was a Japanese feudal lord (daimyō

Daimyo

is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...

) of Akita and founder of the Akita ranga

Akita ranga

Akita ranga , also known as the Akita-ha , was a short-lived school of painting within the larger Japanese genre of ranga, or Dutch-style painting which lasted roughly from 1773-1780. Based in the Akita feudal domain, it was headed by the domain's lord Satake Shozan and his retainer Odano Naotake...

 school of Western-style painting. He is more commonly known by his pen name,

He was born in Edo

Edo

, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...

. Along with his retainer Odano Naotake, he produced a number of paintings in the Dutch style and wrote three treatises on European painting techniques, including the depiction of perspective. He was also a student of rangaku

Rangaku

Rangaku is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Western technology and medicine in the period when the country was closed to foreigners, 1641–1853, because of the Tokugawa shogunate’s policy of national...

(Dutch studies) scholar Hiraga Gennai

Hiraga Gennai

was an Edo period Japanese pharmacologist, student of Rangaku, physician, author, painter and inventor who is well known for his Erekiteru , Kandankei and Kakanpu...

, who he had invited up to Akita to advise him on management of the domain's copper mines (Akita was the primary source of copper to the archipelago and beyond in this period).