Topics Digitally Archiving Kampo Arai’s Diary and Sketches in India (1916-18)

This IRC project, which launched in 2024, has released the “Digital Archive of Kampo Arai’s Diary and Sketches in India (1916-18).” This archive features the transcribed handwritten diaries of Japanese painter Kampo Arai (1878-1945), who stayed in India for about a year and a half starting in late 1916 at the invitation of Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, alongside 870 digitized and systematically organized sketches and related documents from the same period.

The following contents are available in this archive:

• India Diary (Transcriptions): The diaries are transcribed in HTML format, allowing users to view the original manuscript images for each entry.
• List of Sketches: Organized by periods and locations, the list allows users to view enlarged images of each sketch along with related information such as dates and reference numbers.

This resource was developed as a joint research project with the Kampo-Tagore Society, with materials provided by the Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts and the Sakura City Museum – Kampo Arai Memorial. It serves as a valuable record of pre-war Japan-India exchange and marks a significant turning point in Kampo Arai’s own artistic career.

(Written by Masahiko TOGAWA and Mayumi ADACHI)

• 2024 End-of-year report
  Digitally Archiving Kampo Arai’s Diary and Sketches in India (1916-18) (in Japanese)