Yōga (art)

Yōga (洋画, Yōga^?) or literally "Western-style paintings" is a style of paintings by Japanese artists, made in accordance with Western (European) traditional conventions, techniques and materials. The term was coined in the Meiji period, to distinguish such works from indigenous traditional Japanese paintings, or Nihonga (日本画^?).

European painting was introduced to Japan during the late Muromachi period along with Christian missionaries. Early religious works by Japanese artists in imitation of works brought by the missionaries can be considered some of the earliest forms of Yōga. However, the policy of national seclusion introduced by the Tokugawa bakufu in the Edo period effectively ended the influence of western art on Japanese painting, with the exception of the use of perspective, which was discovered by Japanese artists in sketches found in European medical and scientific texts imported from the Dutch via Nagasaki.

In 1855, the Tokugawa bakufu established the Bansho Shirabesho, a translation and research institute for western studies, including a section to investigate western art. This section was headed by Kawakami Togai, whose assistant Takahashi Yuichi was a student of English artist Charles Wirgman. Takahashi is regarded by many as the first true Yōga painter.

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