200px, A , specifically a Miage-nyūdō, as portrayed by Toriyama , real name Sano Toyofusa, was a scholar, '' kyōka'' poet, and ''

ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock printing, woodblock prints and Nikuhitsu-ga, paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes ...

'' artist of

Japanese folklore Japanese folklore encompasses the informally learned folk traditions of Japan and the Japanese people as expressed in its oral traditions, Tradition, customs, and material culture. In Japanese, the term is used to describe folklore. The Folklor ...

Early life

Born to a family of high-ranking servants to the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

, Toriyama was trained by

Kanō school The is one of the most famous schools of Japanese painting. The Kanō school of painting was the dominant style of painting from the late 15th century until the Meiji era, Meiji period which began in 1868, by which time the school had divided i ...

artists Kanō Gyokuen and Kanō Chikanobu, although he was never officially recognized as a Kanō school painter.

Art career

After retiring from service to the shogunate, Toriyama became a teacher to numerous apprentices in poetry and painting. He was among the first to apply Kanō techniques to ''

'' printmaking, inventing key new techniques along the way, such as ''fuki-bokashi'', which allowed for replicating color gradations. Most famously, he was the teacher of

Kitagawa Utamaro was a Japanese artist. He is one of the most highly regarded designers of ukiyo-e woodblock prints and paintings, and is best known for his ''Bijin-ga, bijin ōkubi-e'' "large-headed pictures of beautiful women" of the 1790s. He also produ ...

and

Utagawa Toyoharu Utagawa Toyoharu (歌川豊春, – 1814) was a Japanese artist in the ukiyo-e genre, known as the founder of the Utagawa school and for his ''uki-e'' pictures that incorporated Western-style Perspective (graphical), geometrical perspecti ...

. Sekien is best known for his mass-produced illustrated books of

yōkai are a class of supernatural entities and Spirit (supernatural entity) , spirits in Japanese folklore. The kanji representation of the word comprises two characters that both mean "suspicious, doubtful", and while the Japanese name is simply ...

that had appeared in '' Hyakki Yagyō'' monster parade scrolls. The first book proved popular enough to spawn three sequels, the last of which features yōkai mainly out of Sekien's imagination. Although sometimes described as a "demonologist," his work is better described as a literary parody of encyclopedias such as the Japanese ''

Wakan Sansai Zue The is an illustrated Japanese ''leishu'' encyclopedia published in 1712 in the Edo period. It consists of 105 volumes in 81 books. Its compiler was Terashima or Terajima Ryōan, Terajima (), a doctor from Osaka. It describes and illustrates va ...

'' or the Chinese ''

Classic of Mountains and Seas The ''Classic of Mountains and Seas'', also known as ''Shanhai jing'' (), formerly romanized as the ''Shan-hai Ching'', is a Chinese classic text and a compilation of mythic geography and beasts. Early versions of the text may have existed si ...

'', which were popular in Japan at the time. His portrayals of these creatures from folklore essentially established their visual portrayals in the public's mind and deeply inspired other Japanese artists in his own and later eras, including ukiyo-e artists

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (; also named Taiso Yoshitoshi ; 30 April 1839 – 9 June 1892) was a Japanese printmaker.Louis-Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric. (2005)"Tsukoka Kōgyō"in ''Japan Encyclopedia,'' p. 1000. Yoshitoshi ha ...

Kawanabe Kyōsai was a Japanese painter and caricaturist. In the words of art historian Timothy Clark, "an individualist and an independent, perhaps the last virtuoso in traditional Japanese painting". Biography Living through the Edo period to the Meiji pe ...

, and

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

artist Mizuki Shigeru.

Notable works

* * * * * *Kawataro 河太郎 *Kawako 河腰 *Yamawaro 山和露 *Ushi no koku mairi 牛の国参り * * *

References

External links

Toriyamabiko
a copy of his first book, in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Bridge of dreams: the Mary Griggs Burke collection of Japanese art
a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Toriyama Sekien (see index) 1712 births 1788 deaths Ukiyo-e artists 18th-century Japanese writers 18th-century Japanese poets 18th-century Japanese artists Artists from Tokyo Metropolis {{printmaker-stub