Kanbun Master

Who is Kanbun Master?

The Kanbun Master was a Japanese woodblock print artist and mentor to Hishikawa Moronobu, who is generally considered to have founded the genre known as ukiyo-e. As no signed works by the Kanbun Master are known to survive, he remains anonymous and known only by the pseudonym assigned him by scholar Richard Lane on account of his having flourished during the Kanbun era on the Japanese Imperial calendar.

The precise relationship between the Master and Moronobu is unclear, and there are a number of works attributed to each which may have actually been created by the other, or yet another artist. As so little is known about the Master, is it not even clear whether or not he had any direct relationship with Moronobu at all, or if the latter was simply influenced by the Master's work. In fact, scholars are not even sure whether the works attributed to the Kanbun Master were even by a single hand, or if they were created by a greater number of anonymous artists.

Roughly fifty illustrated books are attributed to the Kanbun Master, including a number of shunga works, novels, guidebooks, poetry anthologies, jōruri plays, and courtesan critiques. The Master also produced a number of paintings, and some of the first single-sheet woodblock printed images. The majority of these works were in the shunga mode, and all except the paintings were done in monochrome black ink, with a minimum of color added by hand.