by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Japanese artists across periods and media
Explore all 24 Japanese artists currently covered here, from Muromachi ink painting and Momoyama screens to Edo prints and modern painting. Use the period and practice filters to find an artist, then follow the artist guide and biography.
These labels are routes into the collection, rather than fixed identities. Ukiyo-e, for example, embraces original paintings as well as woodblock prints, while a printed sheet depended on a publisher, carver and printer as well as its designer. The Metropolitan Museum of Art explains that this collaborative production supported subjects from actors and courtesans to later landscape views [3]. Kōrin and Jakuchū need different frames: the former is central to the history later called Rinpa; the latter made paintings whose relationships with Buddhist practice and Kyoto patronage matter alongside their startling birds and plants [2] [4].
Begin with an artist's overview, then follow its biography and work pages. A work may survive in several impressions or formats: the image shown on one page is evidence for that specific object only when its holding and accession number can be identified.
Contents
Explore 24 artists
Katsushika Hokusai
Hokusai moved among actor prints, illustrated books, landscapes and paintings. The Great Wave, Red Fuji and his Fuji books show different ways a design could be issued and seen.
Works and series (5)
Fine Wind, Clear Morning; impression not identified
Utagawa Hiroshige
Hiroshige’s routes and famous places depend on season, weather and the viewer’s position. His work also includes bird-and-flower prints, books and paintings beyond the celebrated Tōkaidō series.
Works and series (4)
Night Snow at Kanbara; impression not identified
Kitagawa Utamaro
Utamaro’s portraits of women are only one part of his work. His illustrated books combine insects, birds, shells and poetry; his prints also reveal how publishers shaped images for the market.
Works and series (6)
Three Beauties of the Present Day; impression not identified
Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Kuniyoshi’s triptychs stage stories on a large scale, but his practice also includes warrior sheets, cats, theatre and landscapes. Look at each series and impression before assigning a date or title.
Works and series (3)
Princess Takiyasha and the Skeleton Spectre; impressions not identified
Sesshū Tōyō
Sesshū worked across temple networks and travelled to Ming China. His ink landscapes invite questions about brushwork, inscriptions and the long history of copies attributed to him.
Works and series (2)
Winter Landscape, Tokyo National Museum A-1398 ColBase / Tokyo National Museum, A-1398. Image reduced to 1024 pixels.
Itō Jakuchū
Jakuchū painted birds and plants in colour and ink. The thirty scrolls of Colorful Realm of Living Beings also belonged to a larger religious setting with a Buddhist triptych.
Works and series (1)
Hen and Rooster with Grapevine, Metropolitan Museum of Art 1975.268.69 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975.268.69, CC0.
Tōshūsai Sharaku
Sharaku’s actor portraits appeared during a short publishing career. Their faces, costumes and roles can be studied closely while his identity remains an open historical question.
Works and series (2)
Ōtani Oniji III as Edobei, Rijksmuseum RP-P-1963-16 Rijksmuseum, RP-P-1963-16, public-domain image.
Ogata Kōrin
Kōrin made screens and designs that move between painting and craft. Compare the Met’s Eight Bridges screens with the different iris screens in the Nezu Museum; they are not the same object.
Works and series (2)
Irises at Yatsuhashi, Metropolitan Museum of Art 53.7.1–2 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 53.7.1–2, CC0.
Maruyama Ōkyo
From studies of living forms to scrolls, screens and temple rooms: an illustrated guide to observation, storytelling and a Kyoto workshop.
Maruyama Ōkyo, Heron on a Willow Branch, Cleveland Museum of Art 1997.108 Cleveland Museum of Art, CC0.
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi
A pupil of Kuniyoshi who worked with Yoshiiku, illustrated news, and developed long series of historical, everyday and uncanny subjects across the Edo–Meiji transition.
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Moon in the Flame, The Met 2007.49.310 The Met, public domain.
Kawanabe Kyōsai
Trained by Kuniyoshi and Kanō painters, Kyōsai worked across scrolls, prints, books and albums. Explore dated objects and his documented life.
Kawanabe Kyōsai, Eagle Attacking a Monkey, The Met 14.76.64a The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain.
Hishikawa Moronobu
Born into a textile-working family in Hota, Moronobu made illustrated books, single sheets and paintings in Edo. Follow the dated books and surviving records of his life.
Hishikawa Moronobu, Courtesan with a Young Man beside a Screen. The Met 2020.195, public domain.
Tawaraya Sōtatsu
Explore fans, poem cards, ink scrolls and screens while separating Sōtatsu’s own works from his Kyoto studio.
Tawaraya Sōtatsu, The Beach at Sumiyoshi from The Tales of Ise, Cleveland 1951.398 Cleveland Museum of Art, CC0.
Kanō Eitoku
Eitoku’s large screens and wall paintings helped define the scale of Momoyama visual culture.
Hasegawa Tōhaku
Tōhaku’s screens include the Pine Trees, a central work in the history of Japanese ink painting.
Nagasawa Rosetsu
Rosetsu explored animals, landscape and startling changes of scale in Edo painting.
Soga Shōhaku
Shōhaku made forceful figures and landscapes that sit beside, rather than inside, one neat school label.
Suzuki Harunobu
Harunobu’s colour prints and illustrated books help explain the early development of nishiki-e.
Utagawa Kunisada
Kunisada’s prolific actor and beauty prints connect theatre, publishing and changing artist names.
Keisai Eisen
Eisen worked across beauty prints, books and landscape designs, including the Kisokaidō project.
Takehisa Yumeji
Yumeji’s paintings, book covers and illustrated publications cross art and design.
Kuroda Seiki
Kuroda helped shape modern Japanese oil painting through study, teaching and exhibitions.
Uemura Shōen
Shōen’s paintings of women combine precise observation, theatre and modern Japanese painting.
Takeuchi Seihō
Seihō’s animals, Kyoto screens and preparatory drawings show how observation could reshape established formats.
Browse by period
Start with Sesshū for Muromachi ink painting, Eitoku and Tōhaku for Momoyama screens, or the Edo artists for Rinpa and ukiyo-e. Kuroda, Shōen, Seihō and Yumeji lead into modern painting and design.
Browse by school and medium
Follow painting, ink, Rinpa, ukiyo-e, nihonga, yōga or design through the filters above. These labels describe a useful starting point for each artist, not every medium in which that person worked.
A–Z artist index
- Hasegawa Tōhaku
- Hishikawa Moronobu
- Itō Jakuchū
- Kanō Eitoku
- Katsushika Hokusai
- Kawanabe Kyōsai
- Keisai Eisen
- Kitagawa Utamaro
- Kuroda Seiki
- Maruyama Ōkyo
- Nagasawa Rosetsu
- Ogata Kōrin
- Sesshū Tōyō
- Soga Shōhaku
- Suzuki Harunobu
- Takehisa Yumeji
- Takeuchi Seihō
- Tawaraya Sōtatsu
- Tsukioka Yoshitoshi
- Tōshūsai Sharaku
- Uemura Shōen
- Utagawa Hiroshige
- Utagawa Kunisada
- Utagawa Kuniyoshi
References
- Kyoto National Museum, Sesshū: The Great Master of Ink Painting.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rinpa Painting Style.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Woodblock Prints in the Ukiyo-e Style.
- National Gallery of Art, The Colorful Realm of Living Beings.
- British Museum, Tōshūsai Sharaku.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Kyoto: Capital of Artistic Imagination.