Satake Shozan
The eighth lord of the Akita domain in the mid-Edo period, a daimyo painter who himself painted in the Western-influenced Akita ranga style. He wrote Gaho Koryo and Gazu Rikai, regarded as the first Western-style art theory written in Japan.
Satake Shozan was born in 1748 (Kan'en 1); his real name was Yoshiatsu. In 1758 (Horeki 8), upon his father's death, he became lord of the Akita domain at the age of 11. He first studied Kano-school painting, but after inviting Hiraga Gennai to the domain in 1773 (An'ei 2) to develop its mines, he came to take a strong interest in Western painting methods.
Shozan sent the domain samurai Odano Naotake to Edo to study realistic Western methods under Gennai. He himself learned from Naotake how to use pigments and painted Western-style pictures, and in 1778 (An'ei 7) he wrote Gaho Koryo and Gazu Rikai, which set out ideas about perspective and shading. These are regarded as Japan's first writings on Western painting theory.
Many of his works take birds, flowers, and still life as subjects, and are marked by vivid, dreamlike color that makes use of the imported blue pigment Prussian blue. He died in 1785 (Tenmei 5) at the age of 38. His works can be seen at the Akita Senshu Museum of Art, including "Irises and a Knife" and "Bamboo and Java Sparrow."
