Kubo Shunman (Japanese: 窪 俊満; c. 1757 – 26 October 1820) was a Japanese artist and writer. He produced ukiyo-e prints and paintings, gesaku novels, and kyōka and haiku poetry.
Shunman was born in about 1757 (Hōreki 7 on the Japanese calendar) with the surname of either Kubo (窪) or Kubota (窪田) and the given name Yasubei (易兵衛or安兵衛).[1] He was orphaned while young.[2] He studied under Katori Nahiko [ja], a poet, kokugaku scholar, and painter in the style of the Chinese Shen Quan. He later also studied under the ukiyo-e artist Kitao Shigemasa.[1]
Upon finishing his apprenticeship took the art nameShunman (first spelt 春満, later 俊満). Other art names he used include Shōsadō (尚左堂) and Sashōdō (左尚堂), both of which use the character 左 sa, meaning "left", as he was left-handed.[1] Early in his career he published as a gesaku novelist under the names Nandaka Shiran (南陀伽 紫蘭) and Kizandō (黄山堂), as a kyōka poet under the name Hitofushi Chitsue (一節 千杖),[3] and as a haiku poet under the name (塩辛房).[1] He had a heightened sense of beauty and devoted himself to the pleasure-seeking world.[1]
Shunman's earliest works dates to 1774: a votive plaque copied from Nahiko. His works include some ukiyo-e prints, book illustrations, paintings, illustrated novels, and poetry. He was the most prolific producer of paintings in the Kitao school; more than 70 of his paintings survive.[2]
His best known prints come from the Tenmei (1781–1789) through the Kansei (1789–1801) eras, when Shunman tended toward boldly florid colours in his prints, and adhered to the beni-girai [ja] ("red-hating") trend of avoiding reds and other flashy colours. His bijin-ga portraits of beauties were less in the stately style of his master Shigemasa than in that of the long, slender beauties of Torii Kiyonaga.[1]
Shunman was a member of the poets' clubs Bakuro-ren and Rokujuen, and became head of Bakuro-ren. He stopped making designing commercial prints in 1790 to focus on deluxe commissioned prints, and provided poetry for the prints of Hokusai, Utamaro, and Eishi.[2]
Media related to Kubo Shunman at Wikimedia Commons
Japan
Poetry
Visual arts
