Japanese art history essay

In the late nineteenth century, the practice of “modern Japanese
painting” bifurcated into two purportedly oppositional and distinct fields of
production: Nihonga and yōga. In the institutional structure of the Tokyo
University of the Arts (Tōkyō Bijutsu Daigaku)—the most prestigious art
school in Japan—the pedagogical duality persists to this day. Why is
this?
The first task of this assignment is to explain why the schism exists. That
is straightforward.
Thereafter, however, I would like for you to analyze this binary. What is
the relationship of each mode to modernity? Is one more modern than
the other? Are both necessary? What does the duality say about the
nature of Japan’s relationship to Euro-American modernity? Is this
irresolution symptomatic of something larger?
If you were present in the 1870s-1890s, when the debates on oil painting
were taking place, would you have sided with the government/Fenollosa
faction, that it was a mistake to pursue oil painting? Or would you have
sided with the Meiji Art Society or the White Horse Society, that oil
painting is an essential aspect of Japanese modern art? Were both
right? Both wrong?
Last, do you agree with Kitazawa, that this binary is tragic—or do you
see it in a more positive light?
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wqh84
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wqh84