Western painting
At the school, students were required to study various schools of Japanese art such as Bunjin-ga, Yamato-e, and Kano-ha during their three years of study. One of the objectives of the school was to educate students in the design of crafts for the purpose of promoting the development of new industries, and the introduction of Western painting into the curriculum was revolutionary at the time. The introduction of Western painting into the course was a breakthrough at the time, as Western painting was initially introduced in Japan at the Industrial Art School in 1876, prior to the founding of the Kyoto Prefectural Art School, as an industrial technique for drawing architectural plans, rather than as a form of art and culture. This is in contrast to the Koubu Art School, where the development of Western art study and research was blocked by Ernest Fenollosa and others, and the later Tokyo Art School, which did not have a Western painting department for some time due to the wishes of Fenollosa and Okakura Tenshin.