The Art and Life of Fukuda Kodojin: Japan’s Great Poet and Landscape Artist

The most comprehensive book on Kodojin’s art ever published--beautiful and mysterious--a collection of more than 100 paintings with English translations of the inscribed poems.

The Art and Life of Fukuda Kodojin is the first publication in English to offer an in-depth examination of Kodojin’s life, painting, and poetry. This fully illustrated publication draws from institutions and private collections worldwide, and is the result of fifteen years of extensive research into almost eight hundred works of inscribed poetry, literati landscapes, brush paintings and calligraphy. A beautiful and contemplative look into the world of Kodojin, this coveted edition accompanies a special exhibition held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Fukuda Kodojin (1865--1944) was a multifaceted artist, recognized for his poetry, painting and calligraphy, and is one of a handful of artists who continued the tradition of Japanese literati painting (nanga) into the twentieth century. Kodojin’s painting style is characterized by bizarrely shaped mountain forms rendered in vivid color or monochromatic ink, often with a solitary scholar enjoying the expansive beauty of nature and bits of inscribed poetry. Creating over 700 works in his lifetime, he also made simple paintings of plants and flowers in his dramatic brushwork, and distinctive literati landscapes.

Kodojin literally means ＂Old Taoist＂ which seems to reflect the path he chose of resilience of an old tradition facing new conditions and new challenges, and is theme felt throughout his art. There is both beauty and mystery in his life and work, and his landscapes can be rich in costly green and blue pigments, detailed layers of ink shading and strokes, or purely abstract.

Unique, mysterious and distinctively expressive, The Art and Life of Fukuda Kodojin offers an unprecedented walk through the Old Taoist’s mind, sure to both surprise and enlighten the curious reader, scholar, or literati enthusiast.

Featuring works from museums, libraries, and private collections worldwide, including:
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Harvard Art Museum
Seattle Art Museum
Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution
Bachmann Eckenstein Japanese Art, Switzerland
The Kura Art Gallery, Kyoto
Shingu City Museum of History and Folklore
and more

Fukuda Kodojin (1865--1944) was a versatile artist whose talents extended beyond poetry to painting and calligraphy. He created over 700 paintings and calligraphy and his work was favored by influential industrialists and politicians in his time who came together to establish the ＂Kodojin Society.＂ Largely forgotten after World War II, today he is highly appreciated outside of Japan. This is the most comprehensive publication with more than 100 paintings from public and private collections that has accompanied a special exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Dr. Andreas Marks is the Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese and Korean Art and director of the Clark Center for Japanese Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. From 2008 to 2013 he was the director and chief curator of the Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture in California. He has a Ph.D. from Leiden University in the Netherlands and a master’s degree in East Asian Art History from the University of Bonn, Germany. A specialist of Japanese woodblock prints, he is the author of eighteen books including Japanese Yokai and Other Supernatural Beings, Japanese Woodblock Prints and Japan Journeys. In 2014, he received the International Ukiyo-e Society Award in recognition of his research and publications, and in 2018 and 2022 he received the book award from the International Fine Print Dealers Association.

With an Essay by Paul Berry, an independent scholar of Japanese art history and cinema. He has taught at University of Michigan, University of Washington, Kansai Gaidai University and lectured internationally at a variety of universities, museums and conferences. His publications include catalogues and articles on Japanese painting including those found in Unexplored Avenues of Japanese Painting, Modern Masters of Kyoto, Literati Modern, and Poetic Imagination in Japanese Art. Soon to appear in a volume of essays on Tomioka Tessai and Otagaki Rengetsu is ＂Reinventing Oneself: The Artistic Careers of Otagaki Rengetsu＂ from the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington