長門国の長府（今の山口県下関市）で、藩の御用絵師の家に生まれました。江戸で狩野派を学びますが、明治になると武士の世が終わり、仕事を失って貧しい暮らしを送ります。やがてアメリカ人フェノロサや岡倉天心に認められ、西洋の色づかいもとり入れた新しい日本画にいどみました。《悲母観音》は重要文化財です。
Hōgai was born in Chōfu, Nagato (now Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi), into a family of official painters for the local lord. He studied Kanō-school painting in Edo. When the Meiji era ended the samurai world, he lost his work and lived in poverty. Later the American Ernest Fenollosa and Okakura Tenshin recognized his talent. He created a new kind of Japanese painting that used Western ideas about color. Merciful Mother Kannon is an Important Cultural Property.
