Hon’Ami Koetsu

Hon’Ami Koetsu (1558-1637), Japanese calligrapher, potter, designer, and patron of the arts, born in Kyōto to a family of professional sword makers and art connoisseurs. He was one of the most influential and important artists of his time, and he inspired the renowned arts and crafts of Japan's Edo era (1603-1867). From 1604 he produced superbly designed books, poem cards, and scrolls, reviving classical Japanese art traditions of strong color and pattern. Koetsu founded and directed the revivalist artistic movement, called the Rimpa style, which fixed Japanese taste for the next 250 years. After refusing the invitation of shogun (ruler) Tokugawa Ieyasu to go to Edo (now Tokyo), Koetsu was granted lands at Takayamine near Kyōto in 1615; there he founded an artists' colony, where he was joined by other artists and crafts masters of the Nichiren Buddhist sect (see Buddhism), collaborating with them on paintings, ceramics, and lacquer designs. In painting, Koetsu studied the style of Japanese painter Kano Eitoku. He was also a pupil of the great tea master Furuta Oribe, inventor of the ceramic technique known as Oribe ware (see Pottery: Japan). Koetsu's ceramic tea bowls are considered to be among the finest ever made. One of the supreme calligraphers of his era, he also designed lacquerworks combining lead and other materials with silver and gold in dramatic and innovative ways.