26 Facts About Shibata Zeshin

Shibata Zeshin was a Japanese lacquer painter and print artist of the late Edo period and early Meiji era.

Shibata Zeshin has been called "Japan's greatest lacquerer", but his reputation as painter and print artist is more complex: In Japan, he is known as both too modern, a panderer to the Westernization movement, and an overly conservative traditionalist who did nothing to stand out from his contemporaries.

Shibata Zeshin's father, who had taken his wife's family name of Shibata, was an experienced ukiyo-e painter, having studied under Katsukawa Shunsho.

At age eleven, Kametaro, as Shibata Zeshin was called in his childhood, became apprenticed to a lacquerer named Koma Kansai II.

At age 13, the young man who would become Shibata Zeshin abandoned the name Kametaro and became Junzo.

Shibata Zeshin arranged for young Shibata to study under Suzuki Nanrei, a great painter of the Shijo school.

Shibata Zeshin then took on yet another artist's name, abandoning Junzo and signing his works "Reisai," using the Rei from Suzuki Nanrei, and the sai from Koma Kansai.

Shibata Zeshin learned not only the basics of painting and sketching, but Japanese tea ceremony, haiku and waka poetry, history, literature and philosophy.

Shibata Zeshin later studied under other great artists of the Kyoto school, including Maruyama Okyo, Okamoto Toyohiko, and Goshin.

Koma Kansai died in 1835, and Shibata Zeshin inherited the Koma School workshop.

Shibata Zeshin took on a young man by the name of Ikeda Taishin as a pupil; Taishin would remain his pupil and close friend until his death in 1903.

Shibata Zeshin married in 1849 and named his first son Reisai, but lost his mother and his wife both soon afterwards.

Shibata Zeshin compensated by using bronze to simulate the look and texture of iron, and with a variety of other substances and decorative styles to keep his work beautiful, while remaining traditional and doable.

Shibata Zeshin was later made Japan's official representative to several international expositions, including Vienna in 1873, Philadelphia the following year, and Paris, although he did not personally attend any of these.

One year before his death in 1891, Shibata Zeshin was granted the immense honor of membership in the newly created Imperial Art Committee and is today the only artist who has been recognized in 2 fields of work.

Today, one of the greatest collections of Shibata Zeshin's works is the Khalili Collections of London, containing over 100 works by the artist.

Shibata Zeshin invented a method of painting with lacquer sap directly on paper sized with dosa, to prevent flaking when his urushi-e scroll paintings were rolled up.

Shibata Zeshin used bronze in his lacquer to simulate the appearance and texture of iron, and cereal starch to thicken his lacquer to simulate, at least in some respects, the effect of Western oil painting.

Shibata Zeshin remains, in fact, the only artist to be successful in the medium of urushi-e, as it requires specially treated paper, and a very particular consistency of lacquer to be used as paint.

Shibata Zeshin revived a complex lacquer technique called seikai-ha to produce wave forms by drawing a comb through the rapidly solidifying lacquer; this technique is so difficult it had not been used for over a century.

However, although he used many revolutionary elements in his work, both technically and creatively, Shibata Zeshin's works were always, on the whole, very traditional.

Shibata Zeshin copied a famous painting of a tiger by his teacher Maruyama Okyo, in lacquer.

Shibata Zeshin's signature was always quite subdued, and on occasion he would be playful with the idea of the signature.

Nevertheless, that said, Shibata Zeshin's works are often labeled as iki, and considered to have just the right balance of tradition with the new, being beautiful but not gaudy and simple but not boring and smart but not arrogant.

Shibata Zeshin's style has been compared by some to haiku, in that its beauty and meaning is more powerful in what is not shown than by what is.

Exhibitions of Shibata Zeshin's works have taken place in various institutions internationally.