Maruyama Okyo (1733 - 1795). Maruyama Okyo, born Maruyama Masataka, was a Japanese artist active in the late 18th century. He moved to Kyoto, during which he studied artworks from Chinese, Japanese and Western sources. A personal style of Western naturalism mixed with Eastern decorative design emerged, and Okyo founded the Maruyama school of painting. Although many of his fellow artists criticized his work as too slavishly devoted to natural representation, it proved a success with laymen. Okyo was born into a farming family in Ano-o, in present-day Kameoka, Kyoto. As a teenager, he moved to Kyoto and joined the townspeople class. He apprenticed for a toy shop, where he painted the faces onto dolls. The shop began selling European stereoscopes, novelties that when looked into presented the illusion of a three-dimensional image. It was Okyo's first look at Western-style perspective, and in 1767 he tried his hand at one of the images. He created Harbour View, a small picture in single-point perspective. Okyo soon mastered the techniques of drawing stereoscope images. Okyo decided to pursue a career as an artist. He first studied under Ishida Yūtei, a member of the Kano school and ultimately a bigger influence on Okyo than the stereoscope images. During these formative years, Okyo studied Chinese painting as well. He particularly admired the works of Qian Xuan, a 13th-century painter known for his detailed flower drawings, and Qiu Ying, a 16th-century figure painter. In fact, the kyo in Okyo's name was adopted in tribute to Ch'ien Hsüan. Okyo even briefly adopted the Chinese practice of signing his name with one character, so for a time he was known as Okyo En. He studied the works of Shen Quan, a Chinese artist who lived in Nagasaki from 1731 to 1733 and painted images of flowers. However, Okyo did not like the artist's treatment of proportion, preferring the works of Watanabe Shiko. He also studied Ming and Qing paintings. Perhaps most significantly, Okyo eagerly studied any Western paintings or prints he could find. Okyo's first major commission came in 1768 from Yūjo, abbot of a temple in Otsu called Enman'in. Over the next three years, Okyo painted The Seven Misfortunes and Seven Fortunes, a depiction of the results of both bad and good karma. The three scrolls total about 148 ft in length. Okyo tried to find models for the people depicted in them, even for the shocking images such as a man being ripped in two by frightened bulls. His introduction to the work states that he believed that people needed to see reality, not imaginary images of Nirvana or Hell, if they were to truly believe in Buddhist principles. Other painters were critical of Okyo's style. They found it to be overly concerned with physical appearances, alleging that he was too beholden to the real world and produced undignified works. Nevertheless, his style proved popular with the public, and commissions came in to do Western-style landscapes, decorative screens, and nudes. He did life drawings and used them for material in his paintings. Okyo was probably the first Japanese artist to do life drawings from nude models. The subject was still considered pornographic in Japan. During his career he painted for wealthy merchants, the shogunate, even the emperor. The public's perception of Okyo's skill is evident in a legend recounted by Van Briessen. The story goes that a daimyo commissioned Okyo to paint a ghost image of a lost family member. Once the work was completed, the ghost image came off the painting and flew away.