| During the Monoyama period of Japan which lasted from 1573 till about 1603 a.d., the most important school of Japanese art was the Kano School. Although Kano Motonob founded the school, it was his grandson, Kano Eitoku, who was responsible for making it as mainstream and famous as it became. Known as a highly skilled artist even at a young age, Eitoku quickly became a favorite of much of the nobility, including both daimyo and the shogunate of Japan. Over the course of his career, Eitoku worked in a number of different styles and mediums, although he is best known for his fusuma (sliding panel) and folding screen paintings. Both types of medium are constructed using a wooden panel with a frame that usually that is lacquered black, and then covered with pieces of paper to add support for the cover, which is the part that is painted. This cover is usually paper, but can also be made out of silk. |
Fusuma Panel Construction |
| Eitoku is most famous for the personalize style that became a signature for his work, which is best depicted in the set of 16 fusuma panels at the Jukoin of Daitokuji entitled, Landscape with Flowers and Birds. This style is known as his monumental (taigai) style and is characterized by a vigorous composition full of energy and movement. Eitoku utilizes a cursive mode of painting (sotai) with coarse and rapid brushstrokes which create variations in the tone of the ink making stark contrasts in darks and lights over the entire piece. Seeing as though the piece is done with just ink on paper with a minimal amount of gold dust; the artist focuses more on the images and themes to evoke an emotional or thought in the viewer, instead of relying on colors to help emphasize things. Also, the entire piece differs from typical forms of landscape paintings in that the whole picture comes straight out at the viewer. With almost all foreground the artist leaves out work on the background to focus on the initial theme. Background becomes unnecessary because the fusuma panels can easily slide across to reveal another room with its own artwork. Still, in this particular piece, Eitoku places a unique amount of emphasis on the foreground with his intricate brushstrokes and motifs that capture the viewer’s attention. Eitoku also manages to incorporate a typical characteristic of the Kano school of Japanese Art, known as minimalism. Because of the close up view of the landscape, he is able to portray only parts of landscape. For instance, the river and rock which depicts the summer season trails off and disappears in lighter brush strokes and it moves into the background, and the trees are not all in view with the tops of them being cut off by the frame of the panels. |
Pictures from Landscape with Flowers and Birds
Motif of Summer |
Motif of Spring |
Motif of Winter
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Motif of Autumn |
Although this piece is considered one of Kano Eitoku’s finest pieces of artwork, he also has a number of other famous pieces. Another piece which is also located in the Jukoin at Daitokuji Temple is a wonderful representation of one of Eitoku’s earlier styles, known as a precise (saiga) style of painting which was taught to him by his grandfather Motonobu. This piece is a set of 8 fusuma panels entitled, The Four Elegant Pastimes, and is located in the patron’s room of the Jukoin. The paintings depict the traditional cultured activities of Chinese nobility: music (kin); calligraphy (sho); chess (ki); and of course, painting (ga). The style used in the creation of this artwork is characterized by rigid lines giving a good amount of detail and clarity to the piece. The brushstroke type is known as shintai, and is minute and stiff in a more subdued manner than the energetic and vivacious style used in Eitoku’s personal style. The overall view of the piece is also quite different from Landscape with Flowers and Birds; it is more far away from the scenes in the paintings allowing for more landscape to be added in greater detail with more background. The trees are also more vertical, not like the side sprawling gnarled plum in his later work. However, while certain characteristics of the Kano School are lacking, others are very much present. For instance, the entire picture seems to be encompassed by a fog that takes up space in both the foreground and background. This helps to blur the space separating the two and adds a cloudy and ghostly feeling to the painting. |
The Four Elegant Pastimes (A) |
The Four Elegant Pastimes (B) |
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The Four Elegant Pastimes (C) |
Bibliography |
Haruhara, Yoko. Welcome to the Zen Garden of the Real. The Japan Times Online. 19 Nov. 2003. Online. Internet. 3 Mar. 2005. Available http://www.japantimes.co.jp./cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fa20031119a1htm. Kano Eitoku. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press, 2003. Online. Internet. 3 Mar. 2005 Available http://www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup. Kano Eitoku. Wikipedia. Online. 3 Mar. 2005 Available Levine, Greg. Jukoin: Art, Architecture, and Mortuary Culture at a Japanese Zen Buddhist Temple. Princton, 1997. Online. PMJS Archive of Dissertations. Internet. Available http://www.lib.umi.com/dissertations/preview9734243. Mason, Penelope. History of Japanese Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1993. Pioch, Nicholas. “Moomoyama Art: Painting.” 14 Oct. 2002. WebMuseum, Paris. Online. Internet. 3 Mar. 2005. Available http://cayetano.boj.org/wmpaint/ tl/japan/momoyama.html.Takeda. Tsuneo. Kano Eitoku. Tokyo: Kodansha International LTD. And Shibundo, 1977. Terkazu, Akiyama. Treasures of Asia: Japanese Painting. “Chapter 7: The Golden Age of Mural Painting (16th and 17th Centuries). 9 Oct. 2000. Online 3 March 2005. Available http://kaladarshan.arthist.arts.ohio-state.edu/studypages/internal/japan682/CH7.htm. |