Saru Gallery
       Japanese Prints & Japanese Paintings

Biography Eisen, Keisai (1790 - 1848)

Eisen's artistic origins are rather obscure; we know for sure that around 1810 he met Kikugawa Eiji, a Kanô school painter, and went to live with him as his pupil. There he made the acquaintance with Kikugawa Eiji's son, Kikugawa Eizan, who had already made name as an ukiyo-e artist, working in the tradition of Kitagawa Utamaro, who had died in 1806.
Around 1820 Eisen's bijin-ga (pictures of women) first appeared, followed by many shunga prints and landscape prints. In all his works his own personality is always in evidence: he did things his own way, and what he made was competent at the very least.
His best works are his okubi-e (half-length portraits) and his Kisokaido landscape prints.