KANO EITOKU

original name Kano Kuninobu born Feb. 16, 1543, Kyoto, Japan died Oct. 12, 1590, Kyoto fifth-generation scion of the famous Kano family of Japanese artists who created the style of the Azuchi-Momoyama period (15741600) screen paintings. The grandson of Kano Motonobu, who had established the aesthetic canons of the Kano school, Eitoku made the Kano style yet more monumental and gorgeous by introducing a gold-leaf ground, upon which he applied brighter colours and heavier black-ink outlines. For his simplified designs he favoured large-scale motifs taken from naturebirds, animals, trees, flowers, rockswhich he executed on large folding screens (byobu) and sliding panels (fusuma) used to decorate the interiors of castles and temples. As the leading artist of the Azuchi-Momoyama period, he was commissioned to paint for the military rulers Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. 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. 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 Tenkyu-in, Kyoto; and 24 Paragons of Filial Piety and of Hermits, on the walls of the Nanzen Temple, Kyoto.