A busshi is a Japanese term for Buddhist artists who specialized in painting or sculpting images for Buddhist temples, predominantly in the

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the capita ...

. Painters were specifically known as , whereas sculptors who worked with wood were called ''ki-busshi''. Busshi were organized into both categories of task and grade of mastery: , , , and . These rank designations continued in use until the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

Practices

In both the Nara and Heian periods, busshi were organized in that belonged to the imperial court, temples, and the nobility. From the 10th century, the workshops became independent from temples and began working on commission. The bussho workshops disappeared entirely during the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

List of Busshi

* Chōkai ( ja) * Chōsei ( ja) * Eikai ( ja) * Enkū * Ensei ( ja) * Genkei ( ja) * Gyōkai ( ja) * Higo Bettō Jōkei ( ja) * Inchō ( ja) * Injo ( ja) * Inkaku ( ja) * Inkichi ( ja) * Inson ( ja) *

Jōchō Jōchō (定朝; died 1057 AD), also known as Jōchō Busshi, was a Busshi, Japanese sculptor of the Heian period. He popularized the ''yosegi'' technique of sculpting a single figure out of many pieces of wood, and he redefined the artistic canon ...

* Jōkaku ( ja) * Jōkei * Kaikei * Kakuen ( ja) * Kakujo ( ja) * Kōben ( ja) * Kōen * Kōkei * Kōchō ( ja) * Kōjo ( ja) * Kochi no Obinari ( ja) *

Kōshō was a after ''Kyotoku, Kyōtoku'' and before ''Chōroku.'' This period spanned the years from July 1455 through September 1457. The reigning emperor was .Titsingh, Isaac. (1834) ''Annales des empereurs du japon'', pp. 331349. Change of Era * ...

( ja) *

( ja) * Kōun ( ja) * Kuninaka no Kimimaro ( ja) * Matsumoto Myōkei ( ja) * Myōen ( ja) * Raijo ( ja) * Seichō ( ja) * Tankei * Tori Busshi * Unga ( ja) * Unjo ( ja) * Unkei * Yamaguchi no Ōguchi ( ja) * Zen'en (善円) or Zenkei ( ja) * Zenshun ( ja) * Zenzō ( ja)

References

Japanese sculptors Buddhist art {{Asia-sculptor-stub