Lost in Thought

A work that won third prize at the first Bunten exhibition, it shows a half-length figure of a kimono-clad woman, leaning against a pillar deep in thought.

Initially studying under Ando Nakataro and Harada Naojiro, Kobayashi Mango later entered the Tenshin Dojo and beace a pupil of Kuroda Seiki. In 1896, with the establishment of the course of Western painting at the Tokyo Fine Arts School, he enrolled in the School and also participated in the founding of the Hakubakai (White Horse Society). Graduating School in 1898, he became associate professor of the School in 1904 and, after studying abroad in Germany, France, and Italy from 1911, was appointed professor upon his return. The work shown here was exhibited in the first Bunten exhibition of 1907. A girl leans back with her shoulders aginast a pillar facing a garden and holds limply in her left hand a book, still open to the page she had been reading. She gazes vacantly ahead of her. Such ordinary scenes from the everyday lives of the people of the Meiji era were never found in Japanese Western-style painting of the third decade of the Meiji era and only gradually began to be depicted with such works as Wada Eisaku’s Sunset at the ferry and Shirataki Ikunosuke’s A lesson (both in the University Art Museum collection). This work is descended from these earlier prototypes. It was donated to the University by the artist himself on December 23, 1936. (Writer : Masako Kawaguchi Source : Selected Masterpieces from The University Art Museum, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music: Grand Opening Exhibition, The University Art Museum, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, 1999)