(b Edo [now Tokyo], 1779; d Edo, 1858). Japanese calligrapher. Together with MAKI RYOKO and NUKINA KAIOKU, he was one of the Bakumatsu no Sanpitsu (‘Three Brushes of the late Edo period’). His powerful brushwork, known as the Beian ryu (Beian school or style), continued to be much admired into the Meiji period (1868–1912). He was the son of Ichikawa Kansai (1749–1820), a poet skilled in calligraphy and the head of the Shoheiko, the official Confucian academy in Edo. From his youth Beian concentrated on calligraphy, studying the works of such famous calligraphers as Yan Zhenqing (AD 709–85), DONG QICHANG of the Ming period (1368–1644) and Mi Fu (see MI, (1)) of the Song period (960–1279), and collecting such of their autographs as he could. He modelled himself in particular after Mi Fu, from whom it is said that he took his artist’s name, Beian. In 1799 he opened a private calligraphy school, the Shosanrindo (Hall of the Forested Hill), at Izumibashi in Shitaya, where he began to teach calligraphy. In 1804 he took a pleasure trip to Nagasaki, where he received instruction in calligraphy techniques from a Qing-period Chinese merchant named Hu Tiaoxin and was greatly impressed by the examples he saw of Ming- and Qing-period calligraphy. He especially admired the works of the late Ming-period calligraphers Cai Daoxian, Huang Daozhou and Ni Yuanlu and the Karayo (Chinese-style) calligraphy widely disseminated in Japan by Obaku (Chin. Huangbo) Zen monks. He had well over 200 students and probably at least 5000 followers, including high-class women, monks, shogunal vassals and daimyo. On certain days of the week he set up a stall in front of his gate and gave public lessons, which were reputedly very popular.

• Ichikawa Beian
  • Japan, §VII, 1(iii)(d): Calligraphy: Edo period
  • Japan, §VII, 2(vi)(f): Literati calligraphy: Masters of the late Edo and Meiji periods
  • Japan, §XVI, 20(ii)(b): Kotai seals c 1750–c 1850
  • Watanabe Kazan