Tosa Mitsuoki

Tosa Mitsuoki ( Japanese 土 佐 光 起 , stage name : Shunkaken (春 可 軒); born November 21, 1617 ; died November 14, 1691 ) was a Japanese painter of the Tosa School during the early Edo period .

life and work

Tosa Mitsuoki was the son of Mitsunori . He first lived in Sakai , then moved to Kyoto in 1634. In 1654, at the age of 37, he became head of the Department of Painting (宮廷 繪 所 預, Kyūtei e-dokoro azukari) at the imperial court, so he got a position for which he had waited a long time. With this appointment, this position was filled for the first time since the end of the Muromachi period , that is, after more than a hundred years. With this the Tosa School experienced a new period of prosperity that lasted until the end of the Edo period. In 1681 he left his position to his son Mitsunari (光 成; 1646-1710), took the Buddhist vows and took the name Jōshō (常 昭). In 1685 he received the title "Hogen". Mitsuoki produced excellent netsuke under the name Shūzan (周 山) , made entirely of wood.

In order to renew the Tosa style, Mitsuoki deliberately introduced Chinese painting methods such as those used by the rival Kanō school . He also adopted painting techniques such as those used by Chinese painters during the Song and Yuan dynasties to depict nature. While this was a certain departure from the Tosa tradition, which was dependent on very detailed, sometimes a little stiff execution, the new painting style corresponded more to the taste of the time.

From this time on, the Tosa School with its branch, the Sumiyoshi School , received regular commissions from the imperial court and the shogunate. However, Mitsuoki's descendants adhered a little too strictly to the style they had now found, so that no painter of the school with particular originality can be recorded after him.

Mitsuoki's works include the “Legends of Ōdera” (大寺 縁 起 絵 巻), the screen pair “Scenes from Itsukushima and Matsushima” (厳 島 松 島 屏風) and “Chrysanthemums and quail” (菊 に 鶉 図, Kiku ni uzura zu). - Mitsuoki, together with Tokiwa Mitsunaga and Tosa Mitsunobu, is one of the "Three Masters of the Tosa School" (土 佐 三 筆, Tosa Sampitsu).

photos

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  Ōdera scroll (detail)

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  Cherries and maples

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  Tokugawa Tsunayoshi

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Owned by the Tokugawa Art Museum .

Remarks

1. ↑ Hōgen (法眼) was a high honorary title that was awarded to scholars and artists.
2. ↑ Ōdera was called the Nenbutsu-dera (念 仏 寺) in Sakai.

literature

• Tazawa, Yutaka: Tosa Mitsuoki . In: Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Art. Kodansha International, 1981. ISBN 0-87011-488-3 .
• Laurance P. Roberts: Mitsuoki . In: A Dictionary of Japanese Artists. Weatherhill, 1976. ISBN 0-8348-0113-2 .

Web links

Commons : Tosa Mitsuoki  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus, Tosa is the family name, Mitsuoki the first name.