"YUICHI" oil colors are now on the national market. This the first product commercialized by the University based on the achievement of joint industry-university research.

In 2002, the Oil Painting Technique and Material Course of the Faculty of Fine Arts joined forces with Holbein Art Materials Inc. to explore the creation of oil paints based on the artist's sensitivity. The pursuit of the ideal oil medium progressed through the perfect combination of evaluation tests conducted from visual and tactual viewpoints by the art faculty and scientific analyses carried out jointly and the advanced knowledge and technology of Holbein. As a result of joint research over a period of five years, YUICHI has attained clear color development essential to oil paints, appropriate viscosity, fineness of grain and high transparency by using carefully selected pigments and dispersing minute particles.

The conceptual uniqueness and outstanding quality of YUICHI is receiving a tremendous reaction from various quarters.

The University's development of oil paints was planned quite a long time ago by Kuroda Seiki, then a professor of the Western Painting Department of the Tokyo Fine Arts School. YUICHI is considered the fruition of Prof. Kuroda's dream from a century ago.

To coincide with YUICHI's national debut, "Yuichi/Honruri" watercolor (limited 200 pieces) is being introduced to the market. This watercolor is a high-purity blue pigment extracted from the raw ore of lapis lazuli using a newly developed method, and only particles of a certain size are used, albeit extravagantly, for ease in painting.

Lapis lazuli, cherished as jewelry or ornaments since ancient times, "a fragment of heaven" as it is called, continues to fascinate us with its deep, mythic blue brilliance. During the 6th and 7th centuries, lapis lazuli pigment was used in wall paintings in Bamiyan and Kyzyl, but since then it's rarely been used in East Asia. Blue color of high purity is extracted in only very small amounts from the raw ore; even in Europe this most valuable pigment was designated for limited use - painting the Virgin Mary's robe, for example.

Unlike the manufacturing method for European pigments in which resin processing is used, the newly developed method is based on elutriation. The method further enhances the natural features of lapis lazuli. The pigment, resembling the type used for the Bamiyan and Kyzyl murals, is East Asia's unique "lapis lazuli blue".