Cypress Trees

Kanō Eitoku · 1590

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Kanō Eitoku

Japan · 1543–1590

Kanō Eitoku was a Japanese painter who lived during the Azuchi, Momoyama period of Japanese history and one of the most prominent patriarchs of the Kanō school of Japanese painting. == Life and works == Born in Kyoto, Eitoku was the grandson of Kanō Motonobu, an official painter for the Ashikaga shogunate. He showed his talent for painting at an early age, and at the age of 10 he had an audience with the shōgun Ashikaga Yoshiteru alongside Motonobu. While there are various theories regarding the exact years of creation, in his early twenties, he created two works that are now considered National Treasures: Rakuchū rakugai zu byōbu (洛中洛外図屏風, Views in and around Kyoto) and the fusuma (襖, sliding doors) paintings entitled Kachō zu fusuma (花鳥図襖, Birds and flowers of the four seasons) at Jukō-in, a subtemple of the Daitoku-ji Temple. At a young age, he had acquired skills equivalent to those of Kano Motonobu.

Independent artist guide by Momentable. Biography from Wikipedia; artworks credited to the museums that hold them.

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life: 1543–1590life
rights: Public domainrights

The work

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Works worth knowing

What Kanō Eitoku made, and why each one is worth looking at.

How Kanō Eitoku worked

From the record of their own practice.

His signal contribution to the Kanō repertoire was the so-called "monumental style" (taiga), characterized by bold, rapid brushwork, an emphasis on foreground, and motifs that are large relative to the pictorial space. The traditional account for this style, codified by Eitoku's great-grandson Einō (1631–1697) in his History of Japanese Painting (Honcho gashi), is that it resulted partly from the exigencies of Eitoku's busy schedule, and that it embodied the martial and political bravura of the warlords, Nobunaga and Hideyoshi. Most of his works were destroyed in the turmoil of the Sengoku period. Symbolic representations, like pheasants, phoenixes and trees are often depicted in the works. The pheasant, for example is the national symbol of Japan, are mythological messengers of the sun goddess Amaterasu.