Tessai was born in either 1836 or 1837 in
Kyoto, as the second son of Tomioka Korenobu, who sold sacerdotal robes. Because his hearing was not good his parents decided he should be a scholar, rather than a merchant. He was educated as a scholar in classical
Chinese philosophy and
literature and the ancient Japanese classics under noted
kokugaku scholar Okuni Tadamasa. Tessai's father died in 1843, when he was only seven. The family fortunes declined, and young Tessai became a page at a
Shinto shrine. Twelve years later, he came to be lodged with the now-famous
Buddhist poet and nun
Ōtagaki Rengetsu, who would become his greatest scholarly mentor and supporter. He developed his own style over the next decade or so, studying under a number of accomplished painters. In 1861, Tessai opened a private school in Rengetsu's house to teach painting; he went on to become a teacher at the newly inaugurated
Ritsumeikan University in 1868. He also did some work for the new
Meiji government, contributing maps and
topographical charts he created. Throughout the Meiji period, Tessai traveled extensively, visiting famous and scenic places that would later become subjects of his paintings. He was able to see many different sides of the country all the way from
Nagasaki to
Hokkaidō. He also served as a Shinto priest at a number of different shrines, but ultimately resigned from his final post when his brother died, so that he could look after his mother. After Tessai settled back in Kyoto in 1882, he championed the old styles of Japanese traditional painting against the new influences of Western art (
yōga), then becoming more and more popular, and was thus a participant in the early
nihonga movement. Tessai's early works followed the
bunjinga styles of the early 19th century, although he also worked in almost all of the styles associated with Kyoto:
Rimpa,
Yamato-e,
Otsu-e, etc. However, his mature style concentrated on
Nanga, or
Chinese style paintings based on the late
Ming dynasty artists from
Suzhou and
Jiangsu Provinces, which had been introduced to Japan by
Sakaki Hyakusen. Tessai tended towards use of rich colors to portray scenes of people in
landscapes, with a composition intended to evoke or illustrate a historical or literary episode. He also sometimes made use of religious imagery, combining depictions of
Buddhist bodhisattva with
Daoist or
Confucian figures to symbolize the unity of Asian religious traditions. Tessai's final works either use very brilliant colors, or else were monochrome ink with dense, rough brushwork and occasional slight jarring touches of bright pigments. In the 1890s, he was appointed a judge of the Young Men's Society of Painting, and became a professor at the Kyoto Fine Arts School soon afterwards. He also took part in the founding of several other art associations, including the Nanga Association of Japan. His mother died in 1895, but Tessai continued to have close relations with his family and gained a granddaughter several years later. In 1907, he was appointed official painter to
Emperor Meiji, who so liked his works that his commission was extended to cover the
Imperial Household Agency as a
court painter in 1917. He was also appointed a member of the
Imperial Fine Arts Academy (
Teikoku Bijutsu-in) in 1919. Throughout his life, Tessai served as a
Shinto priest and a scholar. He was an extremely prolific painter, and it is estimated that he painted approximately 20,000 paintings in the course of his career. On one occasion he completed 70 paintings in a single day. Tessai's best works were created in the last years of his life, from age 80 to his death in 1924 at age 88. The largest collection of Tessai's works is at the Tessai Memorial Museum, a private art museum within the grounds of the Kiyoshikojin Seicho-ji, a Buddhist temple in
Takarazuka, Hyogo. His art is also kept in the
Princeton University Art Museum,
University of Michigan Museum of Art, the
National Museum of Asian Art, the
British Museum, the
Seattle Art Museum, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, the
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the
Birmingham Museum of Art, the
Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. ==Important works==