Mizuhiki – Adorning Life
Mizuhiki is an ancient Japanese art of knot-tying. This intricate craft has evolved over the centuries and is now cherished in modern Japan as both a holiday gift and a decorative element.
The Kano School of Painting
The Kano School of Painting was the longest lived and most influential school of painting in Japanese history (~1467 to 1868). Its 400-year (ish) prominence is unique in world art history. This hereditary assemblage of professional, secular painters succeeded in attracting numerous patrons from the most affluent social classes by developing, mastering, and promoting a broad range of painting styles, pictorial themes, and formats.
Zhou Maoshu Appreciating Lotuses A hanging scroll painted by Kanō Masanobu
Kano Masanobu – founder of the Kano Academy – was born in 1434 to a samurai family. He became the shogun’s official painter in the 1480s. His style was characterised by the washed ink influence of painters such as Tensho Shubun. Masanobu trained his son, Motonobu (ca. 1476–1559), who took over this position, and went on to cultivate the now-distinctive Kano style of painting. A class of feudal lords (daimyo) came to power during the upheaval of the Sengoku Jidai (Warring States Period, 1467 – 1600). A new style of art began to emerge, in concurrence with the tastes of these new sponsors: bold and dramatic, and often imposed over a fine gold leaf. The Kano school was instrumental in developing new forms of painting for decorating the new styles of castles of the new families of these moneyed aristocrats.
Willow Trees on Sliding Door
Motonobu’s grandson Kano Eitoku (1543–1590) introduced a new strength and dynamism to his large compositions that appealed to the warlords who dominated the Momoyama period (1568 – 1600) and suited the grand interiors of their massive and impressive castles. His series of sliding doors (fusuma) and folding screens (byōbu) painted with oversize animals, figures, and nature scenes set against scintillating gold foil well illustrated the power and energy the daimyo patrons wished to express.
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