A World of Edo Art
Maruyama Ōkyo (1733–1795) was the most popular painter of the late eighteenth century. Although he was born into a farming family, as a child he preferred making art to farming, so his family apprenticed him as a teenager to a shop in Kyoto where his talents for design and painting were recognized. Ōkyo then seriously studied painting as an apprentice to Ishida Yūtei, a Kanō School painter. Ōkyo is closely associated with shasei, the practice of painting directly from nature. When Ōkyo painted a subject, instead of relying on an image in his head, or on traditional examples, he explored how to depict its exterior surface, creating the illusion of being in its presence. Ōkyo's approach became immensely popular, resulting in a new artistic standard that he taught to his disciples in the Maruyama-Shijō School that he established. He made paintings more accessible for a wider audience at a point when many more people were commissioning and owning art.
