Happy New Year 2022 - Year of the Tiger

A rather friendly looking tiger from the Kano school

A Happy New Year to all my readers! 2021 has been a far less productive year than I had hoped, but fingers crossed that 2022 will be better. Japan having adopted a cross between the western and Chinese New Years, January 1st sees the start of the year of the Tiger, the perfect opportunity to take a look at tigers as the subject of traditional Japanese painting.

Tiger paintings have a long history in Japan, but the motif and much knowledge and lore concerning this most Asian of animals came from the mainland, especially China. Korea, of course, had a strong tradition of tiger painting, and this was also a major influence on Japanese artists.

Artists on the mainland had an advantage in that they may have had the opportunity to see live tigers. This was not the case in Japan, where the work of previous artists served as models. At least one famous artist (Maruyama Okyo) went as far as to buy the skin of a tiger to use as a model and this is probably as close to a real tiger as many artists would have come until the late C19th.

Japanese tigers come in many forms, and were used as a motif on hanging scrolls, folding screens and sliding doors, sometimes covering all four walls of a room. The necessary element of the imagination served to give the best of these images an impressive sense of energy and an identity and charm all of their own.  

This painting by Muqi, was the inspiration
for many later Japanese painters

The Chinese painter Muqi (Mokkei) (1210?-1269?) seems to have provided the initial models of tigers for Japanese artists. Not coincidentally, he also provided the first known example (in Japan) of the dragon and tiger motif. A Zen monk as well as a painter, Muqi seems to have been the master of a thriving atelier, and some of the work attributed to him may well be from the hand of painters who worked under him. His work was not regarded as highly in his homeland as it was in Japan - and the pieces held by the great Japanese Zen institutions of the time are among the finest examples of his work.

Not a great reproduction, but it shows the dragon
tiger pairing. You can also see the poetic lines about clouds
and wind at the bottom of each painting.

This pairing of the dragon and the tiger is rich in symbolism. Together, they represent the balance of forces in nature, the yang dragon in the sky also represents spring, while the yin tiger on the ground is a symbol of autumn. They are also associated with the clouds and wind respectively, and bamboo in the case of the tiger. This is an early association – the most famous pair of Muqi’s dragon and tiger paintings (see above) bear the lines ‘The dragon soars and brings the clouds; the tiger's roar, the ferocious winds’. The two creatures are always pictorially balanced, with the tiger at the bottom left (in early paintings this seems to be an invariable rule) and the dragon the top right. There is, too, the yin within yang and vice versa: although soaring in the clouds, the dragon has risen from the depths of the sea; similarly, while land bound, the tiger is associated with the mountains, and thus there is an acknowledgement of the opposite within each image. Both of them represent power, and they were often used to refer to well-matched opponents whose strength lay in different areas. A good example of this is the two well-known rival warlords, Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen, both among the strongest generals of the Sengoku period, though different in their personalities. They were known as the Dragon of Echigo and the Tiger of Kai.

Tigers pop up quite a bit in Zen, and this may help to explain why they became popular with Zen temples. As well as the works of Muqi, many of the earlier hanging scrolls and screens were painted by monk painters. The late Muromachi period saw the proliferation of professional painting studios, principally those of the Kano, who produced decorative schemes with whole rooms or suites of rooms being given over to tigers (amongst other motifs). These include the temples of Nanzen-ji, Manshu-in and Eikando in Kyoto, where they can still be seen in their somewhat faded but nonetheless impressive glory. These schemes were adopted from the warlords of the period, and it is easy to see why the military class would favor this symbol of power and control.

Nijo Castle - an old picture showing the original paintings. 

The virtuous, upright bamboo is clearly visible.

Nijo Castle in Kyoto offers a fine example of the warlords’ taste, although the original paintings are no longer in situ, having been replaced with newly painted copies. (I also wrote about this here: http://ichijoji.blogspot.com/2020/06. The symbolism is not subtle and it is used in the service of power, both legitimizing and intimidating visitors to the rooms. The visitors would be visiting lords, and the intention was not only to awe them with the trappings of power and wealth, underlining the visitors' own vulnerability, but to reinforce the message with specific reference to the motifs in the decorations.

Nijo Castle - a male and female 'tiger'

While the tiger represents power and ferocity - military virtues - a ruler should also be virtuous, an attribute which is signalled by the bamboo, which grows upright and remains unchanging, true to its nature, throughout the seasons. It also possesses the flexibility required of a virtuous ruler. As well as tigers, we can also see leopards (which were thought to be female tigers) in some of the rooms. This was no accident, but a reference to mating and thus the continuation of the shogun’s line.

Nanzenji - although a Zen temple, it adopted the motifs of the military class.

Temples also employed the same artists. There may be a greater emphasis on

the peaceful nature of the tigers in the temple scenes, but I wouldn't bet on it.

The intention to intimidate is obvious in the case of the bushi class, but in the grand decorative schemes in Zen temples, the meaning is a little less apparent. As noted before, tigers do crop up in Zen writings: the enlightened man is likened to a dragon in the depths or a tiger in its mountain fastness, serenely confident and at ease in his own attainment. While this might do for personal contemplation, they were also a means of impressing visitors. Partly, this would have been allowing them the pleasure and privilege of seeing such fine works of art. It also served to underline the importance of the abbot (and his temple) in having access to the very best in artists - the same ones, in fact, that were employed by the highest and most powerful figures in the realm. Religious institutions, it must not be forgotten, were very much a part of the body politic, and their abbots were powerful figures.

There is much more to be said of tiger paintings, and in the next post I intend to look a little closer at some of the major styles in Japan, as well as a recently discovered and deeper role in the arts of war.

More about this one in the next post.

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.

Miyamoto Musashi's squirrel – samurai wordplay

Musashi's Squirrel and Grapes (cut off slightly on the right)

The bushi were a cultured lot – some of them, anyway – and Japan was a cultured society. Nowadays, when we look at the art of great civilisations, we tend to value it for its beauty – indeed, that is one of the things that attracts us to art in many of its forms. However, there is a lot more to art than that (as a cursory glance at any display of contemporary art will tell us) – and there always was. 

As a form of communication, art has messages and meanings beyond the aesthetic. Its value as a didactic and political tool was well understood by the rich and powerful of feudal Japan. Decorative schemes in castles, temples and residences contained subtle and not so subtle messages that their audiences were practiced in reading. They were messages about power, morals, aspiration – the usual things. The artists might also include details pointing to their lineage, linking to well-known works, thus emphasising the connection with more famous predecessors. (This was happening in the Kano school, where the sidelined Kyoto branch thought it necessary to point out that they were just as much, if not more, worthy successors to the Kano tradition than the politically favoured blood descendants of the founder who ran the Edo branch – their paintings were also beautiful, as you can see here). Other works of art operated on a smaller scale, with more personal messages for the satisfaction of the careful viewer.

Which brings us on to an often overlooked painting byMiyamoto Musashi: Squirrel and Grapes

As a subject, it was an auspicious one, symbolising abundance and fertility: grapes are obvious images of plently, while squirrels were seen as being like mice which were known for having large numbers of offspring. Perhaps not an obvious choice for Musashi, although it could be argued that it reflects a feeling of personal well-being and satisfaction with his position in the world. Indeed, at this stage, relatively late in his life, he was a guest of the powerful and cultured Hosokawa family in Kumamoto, far from the reverses he may have suffered in trying to establish himself in the capital. However, there is more to it than that.

A typical depiction of the squirrel and grapes theme on sword mountings

The title was also understood as a play on words: the word for grapes (budo) is a homophone for budo(martial ways), while squirrel (risu) is similar to rissuru, which means something like to dedicate or discipline oneself. Thus the picture is a pun that refers to discipline in the martial arts. It is in this connection that the motif was utilised by bushi as decoration in sword mountings and the like.  

Musashi’s treatment of the theme is distinctive. Like his more well-known paintings of birds, this one emphasises poise – the squirrel balances on the vine, its eyes sharp, and the tail sweeping up as it prepares to hop onto the next branch or reach out for the grapes below. This sense of dynamism is portrayed through the broad curves of the tail and the body, with the more precise details of the face and claws suggesting the focus and contained energy of a body about to burst into motion.  

Musashi’s work is notable for his sparing yet powerful use of dark ink to focus and control the composition, keeping the dynamism of the subject through rough but fluent brushwork. It was a style that stemmed from Muqi and Liang Kai, both 13^thcentury Chinese monk painters whose works were more admired in Japan than in their native China. Musashi’s artistic education is a matter for speculation, but his style and subject matter suggest he had seen some of these works as well as those of his older contemporaries, Kaiho Yusho and Hasegawa Tohaku, who were both influenced by these artists. Kaiho Yusho and Hasegawa Tohaku were based in Kyoto for much of their careers, and famous works by the two aforementioned Chinese painters were also held in temples in that city. 

 

The 6th Patriarch Chopping Wood by Liang Kai
This work is now in the Tokyo National Museum, but it is quite possible
Musashi had access to it at some time. (Lang Kai's paintings suffer greatly from
reproduction - you cannot really appreciate the subtlety in reproductions).

Crows by Kaiho Yusho. Yo can still get some idea of the power of this piece even though the reproduction is less than perfect.

Of course, early in his career Musashi spent some time in Kyoto, but what his position was is far from certain. At some time he completed some fine paintings for Toji Temple, which maintains he lived there for a period of three years or so after his duels with the Yoshioka swordsmen, and also suggests that he studied with Kaiho Yusho during this time, but this is far from certain. (The priest Takuan, who was linked to Musashi in the famous novel by Yoshikawa Eiji, was head of a sub-temple at the Daitoku-ji complex where Tohaku saw a triptych by Muqi that had a major influence on his style. Although there seems to be no firm evidence to back it up, the temple also claims a connection with Musashi – perhaps that is where Yoshikawa got the idea about Takuan being Musashi’s mentor.)

Wherever he developed his skill with the brush, it is difficult not to see in his works touches of his own experience, and to think that they express something of what was important to him in life.

Musashi often chose animals and birds for his subjects, and among those, it was the small and everyday varieties that he focused on. That he would choose these as subjects, in some cases strongly suggesting connections with aspects of his heiho– his martial art – rather than the powerful, regal creatures that we might normally associate with the arts of war, certainly says something about the man.

A close-up showing the squirrel and one of the well-nibbled bunches of grapes.

Can we read anything else into this inquisitive squirrel? I think we can. If we look carefully, we can see the grapes are mostly gone. Is it late in the season or has another squirrel been here already? Whatever the reason, this one seems unphased – it continues, as full of enthusiasm as ever. Is this the message then – the importance of continued discipline, even though many of the obvious rewards have gone? It would be in keeping with Musashi’s writings. But more than that, given the way the painting pulses with life, it suggests there is an enthusiasm, almost a joy in this. I would like to think that this, too, was part of his message.

You can read more about Musashi's paintings here: https://ichijoji.blogspot.com/2011/12/deeper-reading-of-musashis-painting.html

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!

The Master Dragon Painters

Kano Tanyu: ceiling painting, Unryu, Myoshinji Temple, Kyoto

Dragons have been depicted in Japan in a variety of different media, but the one that has produced some of the most powerful dragon art, reflecting the mysterious qualities of the dragon itself, is sumi-e. Viewing dragons can be a bit of a hit or miss affair - so here is a quick overview, with a few of the more notable artists' work.

Dragon imagery in Japan has a particularly close connection with Buddhism, particularly Zen, and the most striking images are often to be found in (or originally belonged to) Zen temples. These large scale works are typically found either on ceilings or on sliding doors or fusuma, and these two types of painting usually follow slightly different conventions in their depiction of dragons. A substantial number of hanging scrolls were also painted of dragons, and these tended to follow the same conventions as the fusuma-e.

In its connection with Buddhism, the symbolism exists on a number of levels - it was regarded as a protector of Buddhist law, and is often depicted on ceilings for this reason. Of course, they are closely associated with water, and it is said that a dragon can call up the clouds, and they are often painted as unryu or dragon in the clouds. It is a particular characteristic of fusuma-e dragons that their bodies are partly obscured by clouds - similarly, it is impossible for an initiate to fully grasp the nature of esoteric teachings (and of truth itself) without long, hard training, making them a powerful reminder of the depth and mystery of the traditions they represent.

Ceiling dragons, on the other hand, tend to be fully visible, painted within a circle, often on the bare boards of the ceiling, or with some accompanying clouds, often outside the circle. The body of the dragon remains unobscured. These dragons were painted in situ (in th egood old days, that is), the ink probably mixed with animal glue nikawa, making it possible to work upside down, and greatly increasing its permanency.

Kano Mitsunobu - Naki-ryu in Shokokuji Temple,
Kyoto.

The ceilings themselves are often slightly domed – which is not only necessary to give the appearance of being flat (apparently), but which also gives rise to the phenomenon of the naki-ryu or roaring dragon. This term refers to the acoustic properties of the ceilings, which creates a peculiar echo if you stand in the right place and clap your hands.

The ceilings are also sometimes referred to as Happo nirami no ryu - or dragon glaring in 8 directions. This is a result of an effect similar to the well-known WWI recruitment poster of Kitchener (and Uncle Sam) pointing directly out of the picture at the viewer.   In the case of dragons, this can prove even more dramatic as the direction of the dragon's coils appears to move as you walk around the hall.

A sketch of one of the 140 dragons

It seems that many temples have dragon ceilings - and they are not limited to Zen temples, though they are, perhaps most common there, but they are often in buildings that are not generally open to the public. In Kyoto, the most representative examples were painted by painters of the Kano school, perhaps most notably Kano Tanyu, who reportedly engaged in two years of study before embarking on the painting on the ceiling of Myoshinji - the abbot reportedly wanted him to be able to see, and hear, dragons before painting this one. Whatever the truth of it, it is certainly a marvelous work. He is also (jointly) responsible for the 140 dragon ceiling of Taiyuin Mausoleum at Nikko.

There are also several modern versions – although they are testaments to the technical skill of the artists, I find them rather lacking in dragonish character, and painted a little too literally for my taste. Perhaps the mellowing influence of a few hundred years would change my mind.

Fusuma-e

The dragons painted on sliding doors are quite different in character from their counterparts on the ceilings – they show the inchoate elemental qualities of the dragon- large heads looming out of the mist, the coils of their bodies disappearing in the rain and clouds. They are unknowable denizens of a world we cannot understand; real unryu, and in many depictions, the clouds form a greater part of the work than the dragon. The subtlety of gradation and the dynamism of the swirling clouds makes sumi the perfect medium for these works, and the power of the best examples is undeniable.

Kaiho Yusho, Unryu, Kenninji Temple, Kyoto

When mounted on screens, they are often paired with the tiger, but on sliding doors, they may cover all four walls of a room. Although the dragon’s head usually provides the focal point, the swirling clouds, crashing waves and the dark sky are also important elements in the composition. On some doors the dragon is not visible at all, or else there is just a clawed foot or a glimpse of a scaled back.

Kaiho Yusetsu (Yusho's son), Myoshinji Temple

The other notable feature of these works that separates them from their foreign cousins is the face – with its bald head, hairy nostrils and buck teeth, the dragon is possessed of distinctly human features, and not always flattering ones at that. Whereas the western dragon has a lean predatory air, the Japanese dragon combines its wisdom with a knowledge of human weakness, giving some of these works an otherworldly and sometimes rather strange atmosphere. The works of the Kaiho school in particular are sometimes quite strange.

Maruyama Okyo - slightly later than the other works depicted
here, but very impressive all the same.

Ultimately, these dragon paintings still convey something quite special. The reason, I think, is that they combine elements of the schools of thought that deeply influenced the medium – sumi-e – and the qualities of the dragon itself. Daoism and Buddhism both seek or posit an explanation of the nature of the world. The development of ink painting is closely linked to these traditions, and something of their beliefs about the transmutability of energy and form became linked to this particular medium of artistic expression. The dragon itself also echoes the twisting, multiform flow of energy that can be seen at work in clouds, water, the growth of trees and the folds of mountains. It is the theme par-excellence of sumi-e, expressing in a visual form the pattern of our world.