was a Japanese painter, book illustrator, and art teacher. He was born (as Yasuda Bairei) and lived in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ...

. He was a member of the broad Maruyama-Shijo school and was a master of kacho-e painting (depictions of birds and flowers) in the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

of Japan.

Biography

In 1852, he went to study with the ''Maruyama-school'' painter, Nakajima Raisho (1796–1871). After Raisho's death, Bairei studied with the Shijo-school master Shiokawa Bunrin (1808–77). His work included flower prints, bird prints , and landscapes, with a touch of western realism. Bairei's Album of One Hundred BirdsBairei Hyakucho Gafu
/ref> was published in 1881. He opened an art school in 1880 and his students included

Takeuchi Seihō (December 20, 1864 – August 23, 1942) was a Japanese painter of the ''Nihonga'' genre, active from the Meiji through the early Shōwa period. One of the founders of ''nihonga'', his works spanned half a century and he was regarded as master o ...

, Kawai Gyokudō, and

Uemura Shōen was the pseudonym of an artist in Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa period Japanese painting. Her real name was Uemura Tsune. Shōen was known primarily for her ''bijin-ga,'' or paintings of beautiful women, in the ''nihonga'' style, although sh ...

External links

The Lavenberg Collection - Kōno Bairei

Brooklyn Museum - Owls On Tree Limb

Notes

1844 births 1895 deaths People from Kyoto Japanese printmakers Japanese illustrators 19th-century Japanese painters Imperial household artists {{Japan-painter-stub