Soga Shōhaku

Japanese, 1730–1781

Biography(b 1730; d 1781). An innovative, prolific painter active during the Edo period (1600-1868), he is often categorized as an individualist and eccentric. Shohaku was believed to be a native of Ise Province (now Mie Prefect.), but recent scholarship suggests that he was born into the merchant Miura family of Kyoto. Shohaku seems to have adopted the family name Soga in his mid-20s, probably to enhance his reputation as a painter and to suggest that he was heir to one of the great lineages of Japanese ink painting. He claimed to be the tenth generation descendant of Jasoku, an artist's name (go) employed by Echizen Soga artists. He also used a seal which read 'Jasokuken'. Like several earlier Soga painters, he painted figural subjects based on Chinese legend. His works include many expressive paintings executed in monochrome ink, but his idiosyncratic style was apparently not based on paintings by other Soga artists. Always charged with great energy, his brushwork is sometimes broad and abbreviated, and sometimes complex and convoluted.

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