Kanō school

According to the historian of Japanese art Robert Treat Paine, "another family which in direct blood line produced so many men of genius ... would be hard to find".

[9] The school was instrumental in developing new forms of painting for decorating the new styles of castles of the new families of daimyōs (feudal lords) that emerged in the struggles of the Azuchi–Momoyama period of civil war that ended with the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603.

The new lords had risen to power by military skill, and mostly lacked immersion in the sophisticated traditions of Japanese culture long cultivated in Buddhist monasteries and the Imperial court.

Common subjects were landscapes, often as a background for animals and dragons, or birds, trees or flowers, or compositions with a few large figures, but crowded panoramic scenes from a high viewpoint were also painted.

[13] That, unlike scrolls, sliding doors were by convention not signed, and screens only rarely, considerably complicates the business of attributing works to painters who were able to paint in several styles.

Kanō ink painters composed very flat pictures but they balanced impeccably detailed realistic depictions of animals and other subjects in the foreground with abstract, often entirely blank, clouds and other background elements.

The use of negative space to indicate distance, and to imply mist, clouds, sky or sea is drawn from traditional Chinese modes and is used beautifully by the Kanō artists.

... Golden cloud-like areas representing mist are placed arbitrarily in the background, and emphasize the decorative magnitude of what is otherwise the powerful drawing of giant tree forms".

[19] Despite having two painter sons, at the suggestion (if not the order) of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Eitoku adopted Kanō Sanraku (1561–1635), who married his daughter and succeeded him as head of the school.

Sansetsu and his school remained in Kyoto when most Kanō artists moved to Edo (often after a summons from the shōgun), and he continued to adhere to the brightly coloured style of the Momoyama period.

[24] The last of the "three famous brushes" of the school, with Motonobu and Eitoku, was Kanō Tan'yū (originally named Morinobu, 1602–1674), who was recognised as an outstanding talent as a child, attending an audience with the shōgun at the age of 10, and receiving a good official appointment in 1617.

[25] Tan'yū headed the Kajibashi branch of the school in Edo and painted in many castles and the Imperial palace, in a less bold but extremely elegant style, which however tended to become stiff and academic in the hands of less-talented imitators.

One late follower of the school was Kanō Kazunobu (1816–1853), who adopted the name as a sign of his respect, and painted a series of large scrolls of the 500 Arhats which has recently received a revival of attention after being hidden away since World War II.

[32] By Kanō Naganobu there is a pair of screens (less two sections lost in an earthquake in 1923) showing relatively large figures Merry-making under aronia blossoms, also in the Tokyo National Museum.