Sesson Shukei · Died c. 1589 (birth year uncertain)
Sesson Shukei
Sesson Shukei was a painter-monk of the late Muromachi and Sengoku periods who worked in ink painting. Said to have come from the Satake clan of Hitachi Province, he traveled through the Kanto and Tohoku regions and developed a distinctive style.
Sesson Shukei is said to have been born in Hetari, Hitachi Province (now Hitachiomiya, Ibaraki Prefecture), the eldest son of a branch of the Satake clan. His birth year is unclear, and he is said to have died around 1589 (Tensho 17). He did not take over the family, entering a temple at an early age and becoming a Zen monk.
From his mid-fifties he traveled through the Kanto region, and is said to have enjoyed the patronage of warlords such as the Ashina of Aizu and the Later Hojo of Odawara. From his mid-sixties he was active mainly in Oshu, and in his last years he is said to have lived in a hermitage in what is now Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, under the protection of the Tamura clan of Miharu.
Admiring the styles of Shubun and Sesshu, he went on to develop his own distinctive manner and founded a school of his own. He excelled most at landscape painting and was also skilled at bird-and-flower and figure painting. Works such as Landscapes of Summer and Winter and Hawk and Landscape screens are known.
