Early Life and Ancestral Shadows Iwasa Matabei, born Araki Katsumochi in 1578, entered a world already steeped in the drama of Japan’s turbulent Sengoku period. His lineage was inextricably linked to the fate of powerful clans, a heritage that would profoundly shape his artistic trajectory. His father, Araki Murashige, was a prominent daimyō—a feudal lord—whose eventual forced suicide under Toyotomi Hideyoshi cast a long shadow over young Katsumochi’s life. Raised by his mother's family, adopting the Iwasa name, he inherited not only a new identity but also a poignant awareness of political…