Shibata was born in Edo (present-day Tokyo), Japan, on March 15, 1807. His grandfather Izumi Chobei and his father Ichigoro were carpenters (miyadaiku) and gifted wood carvers. His father, who had taken his wife's family name of Shibata, was also a skilled ukiyo-e painter, who had studied under the direction of Katsukawa Shunshō, the founder of the Katsukawa School of ukiyo-e and also a teacher to the legendary Katsushika Hokusai.
Shibata Zeshin’s path to becoming one of Japan’s most famous lacquer designers started with studying under the guidance of Koma Kansai II. He was the tenth-generation head of a lacquer studio that had served the Tokugawa shogunate since 1636. Shibata Zeshin’s influences came from various sources, including his visits to Kansai-region temples, including the famed Shösöin repository in Nara. It was there that he researched ancient lacquerware.
In addition, Shibata learned methods developed by such renowned predecessors as Hon’ami Köetsu and Ogata Körin. As part of the Shijö-Maruyama School, where he studied painting during the 1820s and 1830s in Edo (now Tokyo) and Kyoto, Shibata Zeshin’s teachers included Watanabe Nangaku. Under Watanabe, the artist studied decorative naturalism, an influence that was especially obvious in his woodblock print designs. Shibata Zeshin was considered to be one of Maruyama Ökyo’s ten best pupils.
Suzuki Nanrei, a great painter of the Shijō school, also was among Shibata's teachers. It was during his time with Nanrei that he was given the name Zeshin, which he would keep for the rest of his life. The name has a meaning similar to "this is true" or "the Truth", a reference to an old Chinese tale.
Moreover, Zeshin learned not only the basic principles of painting and sketching, but also the Japanese tea ceremony, haiku and waka poetry, literature, history, and philosophy. This became the foundation of his training in the aesthetic and philosophy of Japanese traditional art.
Shibata Zeshin later studied under the guidance of other great artists of the Kyoto school, such as Okamoto Toyohiko, Maruyama Ōkyo, and Goshin.
After the death of Koma Kansai in 1835, Shibata inherited the Koma School workshop. He took on a young man named Ikeda Taishin as his disciple, who remained his pupil and close friend until the artist's death in 1903.
As a lacquerer, he distinguished himself by introducing several innovations both in technique and composition. In the 1830s he started experimenting to improve a method which made it possible to apply lacquer on flexible material, for example, on paper and silk, resulting in his famous lacquer paintings or urushi-e, most of which were created during his later years. Shibata Zeshin also revived a complex lacquer technique called seikai-ha to produce wave forms; this technique was so difficult it had not been used for over a century.
Although Shibata used many revolutionary elements in his artworks, both technically and creatively, his works were always very traditional. In the brand-new medium of lacquer painting, he painted traditional subjects such as birds, insects and flowers, waterfalls and dragons. It was said that much of Zeshin's work strongly represented the aesthetic concept of iki, which might be translated as "chic." His works were considered to have just the right balance of tradition with the new.
However, in the 1830s and 1840s, Japan suffered an economic crisis. Artists were strictly limited, by law, in their use of silver and gold, both were essential for traditional styles of lacquer decoration. So, Zeshin Shibata tried to compensate them by using bronze to simulate the look and texture of iron, as well as some other substances and decorative styles. But very few of his Edo period (pre-1868) pieces survived.
At the beginning of 1869, the artist was commissioned by the Imperial government and created many artworks for them. Among them was a set of gold-lacquered chairs for the Imperial Palace decorated in a sakura (cherry blossom) motif. The artist was later made Japan's official representative to several international expositions. He displayed his works in Vienna in 1873, in Philadelphia the following year, and Paris, although he did not personally attend any of these events. He became a court painter in 1890.
Shibata Zeshin was one of the most outstanding Japanese artists of his time. He has come to be well regarded and much studied among the art world of the West, in England and the United States in particular.
One year before his death in 1891, he was granted the immense honour of membership in the newly created Imperial Art Committee and is up today the only one artist who has been recognized in 2 fields (painting and maki-e) of work. The honour of Imperial Commissioned Artists was only granted to 53 artists between 1890 and 1944.
Many works by the artist have been sold at auction, including A Fine Lacquer Panel Depicting Lobsters, which was sold at Christie's South Kensington "Asobi: Ingenious Creativity, Japanese Works of Art from Antiquity to Contemporary" in 2014 for $1,057,198.
Today, one of the greatest collections of Shibata Zeshin's works is the Khalili Collections of London, which contains over 100 artworks by the artist.
unknown title
White Rats
Frogs
Model Boat - Hana Kurabe
Portrait of Rikyû
Sitting Lady
Camellia
Racoon-dog (Tanuki)
Autumn Grasses in Moonlight
Daikoku and Mouse
Summer Flower
A comic pusuits of ladies
Processional of pilgrims
Nandin Tree - Hana Kurabe
Straw Basket for Fish and Mokuge Flower
Pheasant/Three men with umbrellas
Lighting a Hanging Lantern for the Obon Festival
Porcelain Cups
Red Maple - Hana Kurabe
Morning Glory
Flowering Plant - Hana Kurabe
Sudden Shower
Two Wreaths - Comparison of Flowers
The Ibaraki Demon Snatches Back Her Arm
Wild Waves - Hana Kurabe
Wild Mushrooms
Umbrella and Plum
unknown title
Poem and Falling Cherry Petals
Grasshopper and sunflower
Birds in Festival
Crows Fly by Red Sky at Sunset
Bird Toys
A Mouse as a Monk
Still Life
Morning Glories
Bowl
Two Calligraphers
Apart from being a skilled lacquerer, printmaker and painter, Shibata also wrote haiku and practiced the tea ceremony.
Shibata Zeshin married in 1849. The marriage produced one son Reisai.
