Yosa Buson 与謝蕪村

Japanese, 1716–1783

BiographyYosa Buson was the son of a wealthy farmer in Settsu, a village near Osaka. Raised in relative comfort and well educated as a child, Buson left home in his late teens to study haiku poetry with the famous poet Hayano Hajin (1677-1742) in Edo. After the death of his teacher, Buson spent a decade traveling, during which time he supported himself by writing poems and occasionally painting scrolls. In 1751, Buson settled in the Kyôto region and began to pursue his interest in painting seriously. Over the next twenty years, Buson was deeply engaged with both poetry and painting, and by 1770, he was widely regarded as one of the greatest haiku poets and Nanga painters of the age. The final thirteen years of Buson's life were his most productive, and during this period he produced most of the works for which he is best known today. Upon his death in 1783, Buson was honored with burial in a Kyôto temple near the grave of his spiritual mentor, Japan's greatest haiku poet, Matsuo Basho (1644-1694).