菱田春草

Hishida Shunsō (1874–1911) was a painter who transformed Japanese art during the Meiji era. Born in what is now Iida city in Nagano Prefecture, he studied at Tokyo School of Fine Arts under Hashimoto Gahō, where he joined fellow students Yokoyama Taikan and Shimomura Kanzan in the circle of the influential educator Okakura Tenshin. Around 1900, Shunsō pioneered a radical new technique called moro-tai, abandoning the outline-based brushwork fundamental to traditional nihonga in favour of atmospheric colour gradation.