Ike no Taiga (1723–1776) was a painter and calligrapher of the mid-Edo period, and one of the founding figures of the Japanese literati painting school known as Nanga or Bunjinga.
He was born in Kyoto in 1723, the son of a minor official who died when Taiga was young. A gifted child, he is said to have studied calligraphy from the age of six and to have shown early skill at writing in the Chinese manner. He grew up in and around Kyoto, then the cultural heart of Japan, and spent much of his life there.
Taiga built his art on the example of Chinese scholar-painters, whose work reached Japan through imported manuals and printed albums. From these models he drew the literati ideal of painting as a personal, contemplative pursuit rather than a professional trade. Yet he was no mere copyist: his brushwork is loose, warm, and inventive, with soft washes and a rhythm entirely his own. He experimented freely, at times painting with his fingers rather than a brush.
Among his best-known works are the landscape screens and album leaves that show wandering scholars among mountains and rivers, and his collaborations on the album Jūben Jūgi ("Ten Conveniences and Ten Pleasures"), made with the painter and poet Yosa Buson. He was also a tireless traveller, climbing mountains across Japan and drawing on what he saw.
With Buson, Taiga is counted among the two masters who established Nanga as a serious current in Japanese art. His warmth and spontaneity set the tone for generations of literati painters who followed. His wife, Ike Gyokuran, was herself a respected painter and poet, and the two formed one of the notable artistic couples of the age.
Taiga's legacy is that of an artist who took a borrowed tradition and made it speak in a Japanese voice — relaxed, humane, and deeply personal. He died in Kyoto in 1776.
If you want to know more about the artist: Ike no Taiga - Wikipedia
