Stratejik ve Sosyal Araştırmalar Dergisi

Abstract

The Ukiyo-e art, which means pictures of the flowing world in Japanese, is continued today by major Japanese artists. One of them, Yasunari Ikenaga, continues his art work in his own workshop. The artist continues the tradition of Japanese painting with his unique understanding of detailed patterns and the emotional characters he gives to his figures. Although the sharpness of the lines contrasts with the psychology of the figures, it is observed that balance is maintained with the figure-background relationship. In the research, the artist's portrait paintings were examined according to the general scanning model and included in the study. The research was examined with descriptive analysis from the qualitative research method. Structured interview technique was used as a data collection tool. The aim of the research was to touch upon the artist's understanding of art through structured interview questions with Ikenaga, thus presenting a cross-section of modern Japanese art. It is mentioned that traditional arts continue to exist by seeing the reflections of artists who continue the Ukiyo-e tradition in Japan in today's art. It also aims to raise the awareness of those interested in art about the artist by mentioning the artist's place and importance in painting. As a result, the artist maintains his place both with his paintings in the Bijinga tradition of Japanese painting and in the international art environment. In the research, the necessity of learning the works of Modern Japanese artists was emphasized in order to further increase the interest in Japanese art in our country. Moreover, it is a great deficiency that especially the younger generation only thinks of manga comics when it comes to Japanese art. It is predicted that the research will increase the awareness of the new generation about artists who combine traditional art with modern art, such as Ukiyo-e.