Yosa Buson

Japanese poet and painter Yosa Buson was born outside Osaka and moved to Edo (Tokyo) to study both painting and haiku. Like his literary hero, Basho, Buson traveled widely through Japan, publishing notes from his journeys under the name Buson. He is known as one of the great haiku masters, and his work is generally regarded as more sensuous and, reflecting his dual career as a painter, more painterly than Basho’s. Buson was also influenced by Chinese poetry. In the 1750s, he settled in Kyoto, where he continued his career as a painter and changed his surname to Yosa.