Lit. "Katsukawa school." A school of *ukiyo-e 浮世絵 artists who specialized in the hand-painting *nikuhitsuga 肉筆画 of beautiful women *bijinga 美人画 and woodblock-print portraits of popular *kabuki 歌舞伎 actors *yakusha-e 役者絵 and sumō wrestlers *sumō-e 相撲絵. The school can be traced back to Miyagawa Chōshun 宮川長春 (1682-1752), one of the early ukiyo-e masters of bijinga. The Katsukawa school was established by Miyagawa Shunsui 宮川春水 (fl. early 18th century), one of Chōshun's disciples, after the systematic political oppression of the Kano school *Kano-ha 狩野派 in favor of the Miyagawa school, Miyagawa-ha 宮川派, in 1750. Because Chōshun's other disciples were arrested and banished and because Chōshun died soon after the incident, Shunsui was forced to change the name of the school to Katsu-Miyagawa 勝宮川 and then Katsukawa. Shunsui's talented disciple, Katsukawa Shunshō 勝川春章 (1726-92), established the Katsukawa school. Unlike the stylized pictures of kabuki actors by *Torii-ha 鳥居派 artists, Shunshō and his followers created a new style of actor portrait which expressed an actors' personality vividly. He and his disciple Shunkō 春好 (1743-1812) are usually associated with the creation of realistic portraits called *nigao-e 似顔絵, as well as close-up views of actor's faces called *ōkubi-e 大首絵 and *ōgao-e 大顔絵. These styles became extremely popular and influential during the last three decades of 18th century. Other well-known artists using these styles included Shun'ei 春英 (1762-1819) and Shunchō 春潮. Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎 (1760-1849), then named Katsukawa Shun'ō 勝川春朗, also studied under Shunshō but then left the school to become an independent artist. In around 1800, *Utagawa-ha 歌川派 artists dominated the actor portrait genre, and the Katsukawa school gradually faded, disappearing altogether by the 1840s.