Shiba Kokan
Encyclopedia
, born Suzuki Harushige (鈴木 春重), was a Japanese painter and printmaker of the Edo period
Edo period
The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

, famous both for his Western-style yōga
Yoga (art)
or literally "Western-style paintings" is a term used to describe paintings by Japanese artists that have been made in accordance with Western traditional conventions, techniques and materials...

paintings, in imitation of Dutch oil painting styles, methods, and themes, which he painted as Kōkan, and his ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e
' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...

 prints, primarily forgeries of the works of Suzuki Harunobu
Suzuki Harunobu
was a Japanese woodblock print artist, one of the most famous in the Ukiyo-e style. He was an innovator, the first to produce full-color prints in 1765, rendering obsolete the former modes of two- and three-color prints. Harunobu used many special techniques, and depicted a wide variety of...

, which he created under the name Harushige. Kōkan did not seek to hide or disguise his forgeries, and in fact is said to have boasted of his ability to forge the great master so well.

A student of Suzuki Harunobu, Sō Shiseki
Sō Shiseki
' was a Japanese painter of the Nagasaki and Nanpin schools.Originally from Edo, he spent some time in Nagasaki, where he studied under the Chinese painter Song Ziyan, who was known as Sō Shigan in Japanese...

, and Hiraga Gennai
Hiraga Gennai
was an Edo period Japanese pharmacologist, student of Rangaku, physician, author, painter and inventor who is well known for his Erekiteru , Kandankei and Kakanpu...

, Kōkan mastered a number of very different styles, and was also a great innovator, exploring new methods and styles on his own. He became the first Japanese artist, in 1783, to use copperplate engraving to successful effect. Following Harunobu's death in 1770, Kōkan placed Harunobu's signature on a number of his own prints, which were supposedly accepted as true works of Harunobu at the time. Today, art historians have noted the distinctive calligraphic style of the faked Harunobu signature, the use of Western-style perspective, and the somewhat less delicate figures in works by "Harushige" (Kōkan).

Like many other Edo period artists, Kōkan used a great variety of other names at various points in his career, though "Shiba Kōkan", "Suzuki Harushige", and close variations on those appear far more often. Variations include Shiba Shun and Suzuki Shun (shun being an alternate reading of the same character
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

 that forms the haru of Harunobu or Harushige), while his other names include Andō, Kichijirō, Katsusaburō, Fugen-dōjin, Kungaku, Rantei, and Shunparō.

Kōkan lived in Nagasaki, and was a student of rangaku
Rangaku
Rangaku is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Western technology and medicine in the period when the country was closed to foreigners, 1641–1853, because of the Tokugawa shogunate’s policy of national...

(Dutch studies) in addition to his pursuits as an artist. Interested in astronomy in particular, he wrote and illustrated a book on Copernicus' theories, entitled Kopperu temmon zukai (コッペル天文図解, Illustrated Explanation of Copernicus' Astronomy).
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