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Samurai is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. By the end of the 12th century, samurai became almost entirely synonymous with bushi, and the word was closely associated with the middle and upper echelons of the warrior class.<br/><br/> The samurai followed a set of rules that came to be known as Bushidō. While they numbered less than ten percent of Japan's population, samurai teachings can still be found today in both everyday life and in martial arts such as Kendō, meaning the way of the sword.
Kubo Shunman (1757-1820) was a Japanese artist and writer. Shunman was born with the given name Kubo / Kubota Yasubei and was orphaned at a young age. He studied under the painter Katori Nahiko and the ukiyo-e artist Kitao Shigemasa, and took the art name Shunman upon finishing his studies. Other names he used were Shosado and Sashodo, hinting at his left-handed nature.<br/><br/> His earliest works date back to 1774, and he would go on to produce ukiyo-e prints, book illustrations, paintings, illustrated novels and poetry. He became the most prolific artist in the Kitao school, with more than 70 paintings to his name surviving.<br/><br/> Shunman was a member of various poets' clubs as well, notably the Rokujuen and Bakuro-ren clubs, the latter of which he became head. He eventually stopped designing commercial prints in 1790 to focus primarily on commissioned prints and his poetry.