was a Japanese painter of the

Nagasaki , officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...

and

Nanpin school The Nanpin school (南蘋派 ''Nanpin-ha'') was a school of painting which flourished in Nagasaki during the Edo period. Etymology The school takes its name from Nanpin, the art name of Chinese painter Shen Quan (1682–1760), an artist who pa ...

s. Originally from

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

, he spent some time in

, where he studied under the Chinese painter Song Ziyan, who was known as Sō Shigan in Japanese. The name Sō Shiseki is an art-name, derived from an imitation of his master's name.Morse, Anne Nishimura et al. (eds.) ''MFA Highlights: Arts of Japan''. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 2008. p. 201. Shiseki's bird and flower paintings and other works display the use of a combination of broad calligraphic brushstrokes for branches, tree trunks and rocks,

ink wash Ink wash painting ( zh, t=水墨畫, s=水墨画, p=shuǐmòhuà) is a type of Chinese ink brush painting which uses washes of black ink, such as that used in East Asian calligraphy, in different concentrations. It emerged during the Tang dynasty ...

and color for flower petals and leaves, and much finer brushstrokes for the fine details of feathers and flowers to produce a very detailed and lifelike, realistic depiction. Returning to Edo, Shiseki became a prominent representative and teacher of the Nagasaki school in that city, teaching Shiba Kōkan among others. He was close with such ''

rangaku ''Rangaku'' (Kyūjitai: , ), and by extension , is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Western technology and medicine in the period when the countr ...

'' scholars as

Hiraga Gennai was a Japanese polymath and ''rōnin'' of the Edo period. He was a pharmacologist, student of ''Rangaku'', author, painter and inventor well known for his '' Erekiteru'' (electrostatic generator), ''Kandankei'' (thermometer) and ''Kakanpu'' ...

and

Sugita Genpaku was a Japanese physician and scholar known for his translation of '' Kaitai Shinsho'' (New Book of Anatomy) and a founder of ''Rangaku'' (Western learning) and ''Ranpō'' (Dutch style medicine) in Japan. He was one of the first Japanese scholar ...

, and expressed an interest in

Western painting The history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from classical antiquity, antiquity until the present time. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with Representational art, representational ...

. Rather than his stylistic choice coming straight from European painting, however, scholar Meccarelli thinks Shiseki matured

’s “flora and fauna decorative painting”.Marco, Meccarelli. 2015.
"Chinese Painters in Nagasaki: Style and Artistic Contaminatio during the Tokugawa Period (1603-1868)"
Ming Qing Studies 2015, Pages 175-236. His style is indeed more focused on details, also lending credence to the legacy left by botanic manuals and scientific treatises. He composed a number of books, and woodblock printed volumes of his artworks were produced as well.

References

External links

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 Sō Shiseki (see index) {{DEFAULTSORT:Shiseki, So 1715 births 1786 deaths 18th-century Japanese painters Nanpin school Nagasaki school

See also

References

External links