Early life, training, and travels Buson was born in the village of Kema in
Settsu Province (present-day Kema,
Miyakojima Ward,
Osaka). His original family name was Taniguchi. Buson scarcely discussed his childhood, but it is commonly thought that he was the illegitimate son of the
village head and a migrant worker from Yoza. According to the Taniguchi family in
Yosano,
Kyoto, Buson was the son of a servant woman named Gen, who had come to work in Osaka and had a child with her master. A grave of Gen survives in Yosano. There is an oral tradition that the young Buson had been cared for at the Seyaku-ji temple in Yosano, and later, when Buson returned to
Tango Province, he gave the temple a
folding screen painting as a gift. Around the age of 20, Buson moved to
Edo (present-day
Tokyo). He learned poetry under the tutelage of the
haikai master Hayano Hajin, who named the house he taught in Yahantei (Midnight Pavilion). After Hajin died, Buson moved to
Shimōsa Province (present-day
Ibaraki Prefecture). Following in the footsteps of his idol, Matsuo Bashō, Buson travelled through the wilds of northern
Honshū that had been the inspiration for Bashō's famous travel diary,
Oku no Hosomichi (
The Narrow Road to the Interior). He published his notes from the trip in 1744, marking the first time he published under the name Buson. After travelling through various parts of Japan, including Tango (the northern part of present-day
Kyoto Prefecture) and
Sanuki Province (present-day
Kagawa Prefecture), Buson settled down in the city of
Kyoto at the age of 42. Around this time, he began to write under the name of Yosa, which he took from his mother's birthplace (
Yosa,
Tango Province). Between 1754 and 1757, Buson worked on the collection of haiga-style picture scrolls,
Buson yōkai emaki. Buson married at the age of 45 and had one daughter, Kuno. At the age of 51, he left his wife and children in Kyoto and went to Sanuki Province to work on many works.
Later work and death After returning to Kyoto again, he wrote and taught poetry at the
Sumiya. As models for his pupils, he singled out four of Bashō's disciples:
Kikaku,
Kyorai,
Ransetsu, and Sodō. In 1770, he assumed the '''' (, haiku
pen name) of Yahantei II (二世, "Midnight Studio"), which had been the pen name of his teacher Hajin. Buson died at the age of 68 and was buried at
Konpuku-ji temple in Kyoto. The cause of death was previously diagnosed as severe diarrhea, but recent investigations indicate that it was myocardial infarction. His work is kept in many museums worldwide, including the
Seattle Art Museum, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, the
University of Michigan Museum of Art, the
Harvard Art Museums, the
Worcester Art Museum, the
Kimbell Art Museum, and the
British Museum. ==Sample poems==