The Lineage of Haiga — Buson, Goshun, the Shijō School: The Fusion of Haiku and Painting

What Is Haiga?

Haiga is a work in which a haiku and a painting coexist on a single sheet, fan, or hanging scroll. Not merely “a painting with a haiku added” but an integrated art in which the painting and the verse mutually complement.

Features of haiga:

1. The painting is simple — ink or light color, avoiding detailed realism
2. The verse is written into (or beside) the painting — its beauty as calligraphy is also important
3. Large space is left blank — space for the viewer’s imagination
4. Signature and seal — the artist’s name and seal are part of the composition

This is the result of a fusion between the Japanese tradition of “unity of poetry, calligraphy, and painting” (the thought of Chinese literati painting and Nanga) and the haikai aesthetic of “yūgen, wabi, karumi.”

Early Edo — The Emergence of Haiga

The emergence of haiga is in the era of Bashō and the Shōmon Jittetsu in early Edo. Bashō himself is recorded to have painted, but few surviving works remain. Among his direct disciples, those combining painting and haikai were:

Morikawa Kyoroku (1656-1715)

A retainer of Hikone-han and one of the Shōmon Jittetsu. He studied painting in the Kanō school and painted the portrait of Bashō (“Portrait of Old Master Bashō”). It is one of the principal Bashō portraits surviving today.

Kyoroku’s haiga is an early trial of the technique of the Kanō school + the shōfū haikai. Still in the stage of “adding verse to painting,” it does not yet reach completion as haiga.

Takarai Kikaku (1661-1707)

Center of the Edo school; the disciple of wit. Kikaku’s painting technique was not fully developed, but he published illustrated haiku collections and tried expressions in haiga’s direction.

Mid Edo — Buson’s Completion of Haiga

Haiga was established as an art overwhelmingly by Yosa Buson (1716-1783). Buson was, together with being a haiku poet, a leading figure of the Nanga (literati painting) active in Kyoto. One of the two great masters of mid-Edo Nanga, on a par with Ike no Taiga.

Features of Buson’s Haiga

1. Unity of verse and painting — the image of the verse permeates the painting and vice versa
2. Simple ink painting — small-format intimate haiga, distinct from the large-scale Nanga
3. The verse as calligraphy — Buson’s calligraphy has a distinctive soft brush
4. Restrained color — light color or ink only

Buson’s Representative Haiga

The Painting of “Na no hana ya / tsuki wa higashi ni / hi wa nishi ni”

Multiple works remain in which Buson himself made a painting of his own signature verse. A rapeseed field, the moon in the east, the sun in the west — this composition, painted on silk with light color, with the verse inscribed. Among the most widely known of all haiga.

The Painting of “Haru no umi / hinemosu notari / notari kana”

Depicts the calm shore and a distant boat. The repetition of “notari, notari” corresponds to the painting’s waves.

Ten Conveniences and Ten Suitabilities (Jūben Jūgi Zu, 1771)

A joint work with Ike no Taiga. Painted from the Chinese literatus Li Yu’s (17th-century) poem “Ten Conveniences and Ten Suitabilities” (a poem singing the pleasures of retirement). Taiga in charge of “Ten Conveniences,” Buson of “Ten Suitabilities.” Considered the summit of Nanga, now held at the Tokyo National Museum.

*Nightscape at the Tower (Yashoku Rōdai-zu, c. 1778)

A large horizontal composition of Kyoto’s night scene (snow-falling night, Higashiyama and machiya lamps). A solitary masterpiece in the history of Eastern painting. A representative work of Buson.

The Significance of Buson’s Haiga

Buson’s haiga elevated “painting as a haikai pastime” into an independent art object. The word “haiga” was established around this time, and it became a taste of the educated class of Kyoto and Osaka in mid Edo.

Matsumura Gekkei (Goshun) — From Haiga to the Shijō School

Matsumura Gekkei (1752-1811), later renamed Goshun, was a leading disciple of Yosa Buson, combining painting and haikai within the Buson school.

Goshun initially learned Nanga from Buson but later studied the realistic painting of Maruyama Ōkyo (1733-1795) and fused the two to establish the Shijō school. Goshun’s lineage:

• Maruyama Ōkyo — founder of the shasei-focused Maruyama school
• Matsumura Gekkei (Goshun) — the disciple line of Ōkyo + Buson’s haiga fused; established the Shijō school
• Matsumura Keibun (Goshun’s brother) — succession of the Shijō school
• Shibata Zeshin (1807-1891) — the last great master of Shijō, living into Meiji
• Meiji-era Nihonga — Kōno Bairei, Takeuchi Seihō and others, carrying on the Shijō tradition

The Shijō school became the mainstream of the Kyoto painting scene from the end of the 18th century through the 19th, and, alongside the Maruyama school, one of the great Nihonga schools. “Beginning from haiga and becoming the central institution of the Kyoto painting scene” — that is Goshun’s lineage.

Goshun’s Representative Works

Goshun’s own works:

• Ōkyo Ō Iboku-chō — a memorial for his master Ōkyo
• White Plum Screen — Maruyama-school + Buson-style fusion
• Many haiga — Goshun too left many haiga through his life

Goshun’s haiga is lighter and softer than Buson’s. If Buson is “weight and depth,” Goshun is of the “lightness and elegance” line.

Other Masters of Edo-Era Haiga

Beyond Buson and Goshun, mid to late Edo haiga artists:

Matsuoka Seira (1740-1791)

A haiga master of Kyoto. A generation about 20 years younger than Buson. His own soft haiga.

Takebe Ryōtai (1719-1774)

A haiga master of Edo who painted his own witty haiga. The Edo counterpart to Buson.

Satake Shun (1748-1785)

Mid-Edo Nanga and haiga artist. Died young but with his own style.

Ryūfu (1595-1669)

Early-Edo haiku poet and painter. Disciple of Matsunaga Teitoku of Teimon haikai. Over 100 years before Buson, a precursor of haiga.

Late Edo through Meiji Haiga

After the summit of Buson and Goshun, late-Edo haiga became popular. It spread as an education among merchants, samurai, and wealthy townsmen, and many “amateur haiga” were painted.

Tani Bunchō (1763-1841)

A late-Edo painter who also left many haiga. Not in the Buson lineage, but adopting the style of haiga.

The Culmination of Edo Haiga

Late-Edo saw the publication of many haiga-chō = collections of haiga. A phenomenon that shows the popularization and settling of haiga.

Meiji

After the Meiji Restoration, as Nihonga as a whole shifted with the influx of Western painting, haiga continued as part of Nihonga. But because the haikai education of the Edo era waned, the absolute number of haiga artists declined.

Modern Haiga Artists

Modern (20th-21st century) haiga has lost the vigor of the Edo era, but some artists keep the tradition:

Tomioka Tessai (1836-1924)

Meiji-Taishō literati painter. Not limited to haiga but painting broadly, the last literati painter. A giant of modern Nihonga.

Nakagawa Kazumasa (1893-1991)

A Western-style painter, but he also loved haiku and haiga. One of those who preserved the modern haiga lineage.

Kumagai Morikazu (1880-1977)

Combined his own abstract painting with haiku-like short words. Not called “haiga,” but close in spirit.

Modern Haiga Groups

• The Haiga Society — a modern haiga enthusiasts’ group
• Haiku journals’ haiga sections — major journals (Hototogisu, Ashibi, and others) carry haiga

Modern haiku poets rarely paint haiga. But the idea of “haiku fused with painting” may be inherited in another form by modern SNS haiku (haiku + Instagram photos).

Haiga and Photo Haiku

In the digital environment of the 21st century, “haiku + photograph” combinations have grown active:

• Instagram haiku accounts: haiku + scene photograph
• The photo-haiku movement (shashin-haiku): a modern form proposed by the novelist Morimura Seiichi
• Photo haiku columns in haiku journals: established in modern comprehensive haiku journals

This may be called the modern version of haiga. Digital photography replaces ink painting, and the SNS screen replaces the hanging scroll. But the spirit is the same — the fusion of haiku with visual art.

Only “painting” is replaced by “photography” — the tradition of haiga lives on in another form.

Haiga’s International Expansion

As part of the modern world haiku movement, haiga is being tried in each country:

• English haiga: English haiku + illustration; published in Modern Haiku and other journals
• French haïga: by French haiku enthusiasts
• International haiga contests: hosted by the World Haiku Association

Part of the internationalization of a traditional Japanese art. In the digital age, haiga is crossing borders.

Toward the Next Article

Haiga was “the fusion of haiku with painting,” but 20th-century haiku developed through the institution of the head-led haiku journal. Hototogisu (founded 1897, Kyoshi line), Ashibi (1931-, Shūōshi), Tenrō (1948-, Seishi), Kaitei (1962-, Tōta) — the next article traces the detailed history of these main haiku journals. An investigation of how the infrastructure of modern haiku formed.