He entered the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (now Tokyo University of the Arts) in its first cohort. He studied under Tenshin Okakura and Gaho Hashimoto and shared in the art movement Tenshin led. He became an assistant professor at the school, but amid internal strife he left with Tenshin, who had resigned as principal, and founded the Japan Art Institute. Joining as a full member, he then worked with Kanzan Shimomura and Shunso Hishida to advance the reform of Japanese painting, embodying Tenshin’s ideal. At this time their attempts at a new painting, such as the “line-less” manner, drew the reproach of “morotai” (the blurred style), and the movement also faltered financially. The Institute was moved, as the revived Institute, to Izura in Ibaraki Prefecture. After journeys to India, Europe and America, however, he came to be recognised, and works such as “Eight Views of Xiaoxiang” and “Metempsychosis” established his standing in the art world and pointed the way for modern Japanese painting. In 1914, after Tenshin’s death, he led the revived Institute with Kanzan Shimomura, Yukihiko Yasuda and Shiko Imamura. In 1937 he received the first Order of Culture.