Okakura, born in Yokohama to parents originally from Fukuri, attended Tokyo Imperial University, where he first met and studied under Ernest Fenollosa. In 1890, Okakura was one of the principal founders of the first Japanese fine-arts academy, Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko ( Tokyo School of Fine Arts) and a year later became the head, though he was later ousted from the school in an administrative struggle. He then founded the Japan Art Institute with Hashimato Gaho and Yokoyama Taikan. He was invited by William Sturgis Bigelow to the Museumof Fine Arts, Boston, in 1904 and became the first head of the Asian art Division in 1910.
Okakura was a high-profile urbanite who had an international sense of self. In the Meiji period he was the first dean of the Tokyo fine Arts School (now The Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music). He wrote all his main works in English. Okakura researched Japan's Traditional art and travelled to Europe, The Unites States, China, and India. He gave the world an image of Japan as a member of the east, in the face of a massive onslaught of western culture. His book, The Ideals of the East (1904), published on the eve of the Russo-Japanese war, is famous for its opening line, "Asia is one". He argued that Asia is "one" in its humiliation, of falling behind in achieving modernisation, and thus being colonized by the western powers. This was an early expressionof Pan-Asianism. Later Okakura felt compelled to protest against a Japan that tried to catch up with the Western powers, but by sacrificing other Asian countries as in the Russo-Japanese War.
For visitors who stroll the many vaulted rooms and corridors, admiring the varied collection of Boston's museum of Fine Arts, there is a special treat for the senses, unlike anything else the museum offers: Tenshin-En, a 10,000-square-foot Japanese rock garden.
More than 70-species of plants - both Japanese and American - give color and texture to thegarden .
Okakura's father was silk trader. In his father's shop Okakura must have had his first contacts with western people.
