The Kyoto school was a collection of several styles and schools of Japanese painting

Japanese painting

is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese visual arts, encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the long history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis and competition between native Japanese aesthetics and adaptation of...

 of the late Edo period

Edo period

The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

. Though there are many broad similarities between the styles within the school, these styles display key differences that separate them. Many were in fact reactions to one another, an artist or group of artists seeking to express themselves differently from those around them.

One of the more prominent schools under the Kyoto school umbrella was the Shijō school

Shijo school

The Shijō school , also known as the Maruyama-Shijō school, was an offshoot school of the Maruyama school of Japanese painting founded by Maruyama Ōkyo, and his former student Matsumura Goshun in the late 18th century. This school was one of several that made up the larger Kyoto school...

, named after the street where many of the artists had their studios. Shijō (四条) literally translates to 'fourth avenue.' This school sought to produce a synthesis of the more realistic style of Maruyama Ōkyo

Maruyama Okyo

, born Maruyama Masataka, was a Japanese artist active in the late 18th century. He moved to Kyoto, during which he studied artworks from Chinese, Japanese and Western sources. A personal style of Western naturalism mixed with Eastern decorative design emerged, and Ōkyo founded the Maruyama school...

 with that of the nanga or Southern School styles. Mori Sosen

Mori Sosen

was a Japanese painter of the Shijō school during the Edo period.Mori Sosen is famous for his many paintings depicting monkeys and other animals. Robert van Gulik called him "an undisputed master" of the painting of the Japanese macaque...

 was one of the more prominent painters in the Shijō school.

The nanga or Southern School, meanwhile, rebelled against the realism of Ōkyo and the Shijō artists, seeking to return to the inspiration and style of China's

Chinese painting

Chinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. The earliest paintings were not representational but ornamental; they consisted of patterns or designs rather than pictures. Early pottery was painted with spirals, zigzags, dots, or animals...

 Southern School

Southern School

-Brief:The Southern School of Chinese painting, often called "literati painting" , is a term used to denote art and artists which stand in opposition to the formal Northern School of painting...

.