Page 329 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

i8 5 • Tani Bunchó seems to have lived a A trusted intimate of chief councilor
Tañí Bunchó (1763 -1840) charmed life as a well-placed son in Matsudaira Sadanobu (1758-1829),
Traueling by Boat in Kumano an upper-class samurai family in Edo. Bunchó accompanied him on an

Two handscrolls; ink and color on silk His training in painting encompassed inspection tour of coastal defenses
from
to prepare for a possible attack
Height 38.2 (15) virtually all of the styles popular in
Yamagata Museum of Art his day, and from these he devised the Russians. Such was Bunchó's
a range of expressions from abstract capacity for realism that he provided
flung-ink landscapes to uncannily Sadanobu with sketches of the area
realistic portraits showing extreme for defense.
western influence. In addition to
being a prolific painter, Bunchó taught
a remarkable number of pupils —
purportedly more than one thousand.
He wrote treatises on painting as well.