Haboku sansui

The Japanese painter and Zen priest Toyo Sesshu (1420-1506) is generally regarded as Japan's greatest painter. His Zen-inspired paintings are credited with establishing a truly Japanese style of ink painting which had a great influence on all later Japanese painting.

The Muromachi, or Ashikaga, period during which Sesshu lived was profoundly influenced by Zen Buddhism, which had been introduced from China during the Kamakura period. Under its impact the Chinese-style ink paintings of the great masters of the Southern Sung period, especially the landscape painters Ma Yüan and Hsia Kuei and the Ch'an painters Mu Ch'i and Yu-chien, served as models for the Japanese painters. Not only did these artists derive their style from China, but the landscape they represented was also that of South China in spite of the fact that many of them had never been there.

Sesshu was born in Bitchu Province in...

Most prominent Japanese Suiboku-ga painting master at the middle part of the Muromachi period (1336 - 1573).
Zen Buddhist monk, painting monk.

Sesshu was born in Akahama of Bicchu Province (=Now Okayama Prefecture).
When he was around 10 years old, he left Bicchu for Kyoto and was educated under Shunrin Shuto at the Shokoku-Ji Temple to become a Rinzai Zen Buddhist priest.
At the same time, Sesshu studied painting under Shubun.
Around 1454, he moved to Yamaguchi of Suo Province (Now Yamaguchi Prefecture) and built the Unkoku-An studio under the aegis of Ouchi daimyo family.

In 1468, Sesshu joined a trading trip between Japan and Ming Dynasty, he landed in Southern China.
For two years, he studied and researched the ink and wash painting wandering from place to place in China.
He also displayed a great talent in China.
In 1469, he went back to Japan.
After the return, he developed confidence and established his maverick Suiboku painting style.

Japanese painter (c. 1420–1506)

"Sesshū" redirects here. For the former Japanese province, see Settsu Province.

Sesshū Tōyō (雪舟 等楊, c. 1420 – August 26, 1506), also known simply as Sesshū (雪舟), was a Japanese Zen monk and painter who is considered a great master of Japanese ink painting. Initially inspired by Chinese landscapes, Sesshū's work holds a distinctively Japanese style that reflects Zen Buddhist aesthetics.^[1] His prominent work captured images of landscapes, portraits, and birds and flowers paintings, infused with Zen Buddhist beliefs, flattened perspective, and emphatic lines.^[2]

Sesshū was born into the samurai Oda family (小田家) and trained at Shōkoku-ji temple in Kyoto, Japan, as a Zen monk.^[1] From his early childhood, Sesshū showed a talent for painting and eventually became widely revered throughout Japan as a wise, reputable Zen scholar, and the greatest painter priest of Zen-Shu.^[3]

Sesshū worked in a painting atelier whilst training under Tenshō Shūbun (c. 1418–1463). But upon visiting China, his w