Japanese Irises, Ogata Kōrin Desk Mat

Kōrin was born in Kyoto, to a wealthy merchant who had a taste for the arts and is said to have given his son some elementary instruction therein. Kōrin also studied under Soken Yamamoto, the Kanō school, Tsunenobu and Gukei Sumiyoshi, and was greatly influenced by his predecessors Hon'ami Kōetsu and Tawaraya Sōtatsu. Kōrin broke away from all tradition, and developed a very original and quite distinctive style of his own, both in painting and in the decoration of lacquer. The characteristic of this is a bold impressionism, which is expressed in few and simple highly idealized forms, with an absolute disregard for both realism and the usual conventions. In lacquer, Kōrin's use of white metals and of mother-of-pearl is notable; but herein he followed Koyetsu. Korin died at the age of fifty-nine.