Kanō Eitoku

Kanō Eitoku (1543 –1590) was a Japanese painter of the Muromachi Period. He was a fifth-generation member of the Kanō family of Japanese artists, who created the style of the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1574 – 1600) screen paintings.

He was born in Kyoto. He was the grandson of Kanō Motonobu (1476 – 1559), an official painter for the Ashikaga shogunate, who had established the aesthetic canons of the Kanō school. Eitoku was recognized for his artistic talent at a very young age. Under Motonobu’s guidance, he developed his grandfather’s style.

His greatest 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. Eitoku introduced a gold-leaf ground, upon which he applied brighter colors and heavier black-ink outlines. Eitoku’s great-grandson Einō (1631 – 97) wrote about this style in his History of Japanese Painting (Honcho gashi), stating 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.

 Many of Eitoku’s works on large folding screens (byōbu) and sliding panels (fusuma) used to decorate the interiors of castles and temples were of nature—birds, animals, trees, flowers, rocks. Symbolic representations, like pheasants, phoenixes and trees are often depicted in his works. The pheasant, the national symbol of Japan, represents mythological messengers of the sun goddess Amaterasu.

Collaborating with his father Shōei (1519 – 92), Eitoku painted the wall panels of the abbot’s quarters in Jukō-in, a sub-temple of the Daitoku-ji Zen monastic complex in Kyoto.

As the leading artist of the Azuchi-Momoyama period, his chief patrons were the military rulers: Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.  Eitoku’s standing screen, sliding door, wall, and ceiling paintings decorated Nobunaga’s Azuchi castle and Hideyoshi’s residence in Kyoto and Osaka Castle. Contemporary accounts indicate that Eitoku was one of the most highly sought-after artists of his time, and received many wealthy and powerful patrons. Maintaining the preeminence of the Kanō School was not merely an artistic feat, but an organizational and political one also. Eitoku was able to secure a steady stream of commissions and an efficient workshop of students and assistants.

He influenced many artists of his day, including his sons Mitsunobu and Takanobu and his son-in-law Sanraku, an outstanding artist of the period.

Unfortunately, most of his works were destroyed in the turmoil of the Sengoku period. However, those that do still exist provide testimony to his talent, to the power and wealth of his patrons Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, and to the magnificence of Azuchi-Momoyama culture. Among the few original Eitoku paintings extant are “Chinese Lions,” on a six-paneled folding screen in the Imperial Household Collection; “Landscapes and Flowers,” on 16 sliding panels in the Tenkyū-in, Kyōto; and “24 Paragons of Filial Piety and of Hermits,” on the walls of the Nanzen-ji Temple, Kyōto.