(b Hizen Province [now Nagasaki Prefect.], 1547; d Hagi, Suo Province [now Yamaguchi Prefect.], 1616). Japanese painter. According to the Hara Jihei Naoyoshi kefuroku (‘Family record of Hara Jihei’; 1765), Togan was the second son of the Hara Naoie (d 1584), lord of Nokomi Castle in Hizen Province. Although Togan was raised with the privileges of a high-ranking samurai, shifting political fortunes and the death of his father ended his military career in 1584. His artistic training is unclear; a mid-17th-century painters’ biography lists him as studying with Kano Eitoku or with Eitoku’s father, Shoei (see KANO, (3) and (5)), yet Togan’s paintings bear scant evidence of serious study with either man. All Edo period painting histories agree that Togan wanted to link his artistic lineage to the seminal Muromachi period (1333–1568) painter TOYO SESSHU. The artist’s name ‘Unkoku Togan’ amply demonstrates this conscious link: the character To of Togan comes from the first character of Sesshu’s religious name Toyo, and his ‘family’ name ‘Unkoku’ derives from Sesshu’s Unkokuan (‘Cloud Valley Hermitage’) studio in Yamaguchi, which was later taken over by Togan. Moreover, when the daimyo Mori Terumoto (1553–1625) commissioned Togan to copy Sesshu’s Sanzui Chokan (‘Long landscape scroll’), Togan added a colophon in which he claimed to be the present-day representative of Sesshu’s lineage. Finally, Togan often signed his works ‘painted by Togan, descendant of Sesshu’ or ‘painted by Togan, third generation Sesshu’.

• Unkoku Togan
  • Japan, §VI, 4(i)(b): Late painting: Momoyama period
  • Toyo Sesshu, §2: Context and influence
  • works
    • Japan, §XVI, 7(ii)(d): Dress: Momoyama and Edo periods
    • Kyoto, §IV, 5(ii): Daitokuji: Architecture and art works