Nara Prefectural Museum of Art

This guide to the Nara Prefectural Museum of Art traces the career of Kyoto painter Yoshikawa Kanpo, who grew frustrated that artists kept copying old paintings of paintings rather than the real thing. In 1923 he founded a research society, collecting genuine Edo and Meiji-period garments, wigs and props and hiring live models to wear them so working artists could sketch from life. It follows the well-known painters, including Uemura Shoen and Ito Shinsui, who traveled in for these sessions, and the stubborn insistence behind a collecting method that seems obvious now but was radical for its time.