A World of Edo Art
Mori Sosen (1747–1821) emerged in the wake of Maruyama Ōkyo's popularity in the Kyoto area and strategically transformed himself into a specialist of monkey paintings. Sōsen first studied painting in the Kanō School, but after his teacher's death, he became closely associated with the Maruyama-Shijō school. He was an unrivaled master at the virtuosic rendering of animal furs and is said to have observed monkeys in their natural habitats to depict them as realistically as possible. He became so closely associated with monkey painting that on his sixtieth birthday he actually changed a character of his name Sosen, to mean, "monkey" instead of "ancestor." He is, therefore, the monkey painter of Japan.
