Kaikai, born in the Shirakawa district of Kyoto, was a direct disciple of Ike Taiga (1723–76) in painting, calligraphy, and seal‑carving. During his earlier years Kaikai supported his mother by working as a scribe and copying documents, activities which suggest not only skill in writing but also some education. Most of the known events of his later life are associated one way or another with his master. In 1772, for example, Kaikai was with Taiga when the latter held a painting and calligraphy party in honor of the Ōbaku monk Kakutei (d. 1785) when that poet visited Kyoto from Nagasaki.
Perhaps after the death of Taiga, when he lacked the support of his teacher, Kaikai is said to have remarked about his choices in life: “My father was a wine‑maker but I mistakenly liked reading books instead, so now my mother has not enough to eat. This is my fault.” Kaikai then sold enough calligraphy and painting to buy wine‑making equipment, which he used to produce an excellent quality wine by filtering it no fewer than seven times through a seven‑layered bamboo screen. Naming his establishment the Chikusui Kan, the “Drunken‑in‑bamboo Tavern,” he called himself Baishuro, the Gentleman Wine‑seller, and wrote on the signboard: “Served in this shop with wine are 1) Chinese books 2) pairs of tangerines and 3) songs of the golden oriole.” Discriminating drinkers are said to have loved Kaikai’s tavern but, although it was always crowded, his profits were low.
Economics may also explain another of Kaikai’s well‑known practices. Every year in springtime, at the height of the cherry‑blossom season, Kaikai carried a big wine barrel and cups to Higashiyama or along the river at Arashiyama and set up a drinking stand. In late autumn, when the red maple leaves became touched with frost, he set up similar stands at Tōfuku‑ji and Rinsen‑zen‑in. Those stands were identified by a flag on which he wrote Hanya Tō, “The Lotus Sutra Warmed.”
Kaikai was senior to most of Taiga’s other pupils, a group which included Noro Kaiseki (1747–1828), Fukuhara Gogaku (1730–99), Geppō Shinryō (1760–1839), Satake Hōhei (1750–1807), and Kuwayama Gyokushū (1746–99). They and other literati often presented Kaikai with poems and songs, which he compiled into a scroll for ease in displaying to his customers. Kaikai died at the age of 52, and thus is represented today by rather few paintings, but it is clear that he embodied the spirit as well as style of Taiga and was a true disciple of that master.
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