A painter of the Edo period, born in Kyoto. The son of a merchant whose shop was called Tanbaya, his family name was Miura. He is said to have studied under Takada Keiho, though there is no firm evidence for it. From his youth into middle age he painted prolifically in Ise and the Banshu region without establishing a base in Kyoto, and only settled there in his forties. Already described in Edo-period accounts of painting as a heretic and a madman, Shohaku took up traditional subjects such as immortals, Chinese lions and episodes from Chinese history, but rendered them grotesque or comic in a manner unruly and wholly unorthodox, leaving a powerful impression on the viewer.