was the 8th ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and n ...

'' of Kubota Domain in Dewa Province,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

(modern-day

Akita Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Provinces and prefectures" in ; "Tōhoku" in . Its population is approximately 966,000 (as of 1 October 2019) and its ge ...

), and then 26th hereditary chieftain of the

Satake clan The was a Japanese samurai clan that claimed descent from the Minamoto clan. Its first power base was in Hitachi Province. The clan was subdued by Minamoto no Yoritomo in the late 12th century, but later entered Yoritomo's service as vassals ...

. His

courtesy title A courtesy title is a title that does not have legal significance but rather is used through custom or courtesy, particularly, in the context of nobility, the titles used by children of members of the nobility (cf. substantive title). In some co ...

was '' Ukyo-daifu'' and ''Jijū'' and his Court rank was Junior Fourth Rank, Lower Grade. He was also founder of the '' Akita ranga'' school of

Japanese painting is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese visual arts, encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the long history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis and competitio ...

and is more commonly known by his pen name, .

Biography

Satake Yoshiatsu was the eldest son of Satake Yoshiharu and was born at the domain's

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

residence. He became ''daimyō'' on his father's death in 1758. He was received in formal audience by

Shogun , officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamakur ...

Tokugawa Ieharu in 1763 and made his first visit to his domain in 1765. The domain had been devastated by years of crop failures, peasant uprisings, plots among his retainers and fiscal mismanagement by his predecessors. Yoshiatsu sought to escape this reality through art, and was a member of a painting coterie which included fellow ''daimyō''

Yamauchi Toyochika Yamauchi or Yamanouchi (やまうち or やまのうち, lit. "inside mountains") is a Japanese surname. Either name is written in kanji as 山内 while Yamanouchi can also be written as 山ノ内. Notable people with the surname include: *Yamanou ...

Tosa Domain The was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, controlling all of Tosa Province in what is now Kōchi Prefecture on the island of Shikoku. It was centered around Kōchi Castle, and was ruled throughout its history by t ...

and

Shimazu Shigehide Shimazu is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Esther Shimazu (born 1957), American/Hawaiian sculptor * Saeko Shimazu (born 1959), Japanese voice actress * Shimazu clan, ''daimyō'' of the Satsuma han * Shimazu Hisamitsu ...

Satsuma Domain The , briefly known as the , was a domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1602 to 1871. The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of Kagoshima, ...

. At the time, the

Kanō school The is one of the most famous schools of Japanese painting. The Kanō school of painting was the dominant style of painting from the late 15th century until the Meiji period which began in 1868, by which time the school had divided into many di ...

of painting was considered orthodoxy, and painting was regarded as a "gentleman's hobby"; however, Yoshiatsu devoted all of his time and efforts into painting, developing a new style which combined western techniques with Japanese themes. Along with his retainer Odano Naotake, he produced a number of paintings in the Dutch style and in 1778, he wrote the ''Gahō Kōryō'' (画法綱領), the first work on western painting to be written in Japan. He was also a student of '' rangaku'' (Dutch studies) scholar Hiraga Gennai, whom he had invited to Akita to advise him on management of the domain's copper mines (Akita was the primary source of copper in the Japanese archipelago during this period). He died in 1785, at the young age of 38. He was married to a daughter of Yamauchi Toyonobu of Tosa Domain and at least three concubines, by whom he had four sons and six daughters.

References

"Akita ranga" at JAANUS
Accessed 16 May 2007. * Frederic, Louis (2002). "Satake Shozan." ''Japan Encyclopedia.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. * Tazawa, Yutaka: Satake Shozan. In: Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Art. Kodansha International, 1981. . * Laurance P. Roberts: Shozan. In: A Dictionary of Japanese Artists. Weatherhill, 1976. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Satake, Yoshiharu 1723 births 1757 deaths Satake clan Tozama daimyo People of Edo-period Japan Japanese painters

Biography

See also

References