has, generally speaking, been infused with an indefinable something that comes from an effort to improve and to achieve something new. There is invariably something in it which is foreign to the traditional quality, though not necessarily betraying European influence.”

– The American Educational Review, Volume 36, Oct. 1914