The Daimyo's use of symbols – hawks from the Kano school

Kano Tanyu's painting from Nijo Castle - a reproduction is now on display

The beautiful paintings of the Kano school were made for patrons, many of whom were the principal warlords of the day (religious institutions and members of the Imperial family were also notable patrons) and many of these paintings formed grand decorative schemes, filling all the walls of single or multiple chambers. 

In some cases, the theme was the message – tigers and birds of prey were obvious choices for military men, while flowers and birds often decorated the chambers of women of important households. Yet there was also much overlap, with many temples using the same motifs as the warlords, and the decorative schemes of castles employing multiple elements to different effect depending on the use of the room (and the type of visitors that might be expected). In fact, temples took on a number of roles and functions, and often played host to important figures when they travelled.

A good example can be seen at Nijo Castle in Kyoto. The paintings and other decorations were completed under the auspices of Kano Tanyu, the head of the Edo Kano School. He painted many of the major paintings himself, and other members of the family, and the Kyoto Kano School worked under him.

A visitor of the warrior class, on arriving at Nijo Castle, the Tokugawa shogun’s official residence in Kyoto, might be shown into a room gloriously decorated with tigers prowling through a bamboo grove, putting him in mind of the power and the potential danger represented by the shogun. If granted an audience, he would be shown into a chamber decorated with majestic pine trees in whose branches perched imperious eagles or hawks. They would have looked even more impressive in those days, as they would have been viewed from a seated position, and much of the time the visitor would be keeping his head lowered in deference to the shogun. In any case. He could not fail to identify these motifs with the powerful man before him.

Nijo Castle with reproductions of the original paintings

An imperial envoy, on the other hand, would be granted an audience in a room decorated with flowering cherry trees, showing that the shogun was also a man of culture, worthy of the position bestowed on him (by the emperor, who really didn’t have much choice in the matter, especially after the position had become hereditary).

Aimed to impress through cultural legitimacy rather than intimidation.

These motifs were certainly symbolic, though perhaps only in a general way. In some cases, the motifs were far more specific in the symbols they employed. An interesting example of this can be seen at Zuiganji Temple in Sendai, whose patron, the powerful warlord Date Masamune, maintained strong associations with the temple. The decorative scheme of one of its rooms, the Taka no Ma (The Hawk Room) is more direct. Serving as a waiting room for Masamune’s vassals, when he visited or was staying at the temples, it incorporates a number of motifs that illustrate sayings meant to instruct the vassals on behaviour proper to the bushi class.

Below are some of the paintings showing the parts in question with a short explanation of their message. The originals have been replaced with modern replicas (painted by experts in the copying of historical paintings – some art colleges still have this as a department), so they probably look pretty close to how they would have appeared in their prime, though losing much of the atmosphere of the faded originals.

All of these illustrate well-known sayings, and Date Masamune’s interest in this kind of thing may well have stemmed from the rigorous education he received from the monk Kosai Soitsu. Two of them are puns, while two of them are direct illustrations of sayings.

Bushi shouldn't allow themselves to be made fools of.  This contains a play on the word kamo, which means both duck and to be made a fool of.

Bushi should not be involved in fraud. Similarly, this contains a play on the word sagi, which means both a heron or egret and fraud.

If the pheasant didn’t cry out, it wouldn’t get shot. In this case, the pheasant has revealed itself and a hawk is in hot pursuit. Obviously a lesson on the value of keeping quiet. Even today, the proverb, ‘the nail that sticks up will be hammered down’ is often put into practice.

If you chase two rabbits, you won’t even catch one. It’s difficult to tell if there is a second rabbit from this picture (or even a first one if you don't know what you're looking for - it's the white thing directly below the eagle). Nonetheless, the meaning is clear. Note also the similarity in pose to the hawk in the Nijo Castle painting at the top of this blog. Training in the Kano school made much use of the copying of standard models – this was an important part of maintaining standards and reproducing the school's signature style.

For comparison, here is a picture of how some of the original paintings in Zuiganji looked before they were replaced. Although I appreciate the original paintings, I must admit that the venue does make a big difference to the effect on the viewer. I haven't been to Nijo Castle for a few years, but, depending on the weather, the paintings certainly didn't always show very well. Visitors couldn't get very close, and there was a constant pressure to move on, rather than stand and look. Perhaps they are better in the attached museum where the selection on view can be examined at close quarters. However, it could also be argued that there is nothing quite like the experience of seeing art in situ as it has been for hundreds of years.

Fantastic Beast - Rosetsu's Kara-shishi

Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754-1799)(?)

The shishi (or karashishi), the lion of Japanese art, is a mysterious beast. It is half mythological, often brightly coloured – typically blue or green – and has deep associations with Buddhism and Shinto. The guardians on either side of shrine entrances are normally shishi, or sometimes a shishi paired with a koma-inu (Korean dog or lion dog). In this case, the koma-inu will have its mouth closed and also sports a single, unicorn-like horn. The koma-inu looks quite leonine, and there is not much to tell between the two, probably because they evolved from the statues of lions in front of Buddhist temples in India, a custom which arrived in Japan and was transferred to shrines.

In Buddhism, they have the connotation of justice, and the strength to see that justice is done. They are also protectors of the Buddhist law. Their anger is proverbial, and I have seen the term shishi fundo (lion's rage) equated with techniques in budo that particularly utilise force and ferocity. As a motif, it was utilised by the Kano school most notably Kano Eitoku and later Kano Sanraku, to underline the majesty of their patrons. Unlike the tiger, however, which had whole rooms devoted to it in several decorative schemes, (Nijo Castle, Manshu-in, Nanzen-ji, Nagoya Castle, to name a few) I am not aware of any similar schemes involving shishi.

Kano Eitoku (1543-1590)'s lordly shishi

Their depiction was generally quite stylised, and rather than ferocity, typical depictions appear playful, as in these paintings by Kano Tanshin (the son of Kano Tanyu) and Hokusai.

This work by Nagasawa Rosetsu is quite another thing.

The writer Maruyama Kenji in a column in the Nikkei Shinbun newspaper (Jan. 22 2016) was also struck by it. He had this to say:

This should not be. Although you thought you had renounced your showy displays of anger, in the light of the full moon your dark and ferocious glare shows your confusion. After such total dedication, you did not abandon yourself to quiet madness or lose yourself in painful struggle – that it’s not a look of barbaric rashness or cold anger is proof of this. In the chaos of a society returned to ruin, your eyes shine with the light of justice, to see right done by whatever means possible, even at the cost of your life. Showing your determination to save those who had no choice in their upbringing, cowed by the threats that hung over them, you symbolise readiness to confront an old enemy on behalf of individual freedom. That is the kind of look it is. If not, your glance would not strike home in the breasts of those who have lapsed from mere vulgarity, attracted by the charm of appearances, and whose minds are now poisoned by hedonism. Forceful and revitalising, filled with the power to return to life, showing the supreme authority that lies only within yourself – a look that is open and true.

(my translation)

The broad, fierce brushstrokes depict the furious intensity of the beast very differently from how it is usually shown. It is also quite different from anything else of of Rosetsu's. I was surprised to learn that it was his when I first saw it, and only found out as I was writing this that there is some doubt as to whether it was actually painted by him (see here for more) – the gold leaf was certainly a later addition (Rosetsu's teacher, Maruyama Okyo had some works that suffered similarly) and the signature has been added at a later date (over the gold leaf and an original signature). Particularly unusual is the strength of emotion in the work, something that obviously struck Maruyama Kenji. Comparing it with Eitoku's work (above) it is almost exactly the same pose as the left-hand shishi – it is interesting to think that it may be a direct reworking from that original model. It would be nice to think it was genuine, but even if not, it is an impressive work, and painting it may have given the artist the means to enthuse his work with greater feeling than a more traditional rendering would have allowed.

Happy 300th, Jakuchu

I remember being told once - by an art teacher, speaking in the way that cultural pedants often do, that Ito jakuchu was popular with westerners because he was easy to understand, while 'real' Japanese appreciated a more unique expression of their cultural heritage.


If we put aside the fact that Jakuchu was one of the most popular painters of his time, (although it is also true that his name and works were rescued from obscurity partly through the efforts of the American art collector, Joe Price), the number of visitors at the show of Jakuchu's work, Jakuchu and Kyoto, that was on at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art from November to December of this year, certainly puts the lie to that assertion.

Numbered or timed ticketting has not been adopted here, so if you want to visit a popular exhibition, you take your chances and line up (if you're unlucky) or otherwise shuffle round at a dismal speed with the crowds, or flit around some metres away from the glass, hoping to find a gap that allows more than a glimpse of the works.

 Although I didn't have to queue, this was the most crowded exhibition I have been to for a long time, and so I opted for the latter.


I flitted past the rows of chickens and cranes and concentrated on just a couple of works - mainly just one, in fact , Elephant and Whale, which I had never seen in the flesh before, and which was the main reason for my visit.

Jakuchu may fairly be calleds a master of ink - the effects he could obtain through brushwork, both careful and dynamic, and with variations in the type of ink itself, make the term 'monochrome' a misnomer. This  painting is a good example: although it is executed in shades of ink, to say it is black and white or grey is not an adequate description. The ink has produced a warm and glowing surface that is as alive or perhaps even more so, than his coloured works.

On the left of the pair of six leaved screens the dark form of a whale ploughs through the sea, the smooth line of it's back visible against the wave forms so distinctive of Jakuchu - a powerful jet of water blasts upwards, disappearing out of the picture, to be answered by the trumpetting call of the elephant in the other screen (or at least, a friendly-looking wave of its trunk). Between them lies the sea, like a snowy wasteland.

Indeed, visually, it is very much like a field of snow, gently undulating pale greys, a neutral field on which the action is set. Anyone familiar with Jakuchu's work will be aware of the amount of detail he could cram into his pictures; however, his black and white works tended to leave the background white. Yet this blankness served as a field on which the imagination may project the background he did not paint himself, like an afterimage. His larger works, typically, do not use this approach. Perhaps he judged the size was too great, and perhaps he sought to avoid the deadening effect of such large patches being left unfilled. In fact, his larger works often show extreme attention to enlivening the background, for preserving it as a living field, showing an almost tactile concern with what might otherwise be 'dead space'. This is most evident in his mosaic inspired and 'pointillist' works. While being less satisfying as paintings, this aspect is very much in evidence, and The Elephant and Whale seems, in a less defined (and less exacting way) to follow suit.

Close up of the waves in the 'Whale'

Jakuchu's later works seemed to lose none of the dynamism of his earlier years, perhaps because he came into his own as a painter sometime in his forties, but uncharacteristic traces of underpainting and overlap in brushstrokes may be seen in the left hand (whale) screen. This is always interesting, as it allows the viewer a better idea of the artist's process of working. In smaller pieces, there is almost no sign of the initial lines drawn in pale ink - they have been covered over precisely by subsequent painting, leaving only what the artist wanted to be seen.

This cannot be seen as a lessening of the artist's powers – the fine work on the right hand screen, including the elephants eye and the leaves above its head, show as perfect a degree of control as any of his earlier pieces – the roughness on the whale side is something else, perhaps an expression of the raw power of the leviathan.

Whales are not often depicted in Japanese art - Jakuchu painted at least one other version of this screen himself – an entry for a 1928 catalogue of the Osaka Art Club includes this picture:

I have also seen a small version of the whale by one of his admirers/pupils. I think Jakuchu touches something quite deep with his painting, perhaps mores than many of his other works, and is well worth making the time to seek out and enjoy.

After the Golden Age - the Kano school after Eitoku

Signed Kuninobu, this is believed to be by Kano Mitsunobu

1590 was an annus horribilis for the Kano school – the foremost school of painting in Japan. It was the year that Kano Eitoku, the energetic, ground-breaking head of the school, who had made himself the painter par-excellence of his generation, specializing in the bold decorative schemes favoured by the ruling warlords of the country, and patronized by both Oda Nobunaga and his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi,  died at the age of 48*(possibly due to the pressures of overwork) leaving his twenty year old son to follow in his footsteps. Unfortunately, Kano Mitsunobu was not the genius his father was (an epithet he bore as a youth was 'unskilled'), and the school faced challenges to its supremacy from other, arguably more talented artists. Yet within 20 years, the Kano school had mapped out the course that would see it firmly entrenched as the supreme school of art in the country for the next two hundred years.  This period of transition is highlighted in the exhibition at the Kyoto National Museum.

The Kano school was so important and powerful that it often appears monolithic – all that gold leaf, all those birds and flowers. The sheer number of artists who worked in the tradition is another problem for all but the most interested viewer - for example, the decorations of Nijo castle involved 11 members of the Kano family as well as numerous unnamed apprentices - and the names have a tendency to blend into one another, as do the works. Nevertheless, the more you find out, the more there is to know, and the monolith crumbles to reveal a pattern of myriad lives hidden behind the gilded surface.

Eitoku's death had left Hasegawa Tohaku as the premier painter of the time, and he pressed his advantage, securing several important commissions from Toyotomi Hideyoshi. (In fact, the Kano school had narrowly snatched back a commission given to Tohaku just a few months before Eitoku's death). This placed the Kano school in a position of jeopardy. While this situation has been put down to Mitsunobu's relative inexperience in the politicking necessary to gain commissions, a quick look at his paintings shows that his forte did not lie in the powerful compositions popularized by his father - indeed, there is a certain timidity in his work compared with the sure hand of Sanraku, who had been adopted by Eitoku, (on the advice of Hideyoshi), and who was certainly the strongest painter in the family at that stage. Mitsunobu tended towards compositions in which the individual elements were small in scale, lacking the power of the motifs his father used, and thus, despite being undeniably beautiful (and beautifully painted in some cases – the small birds in the works are exquisite) failing to deliver the punch his erstwhile patrons were used to. 

Kano Mitsunobu - elegant, but clearly lacking the power of the earlier
Kano painters, and the Hasegawa School

Looking at the work of his rival, Hasegawa Tohaku, it is easy to see how the power and graceful lines of the Hasegawa school, the overall integrity of the composition, (not to mention its freshness) proved to be so popular.

Hasegawa Tohaku

And yet... Mitsunobu developed into a fine painter, following the tenets of the Kano school, which believed that diligent copying was preferable to innate talent. He also picked up on the changes of the times; as the Tokugawa tightened their grip on the country the taste for decoration developed towards a lighter, more naturalistic style, away from the bombast of the previous generations, when larger than life characters wrestled for political and military power. The gentler style also reflected the Tokugawa 'story' that they were the natural rulers of a country at peace, and slowly Mitsunobu's style became accepted.

The Kano school, despite the importance they placed upon the head of the family, was far from a one-man operation which made up for any lack of genius with the breadth of talent and the size and organisational capacity of their school. They also devised a strategic approach to address the volatile situation of the times. They designated specific artists to concentrate on particular areas of patronage, essentially working on three fronts at once. Mitsunobu, as head of the school, could straddle all three areas, but other painters served the rising Tokugawa family, the Imperial and noble families, or the Toyotomi, (whose power was clearly on the wane after the Battle of Sekigahara (1600)). It is interesting to note that it was the adopted son of Eitoku, Kano Sanraku who was placed in this least politically important of relationships, despite being the school's strongest painter. As the school continued to grow in power, the importance of blood relationships was emphasized to an even greater degree, with Sanraku's successor (and adopted son) Sanraku being forced into a marginal position.

The Kano School was fortunate that the heir to the Hasegawa tradition died young (and there are rumors of foul play) which drastically reduced the Hasegawa school's ability to compete with the Kano's on multiple commissions, and allowed them gradually to regain ascendance. They were fortunate, too, that Mitsunobu did gradually come into his own, becoming a sought-after painter in his own right.

However, Mitsunobu died also died young, at the age of 37, when his son, Sadanobu was too young to take over headship of the family, so Mitsunobu's brother, Takanobu (previously assigned as a painter to the Imperial families) became the defacto head of the family. He had a surer hand than Mitsunobu, and it seems, a certain business astuteness that allowed the family to flourish. Sadanobu, Mitsunobu's son, also showed great talent, but died at the age of 26. Takanobu's eldest son, Tanyu, one of the greatest painters the school produced, and the major painter of the next generation, had already taken the position as the head of the Edo branch of the family, leaving the vacant headship of the family to his younger brother, Yasunobu. Despite this, it was Tanyu who would be the powerhouse of the family for the next fifty years, well and truly establishing the pre-eminent position of the Kano school.

Peacocks by Mitsunobu...

...and by Kano Tanyu

*Although Eitoku's death is generally remarked upon as unusual (he was 48 when he died), early death was not uncommon in the Kano family, with several notable members dying at a similar age or younger, including Eitoku's brother, Soshu (age 51); his sons Mitsunobu (37), & Takanobu (47); Mitsunobu's son Sadanobu (26);  Takanobu's second son (and Tanyu's brother) Naonobu (43), for example.

Dates of some of the most important members of the Kano Family

Kano Masanobu 1434–1530 (school founder)

Kano Motonobu 1476–1559 (son of Masanobu)

Kano Eitoku 1543–1590 (grandson of Motonobu)

Kano Sōshū 1551–1601 (brother of Eitoku)

Kano Mitsunobu 1571 –1608

Kano Takanobu 1571-1618

Kano Sadanobu 1597-1623

Kano Tanyu 1602–1674 (eldest son of Takanobu)

Kano Naonobu 1607-1650 (brother of Tanyu)

Kano Yasunobu 1613-1685 (brother of Tanyu and head of the family after Sadanobu)

Kano Sanraku 1559–1635 (adopted son of Eitoku; head of the Kyoto Kano School)

Hasegawa Tohaku 1539-1610

The Glories of the Kyoto Kano School: Kano Sanraku and Kano Sansetsu at the Kyoto National Museum

 

Kano Sanraku... this dragon is paired with the tiger and leopard below. It looses everything in such a small reproduction, but if you click on the picture, you will be able to appreciate it far better.

The Kano School was the greatest and most successful of all the Japanese schools of painting. It was founded in the Muromachi period and representatives continued until the end of the Edo period and even beyond. Although its later generations fell into what is usually regarded as sterile copying (although sometimes very beautiful), the earlier generations were full of visual and creative power and energy.

           

It is two of these earlier artists, Kano Sanraku and his son-in-law and adopted son, Sansetsu, who are the subject of a lavish exhibition at the Kyoto National Museum. I had seen some of their paintings earlier, and without knowing much of their history, admired the elegance of Sanraku far more than the boisterous energy of his adoptive father, Eitoku, who did so much to promote his family and secure their position as the foremost artists of their day.

One of Sansetsu's most famous works, The Old Plum Tree, as it would look
in situ.

Eitoku was official painter to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and at his suggestion, adopted his most promising pupil and made him his successor. So far, so good for Sanraku, who succeeded in fulfilling his early promise. However, he fell foul of the changing political climate, and as a member of the Toyotomi entourage, was held in deep suspicion when Tokugawa Ieyasu took over and had to flee for his life.

He was able to resume painting as things quieted down, but was never granted a position as official painter to the shogunate. That honour went to the brilliant Kano Tanyu, who moved to Edo and established the Edo branch of the family, while Sanraku stayed in Kyoto to continue what had become the more minor branch of the family. Sansetsu was to follow him, and there have been some suggestions that some bitterness existed between the two branches.

The exhibition itself is a marvelous opportunity to see so many fine paintings by the two painters – all of them are of a very high standard and enjoy and compare their work. Although the exhibition is weighted in numbers towards Sansetsu, the layout does not really give that impression, and I felt that both artists got an equal showing.

 

Sanraku's tigers. Yes, I know it's a leopard, but it is meant to be a female tiger.
They are looking at the dragon who is at the top of the page. Here we see them
flat, but in the exhibition, the screen was standing semi-folded, so the effect was
quite different.

Seeing such fine works close up is always a treat, and I find the more I look, the more I see. The first room contained Sanraku’s Tiger and Dragon  pair of folding screens, which I hadn’t seen for over twenty years. This is probably the most famous tiger painting in the Japanese tradition, and I remember being quite surprised by the simplicity of treatment when seen from close up. My eye has become more sophisticated since then, but it is true that the strong outlines and flatness of some of the supporting elements does stand out far more when you are in front of the real thing than they do in reproductions (and even more so in Eitoku’s work).

Not my photo, but this is how it looks from the
side.

This time I particularly noted (as well as the way the pigment was applied for the fur) something that I have only come to appreciate in the last few years, which is the way that the nature of the folding screens can add to the spatial effect of the images, giving depth to the painting. There is certainly a knack required to appreciate this, but once acquired, the foreshortening that occurs when looking from an angle, and the layering of successive parts of the picture, gives an added subtlety to the effects of distance, making it very different from the flat fusuma-e (pictures on sliding doors) which is how so many paintings are seen.

This screen, though not by either of these painters, gives
something of an idea of the effect of the folds. 

Wheras previously I had found screens slightly annoying as they disrupted the flat view, now I find the variation they contain far more interesting.

Overall, Sanraku’s works exhibited a calmness and elegance throughout. The style makes much of the process visible to the viewer, and part of what is so interesting about these works, as well as their very obvious beauty, is looking at the techniques the artists utilized.

Rocks by Sanraku

...and by Sansetsu

In the case of these two, although their styles were very close in many aspects, there were differences. I noticed the way Sanraku used the repetition of marks denoting surface texture to build up a measured rhythm across his compositions. This is visible in features such as rocks and trees. If you compare this to Sansetsu, you can see that he favoured an approach that utilized skillful bokashi, blending the lines into the surface.

Sansetsu’s own character was very noticeable in the faces of his animals which all displayed an unusual sense of humour. This aspect has, in fact, been pounced upon as evidence of his place as a predecessor of the 18^th century eccentrics Jakuchu and Sohaku. I’m not sure I would go so far – his technical discipline and adherence to (the Kano school’s canon of) elegance and beauty was greater than theirs – but he was clearly an individual, and expressed this quality in his work.

Both of these painters maintained or even raised the standards of the Kano school, with their emphasis on grace and elegance, producing works of technical brilliance, power and beauty.

If you happen to be in Kyoto, you shouldn’t miss it!