Born in the Nishiki market area of Kyoto, he grew up amid the rhythms of a prosperous merchant household. The bustle of stalls, seasonal produce, and caged birds helped form his lifelong eye for color and texture.

As a young man he pursued painting largely outside official academies, studying older Chinese and Japanese models available in Kyoto. He became known for sketching from life, scrutinizing feathers, leaves, and insects with unusual patience.

He began taking on increased duties at the family greengrocery, balancing commerce with private artistic study. Merchant networks in Kyoto gave him access to collectors, pigments, paper, and imported visual references.

After his father died, he inherited leadership of the Itō shop and household affairs. The obligation sharpened his independence, yet he continued to paint obsessively, treating daily work as a backdrop to artistic ambition.

He increasingly associated with Zen Buddhist circles that valued direct perception and disciplined practice. Kyoto temples offered both spiritual grounding and patrons who appreciated his intensely observed depictions of living beings.

Kyoto’s painters and intellectuals, including circles linked to Maruyama Ōkyo and Tani Bunchō, debated realism, Chinese styles, and new pictorial effects. Jakuchū absorbed the atmosphere but maintained a stubbornly personal approach.

He is traditionally said to have handed the family business to a younger relative, freeing himself for full-time artistic production. This choice aligned him more closely with temple commissions and elite Kyoto collectors.

He embarked on the ambitious set later known as "Dōshoku Sai-e" (Colorful Realm of Living Beings), depicting birds, fish, insects, and plants with extraordinary precision. The project demanded costly pigments and years of sustained labor in Kyoto.

By the mid-1760s, numerous paintings from his great series displayed dense color, minute patterning, and a strangely vivid sense of presence. His studio practice resembled natural study, yet the results were heightened and theatrical rather than merely descriptive.

He developed passages built from small, square touches that form shimmering surfaces, especially in birds’ bodies and backgrounds. The method created a tactile, almost textile effect that set him apart from orthodox Kano and Maruyama approaches.

Jakuchū supplied scrolls and hanging paintings for temples and wealthy townspeople, integrating auspicious motifs with intense observation. Kyoto’s religious and merchant patrons valued his ability to make familiar creatures feel uncanny and sacred.

He is associated with donations of major works to the Shōkoku-ji Zen temple complex, linking his art to devotional purpose. The temple setting reinforced his reputation as a lay practitioner who painted as an offering as much as for fame.

Beyond elite painting, he produced designs that circulated more broadly through print culture in Kyoto. The move showed his comfort crossing social boundaries, from refined temple commissions to playful or decorative works for townspeople.

In his sixties he lived more quietly, focusing on selective commissions and personal projects rather than public career-building. His late works often intensify contrast and structure, suggesting a mature synthesis of discipline, humor, and Zen-inflected attention.

The Great Tenmei Fire of 1788 burned large parts of Kyoto, disrupting neighborhoods, temples, and artistic livelihoods. Amid the destruction and rebuilding, his continued output reflects resilience and the city’s determination to restore cultural life.

His later paintings balance meticulous detail with striking overall design, often using empty space and strong silhouettes to heighten presence. Roosters, cranes, and vegetables become emblematic actors, blending humor with reverence for living forms.

By the 1790s, Kyoto collectors recognized him as an eccentric master distinct from mainstream schools. His works circulated through merchant and temple networks, ensuring that his most celebrated bird-and-flower images remained carefully preserved.

He died in Kyoto after decades of solitary dedication to portraying the vitality of animals and plants. His legacy endured through temple holdings and private collections, later celebrated as a singular vision within Edo-period Japanese painting.