|
|
|
Biography of Tawaraya Sotatsu
Name: Tawaraya Sotatsu
Birth Date: c. 1570
Death Date: c. 1643
Place of Birth: N/A
Nationality: Japanese
Gender: Male
Occupations: painter
Tawaraya Sotatsu
Tawaraya Sotatsu (ca. 1570-ca. 1643) is considered among the giants of Japanese painting. His work is typically Japanese both in its choice of subject matter and in its rather abstract, decorative design.Little is known about the life and artistic career of Sotatsu. It is believed that he came from a family of well-to-do cloth merchants and that he grew up in the Kyoto area. The first fact about his life is that in 1602 he was employed to repair the famous 12th-century sutra scrolls which the Taira family had dedicated to the Itsukushima shrine. Even more significant is the fact that in 1630 the rank of hokkyo was bestowed upon him, indicating that by this time the artist must have achieved considerable fame and success. The few other references to Sotatsu suggest that he was part of a circle of influential Kyoto tea masters and esthetes and that he collaborated at various …showed first 150 words…
You are viewing only a small portion of the biography.
Please login or register to access the full copy.
|
|
…showed last 150 words…by his friend Koetsu.Although Sotatsu's fame rests primarily on these screens and horizontal hand scrolls, he also painted numerous smaller pictures in the form of fans, album leaves, and hanging scrolls, some of the scrolls being in monochrome rather than color. Here again the question of authenticity is much debated, for Sotatsu had many followers and imitators who continued his type of painting after his death. The most famous of these artists were his son Sosetu and, somewhat later, Korin. Further Reading The best and most complete book is Yuzo Yamane, ed., Sotatsu (Tokyo, 1962), which although written in Japanese, contains a summary and descriptions of plates in English. Briefer studies in English are Judith and Arthur Hart Burling, Sotatsu (1962), and Ichimatsu Tanaka, ed., Tawaraya Sotatsu, adapted into English by Elise Grilli (1956). For general background see Hugo Munsterberg, Arts of Japan (1957), and Peter C. Swann, Art of the World: Japan (1966).
|
|
275 words per page