Fujiwara no Nobuzane (藤原信実)

FUJIWARA no Nobuzane(1175? to after 1266) was a court noble, a painter, and a poet from the early to middle Kamakura period. He was the child of FUJIWARA no Takanobu, the Capital Bureau. He was Senior Fourth Rank Provisional Master of the Eastern Capital Offices. His Buddhist name was Jakusai.

Nobuzane excelled in the painting and the Japanese poem as good as his father Takanobu. It is considered that the "Gotoba-in Zo" (Statue of the Retired Emperor Gotoba) (national treasure) handed down to the Minase-jingu Shrine in Osaka was a masterwork of Nobuzane. Repeatedly overlapping short lines and the technique for catching the trace of the the main constituent are his characteristics. It is guessed that masterpieces such as "zuijin Teike emaki" (guard horse picture scroll) owned by Okura Antique Collection House and "hand-scrolls of the Thirty Six Immortal Poets Satake version" of Satake were in fact produced by Nobuzane and jointly produced by painters related to his family line. The family line of Nobuzane continued as the HACHIJO family until about the middle of the Muromachi period, known as the so-called family line of nise-e (resemblance picture).

Among his collection of poems, there was "FUJIWARA no Nobuzane Ason shu (Collection by FUJIWARA no Nobuzane). Moreover, there was "The Tales of Ima", which was a collection of anecdotes completed around 1240, approved and compiled by Nobuzane.

[Original Japanese]