TOBA SOJO

born 1053, Japan died 1140, Japan byname Abbot Of Toba, also called Kakuyu 47th head priest of the Enryaku-ji, which is headquarters of the Tendai sect of Buddhism, near Kyoto in modern Shiga Prefecture. Toba is traditionally regarded as the artist of a series of important narrative scrolls featuring humorous secular subjects: History of Mount Shigi and Scrolls of Frolicking Animals. The History of Mount Shigi consists of illustrations of miracles and is notable for its lifelike crowds of people in action. In the Scrolls of Frolicking Animals the artist used a new technique of free-line ink drawing against a white background to depict the frolicking animals, which, some say, were caricatures of contemporary Buddhist priests. Because the four Scrolls of Frolicking Animals differ greatly in quality, it is now believed they were painted by Toba Sojo and another, later artist. Despite doubts concerning their authorship, the caricature drawings are so closely associated with the Abbot that the appellation Toba-e (Toba paintings) is given to similar, although cruder, cartoon drawings popular during the Tokugawa period (16031867).