Saru Gallery
       Japanese Prints & Japanese Paintings

Biography Renzan, Kishi 連山 岸 (1805 - 1859)

Renzan was born as Toku or Shōtoku in 1805. He lived in Kyoto and was adopted into the Kishi family.
He was trained in the studio of Kishi Ganku, his father-in-law, together with Ganku’s son Kishi Gantai, Yokoyama Kazan, Minwa Bumpō and Shōdō. Together they were the second generation of the famous Kishi school.
Of all the followers of the Kishi school Renzan has the greatest reputation in Japan. He rose to a position of some importance in Kyoto. Where Kishi Ganku’s style is strongly influenced by the influence of the traditional style of the Chinese painter Nanpin, the second generation was more open to modern influences. Renzan’s work starts off in the Ganku style and gains in freedom, softness and quality in the artistic communication with the Shijō school, which developed at the same time.
After Ganku’s death he was the leader of the Kishi school, together with his brother-in-law Kishi Gantai.

Recurring themes are landscapes, animals and birds, which, like the best of Shijō, show a great intuitive feeling for the true nature of his objects.
His best-known pupil is Kishi Chikudō. He died in 1859..

References:
Araki, Tsune (ed), Dai Nihon shôga meika taikan, Tokyo 1975 (1934), p. 923
Roberts, Laurance P., A Dictionary of Japanese artists, New York, 1976, p.129