Okakura biography

Okakura Kakuzō, also known as Okakura Tenshin, was a Japanese scholar and art critic who played a significant role in the era of Meiji Restoration reform[1†][2†][3†].

Born on February 14, 1863, in Yokohama, Japan[1†][2†], he promoted a critical appreciation of traditional forms, customs, and beliefs[1†][2†][3†].

Okakura’s influence on modern Japanese art is profound[1†]. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1880[1†][4†], where he met and studied under Ernest Fenollosa, an American art critic and amateur painter[1†].

Fenollosa was teaching at Tokyo University at the time and had become the preeminent voice in defending Japan’s traditional art forms against the drive to modernization and westernization of the early Meiji Restoration[1†]. Under his influence, Okakura worked towards reeducating the Japanese people to appreciate their own cultural heritage[1†].

He was one of the principal founders of the Tokyo Fine Arts School, which opened in 1887, and a year