?kyo Maruyama

Biography

Born a farmer's son, Okyo went to Kyoto to train with the Kano master Ishida Yutei and became a popular and extremely influential artist as well as the founder of a major new painting school. He specialised in a close observations of nature, but also drew on the tradition of Chinese bird-and-flower painting.

He was the second son of Maruyama T?zaemon, a farmer in Anao village in Tanba Province (now Kameoka City, Kyoto Prefecture). His artist names also include Issh?, Kaun, and Senry?. The name '?kyo' is a Chinese phonetic reading of his name, which was originally read 'Masataka'. Said to have first worked as an apprentice to a kimono merchant, and later moved to a 'biidoro (glass) tool shop' where he created stereoscope paintings. Also studied under Ishida Yutei, a painter of the Tsurusawa branch of the Kan? school. He had a close relationship with the Mitsui family of wealthy merchants, for whom he painted 'Snowy Pines,' now at the Mitsui Memorial Museum collection. His realistic paintings based on sketches became popular and he appears at the head of the painting section in the 1775 (An'ei 4) and 1782 (Tenmei 2) editions of Heian Jinbutsu Shi. His gravesite is at Goshinji Temple in Uzumasa, Ukyo Ward, Kyoto.