lacquerers

Updated: May 29, 2025

The development of interior decoration in temples, monasteries, and palaces was due to progress on the part of lacquerers and painters. Koze Kanaoka was the first to be thus honored, and it is on record that he was engaged to paint figures of arhats on the sliding doors of the palace.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Not only did he bestow munificent allowances on skilled artists and art artisans, but also he conferred on them distinctions which proved stronger incentives than any pecuniary remuneration, and when he built the celebrated mansions of Juraku and Momo-yama, so vast were the sums that he lavished on their decoration, and such a certain passport to his favour did artistic merit confer, that the little town of Fushimi quickly became the art capital of the empire, and many of the most skilful painters, lacquerers, metal-workers, and wood-carvers within the Four Seas congregated there.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era