Kanō School

About

The Kanō school began with Kanō Masanobu, a painter to the Ashikaga shoguns in the late 1400s, and was consolidated by his son Kanō Motonobu, who joined the ink techniques of Chinese-style painting to the colour and decorative clarity of Japanese yamato-e. The family passed down its models and methods through a strict workshop of sons, adopted heirs and trained pupils.

For the warlords of the late 1500s, Kanō Eitoku painted castle screens and sliding doors in gold leaf and strong colour, with massive pines, cypresses and lions spreading across the panels. After 1600 Kanō Tan'yū moved to Edo to serve the Tokugawa shoguns, favouring spare, elegant compositions with generous empty space. For more than two centuries Kanō studios trained official painters and their copybooks defined orthodox taste; Maruyama Ōkyo and Tani Bunchō both learned Kanō methods before forming their own styles.