Maruyama–Shijō school

Maruyama Ōkyo (1733–1795) is said to have always carried a sketchbook, recording animals, insects, and plants from every angle. When young he also made megane-e, views drawn with Western perspective that look three-dimensional through a lens. On this footing of sketching from life he painted traditional subjects as richly decorative large pictures on screens and sliding doors, favored by wealthy Kyoto townspeople such as the Mitsui family. Goshun, who had learned haikai poetry and literati painting from Yosa Buson, worked with Ōkyo after Buson's death and built a style that took in Ōkyo's realism. His pupils lived around Shijō Street, so his line was called the Shijō school; together with Ōkyo's Maruyama school it is known as the Maruyama–Shijō school. Through Kōno Bairei and Takeuchi Seihō the line ran on into the nihonga of modern Kyoto.

Look at snow, mist, or water and ask where the painter laid color and where the paper was left bare. In the national treasure Pine Trees in Snow, the snow on the pines is not white paint but the white of the paper left unpainted.

Does this picture look as if it were drawn from the real thing? Where do you feel that?

• Nihonga 日本画→The Maruyama–Shijō line ran on into modern Kyoto nihonga.