(b Edo [now Tokyo], 1761; d Edo, 1828). Japanese painter, printmaker and antiquarian. He was the second son of Sakai Tadamochi (1735–67), lord of Harima, and the main instigator of the revival of interest in the early 19th century in the Rinpa school of decorative painting (see JAPAN, §VI, 4(v)). Hoitsu created a distinctive Edo style of Rinpa out of the tradition created by Ogata Korin (see OGATA, (1)) in the early 18th century by adding new subject-matter and changing the handling of detail, which became more profuse, sharper and less artificial. This new sense of naturalism was characteristic of the arts of the latter part of the Edo period (1600–1868), as was the pleasure Hoitsu took in witty contrivances. Two early paintings, Matsukaze and Murasame (1785) and Beauty Hunting Fireflies (1788; both priv. col., see Yamane, nos 77–8), reflect the style of Utagawa Toyoharu (see UTAGAWA, (1)). Hoitsu may also have been a pupil of So Shiseki, an advocate of the Nagasaki style of bird-and-flower painting, and of the academic painter Kano Takanobu (1740–94). In 1797 Hoitsu used ill-health as a pretext for entering the priesthood at the Nishi Honganji, a temple in Kyoto; he probably did this to avoid his duties as a high-born samurai, for from about this time he began to devote much of his time to painting and to the study of the Rinpa style in particular. Hoitsu is said to have begun working in the Rinpa style on the advice of the literati painter Tani Buncho, although he may also have known the Rinpa painter Tawaraya Sori ( fl late 18th century). In Hoitsu’s scroll Night View of the Arched Bridge at the Sumiyoshi Shrine (1800; priv. col., see Yamane, no. 72), he used the typical Rinpa technique of tarashikomi (dripping colour or ink on to wash that is still wet) to create pooled and blurred effects, while in the humorous portrait of the haiku poet Enomoto Kikaku (1806; priv. col, see Yamane, no. 86) he employed conventions seen in Korin’s monochrome ink figures.

• Sakai Hoitsu
  • Japan, §VI, 4(i)(c): Late painting: Edo period
  • Japan, §VI, 4(v)(c): Rinpa painting: Edo, after c 1800
  • Ogata: (1) Ogata Korin, §2: Critical reception and posthumous reputation
  • Ogata: (2) Ogata Kenzan, §2: Pupils and followers
  • Tawaraya Sotatsu, §2: Critical reception and posthumous reputation
  • attributions
    • Toshusai Sharaku, §1: Identity and background
  • collaboration
    • Suzuki Kiitsu
  • works
    • Himeji, §1: Urban development and art life
    • Japan, §VI, 4(ii)(a): Late Yamatoe painting: Introduction