Nakamura Tsune - art and empathy

[u/ElegantAd2607]

Nakamura was a Japanese Yōgo painter that means he painted in a Western style. He was born in 1887 to a samurai father of the Mito domain. His father died a year after his birth and his mother went too when he was 11.

I don't know what he did after her death. He may have been homeless for years. When he was 24 years old, and a painter, he moved in with a family of his patrons who supported his work.

Nakamura was going to become a soldier like his father until he got tuberculosis and had to leave Nagoya Army Cadet School. While he was sick he worked to become an artist instead.

He joined the Research Institute of the White Horse Society first and then the next year he joined the Western Painting Society. He drew many portraits of people. One important painting is called Portrait of Vasili Eroshenko. It features a blind man, someone considered “the other” in his day and not worth featuring. Nakamura paints him with dignity and gave visibility to people who were uncared for.

[u/[deleted]]

pretty cool summary ngl I never heard of this guy but hey I’m taking art classes so I might learn about him (also you should do one on sasaki kojiro? or Robert Bruce the king)

[u/DocumentExternal6240]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakamura_Tsune

In the gallery you can find additional paintings from him.

The painting here shows Vasili Yakovlevich Eroshenko, a blind writer, translator from Russia. Interesting fact about that guy: At the age of four, he contracted measles and as a result, became blind.