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Unkei

Unkei was a Japanese sculptor of the Kei school, which flourished in the Kamakura period. He specialized in statues of the Buddha and other important Buddhist figures. Unkei's early works are fairly traditional, similar in style to pieces by his father, Kōkei.

Unkei’s father, Kōkei, was himself a famous sculptor. Unkei became a sculptor of merit before age 20 and was commissioned by the Kamakura shogunate (the military government with headquarters in Kamakura) to make statues for the Kōfuku Temple and Tōdai Temple in Nara. He undertook the task with the help of Kaikei, his father’s best pupil, and more than 20 assistants. Best known of their collaborative efforts are the Kongo-rikishi, two nearly 28-foot- (more than 8-metre-) tall statues of the Niō (two protector gods, or Heavenly Kings; completed 1203) at the Great South Gate (Nandai-mon) of Tōdai Temple. The realistic and dynamic style of these statues is typical of Unkei’s art. In his later years he chiefly worked for the Kamakura shogunate, producing many portrait sculptures.

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Japanese Mythology

Japanese mythology embraces Shinto and Buddhist traditions as well as agriculturally-based folk religion. The Shinto pantheon comprises innumerable kami. Japanese myths, as generally recognized in the mainstream today, are based on the Kojiki, the Nihon Shoki, and some complementary books. 

Amaterasu, the powerful sun goddess of Japan, is the most well-known deity of Japanese mythology.

The following is a list of demons, ghosts, yōkai, obake, yūrei and other legendary creatures that are notable in Japanese folklore and mythology.

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Religion

Shinto and Buddhism are Japan's two major religions. Shinto is as old as the Japanese culture, while Buddhism was imported from the mainland in the 6th century. Since then, the two religions have been co-existing relatively harmoniously and have even complemented each other to a certain degree.

Shinto is an optimistic faith, as humans are thought to be fundamentally good, and evil is believed to be caused by evil spirits. Consequently, the purpose of most Shinto rituals is to keep away evil spirits by purification, prayers and offerings to the kami.  

Shinto holy books. The holy books of Shinto are the Kojiki or 'Records of Ancient Matters' (712 CE) and the Nihon-gi or 'Chronicles of Japan' (720 CE). These books are compilations of ancient myths and traditional teachings that had previously been passed down orally.

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Atomic bomb

The Allies issued orders for atomic bombs to be used on four Japanese cities on July 25. On August 6, one of the modified B-29s dropped a uranium gun-type bomb ("Little Boy") on Hiroshima. Another B-29 dropped a plutonium implosion bomb ("Fat Man") on Nagasaki three days later.

The US wished to prevent any possibility that the Soviet Union would occupy Japan whilst the US troops were still far away and so consolidate Soviet influence. So the US dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima on 6 August. On 9 August the Soviet Union entered the war in Asia, as promised.

The radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki today is on a par with the extremely low levels of background radiation (natural radioactivity) present anywhere on Earth. It has no effect on human bodies. ... Most of those exposed to direct radiation within a one-kilometre radius died. Residual radiation was emitted later.

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Japanese P.O.W camps in World War II

There were more than 140,000 white prisoners in Japanese POW camps. Of these, one in three died from starvation, work, punishments or from diseases for which there were no medicines to treat. Prisoners of the Japanese found themselves in camps in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and other Japanese-occupied countries.

seven main camps there were 81 branch camps and three detached camps at the end of the war. 32,418 POWs in total were detained in those camps. Approximately 3,500 POWs died in Japan while they were imprisoned.

Rummel, a professor of political science at the University of Hawaii, estimates that between 1937 and 1945, the Japanese military murdered from nearly 3 to over 10 million people, most likely 6 million Chinese, Koreans, Malaysians, Indonesians, Filipinos and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war.

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Hiroshi Yoshida

Hiroshi Yoshida was a 20th-century Japanese painter and woodblock printmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the shin-hanga style, and is noted especially for his excellent landscape prints.

Hiroshi Yoshida was trained in the Western oil painting tradition, which was adopted in Japan during the Meiji period. Yoshida often used the same blocks and varied the colour to suggest different moods. The best example of such is Sailing Boats in 1921. Yoshida's extensive travel and acquaintance with Americans influenced his art considerably. In 1931 a series of prints depicting scenes from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Singapore was published. Six of these were views of the Taj Mahal in different moods and colours.

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Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama born 22 March 1929 is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, but is also active in painting, performance, film, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan.

When she was ten years old, she began to experience vivid hallucinations which she has described as "flashes of light, auras, or dense fields of dots".[13] These hallucinations also included flowers that spoke to Kusama, and patterns in fabric that she stared at coming to life, multiplying, and engulfing or expunging her,[14] a process which she has carried into her artistic career and which she calls "self-obliteration".[15] Kusama's art became her escape from her family and her own mind when she began to have hallucinations.[9] She was reportedly fascinated by the smooth white stones covering the bed of the river near her family home, which she cites as another of the seminal influences behind her lasting fixation on dots.  (Information found on Wikipedia).

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Kawanabe Kyōsai

Kawanabe Kyōsai was a Japanese artist, in the words of a critic, "an individualist and an independent, perhaps the last virtuoso in traditional Japanese painting".

Kawanabe Kyōsai was born18 May 1831 and died 26 April 1889.    

Kyosai painted a large number of images and sketches, often choosing his subjects within the folklore of his country: Noh drama, nature and religion. A fine collection of his works is preserved in the British Museum (UK). There are also fine examples in the National Art Library in Kensington and the Guimet Museum in Paris. The Kawanabe Kyosai Memorial Museum, established in 1977, is located in Warabi, Saitama Prefecture, Japan.

Kyosai created what is considered to be the first manga magazine in 1874: “E-shinbun Nipponchi”, with Kanagaki Robun. The magazine was heavily influenced by “Japan Punch”, founded in 1862 by Charles Wirgman, a British cartoonist. Eshinbun Nipponchi had a very simple style of drawings and did not become popular with many people: it ended after just three issues

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Tenmyouya Hisashi

Tenmyouya Hisashi is a Japanese contemporary artist. He supposed his unique Japanese painting "Neo-Nihonga" which revives Japanese traditional paintings as a contemporary art.

In 2000 he developed a style called 'Butouha' which enabled him to demonstrate the resistance towards the authoritative art system, through his paintings. In 2010, he proposed another new painting style called 'Basara' which embodied the aesthetic of a Samurai warrior.

He has been included in group shows since 1990. He has held a number of solo exhibitions since 2000, predominantly in Tokyo galleries but also at The Reed Space in New York.

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The Great Wave off Kanagawa

The Great Wave off Kanagawa, also known as The Great Wave or simply The Wave, is a woodblock print by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai. It was published sometime between 1829 and 1833 in the late Edo period as the first print in Hokusai's series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji

The famous painting has been used as an emblem of tsunamis, hurricanes, and plane crashes into the sea. The print, Under the Wave off Kanagawa, shows a swell of water that appears to engulf not only the boatmen delivering fresh fish to the city of Edo (known today as Tokyo), but even Mount Fuji.

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WWII Japan

For Japan, World War II grew from a conflict historians call the Second Sino-Japanese War. ... So, to explain Japan's behavior in the years from 1941 to 1945, we have to explain why Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, and in order to do this, we have to go back to 1853. Before 1852, Japan was isolationist. 

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Tokugawa period

Tokugawa period, also called Edo period, (1603–1867), the final period of traditional Japan, a time of internal peace, political stability, and economic growth under the shogunate (military dictatorship) founded by Tokugawa Ieyasu. 

For Japan, the Tokugawa era brought 250 years of peace and order, a long-term stability that fostered great changes in Japanese society, readying it for entering the modern era. Japan's rapid modernization in the late nineteenth centurythe so-called Meiji era is well known.

The Tokugawa Shogunate defined modern Japanese history by centralizing the power of the nation's government and uniting its people. Before the Tokugawa took power in 1603, Japan suffered through the lawlessness and chaos of the Sengoku ("Warring States") period, which lasted from 1467 to 1573.

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Mount Unzen eruption of 1792

The 1792 Unzen earthquake and tsunami resulted from the volcanic activities of Mount Unzen on 21 May. This caused the collapse of the southern flank of the Mayuyama dome in front of Mount Unzen, resulting in a tremendous megatsunami, killing 15,000 people altogether.

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Volcanos in Japan

The biggest volcano in Japan is, Mount Aso (阿蘇山 Aso-san). Mount Aso is among the largest in the world. It stands in Aso Kujū National Park in Kumamoto Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu. Its peak is 1,592 metres (5,223 ft) above sea level.

Mount Aso may be the biggest but its not the most dangerous, that title goes to Mount Asama. Mount Asama is the most active volcano on Japan's main island (Honshu). It sits just 145 kilometers from Tokyo in Gunma and Nagano prefectures.

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Tokyo-Yokohama earthquake of 1923

Tokyo-Yokohama earthquake of 1923, also called Great Kanto earthquake, earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 that hit the Tokyo-Yokohamametropolitan area near noon on September 1, 1923. Hundreds of thousands of houses were either shaken down or burned. The death toll from the temblor was estimated to have exceeded 140,000.