Kanō Mitsunobu

Kanō Mitsunobu ( Japanese 狩 野 光 信 , first name: Genshirō ( 源 四郎 ), later Ukyō-no-shin ( 右 京 進 ); born 1565 , according to other sources 1561 , in Kyōto ; died July 15, 1608  ?) Was the eldest son of Kanō Eitoku , a Japanese painter of the Kanō school .

life and work

As the son of Eitoku and later his successor as the 6th head of the Kanō family, he supported his father early on in his artistic endeavors such as designing screens and wall paintings ( 障 壁画 , Shōheki-ga ) for Azuchi Castle . After the death of his father in 1590, he joined his uncle Kanō Sōshū and Kanō Sanraku and thus participated in the establishment and expansion of the Kanō school.

1592, when the rulers of the land Toyotomi Hideyoshi , the Nagoya Castle expanded as their base of operations for its invasion of Korea, Mitsunobu was charged with the sliding doors figuratively in key areas, so Fusuma -e ( 襖絵 to make). He is also said to have worked for the Tokugawa family when they replaced Hideyoshi and came to power. In 1608 Mitsunobu traveled to Edo on the instructions of the Tokugawa Shogunate . On the way back to Kyoto, he is said to have fallen ill and died in Kuwana .

Few of his works still exist, but they show that, in contrast to the dynamically designed works of his father Eitoku, he strove for a more lyrical style, rich in color and with echoes of the painting of traditional Yamato-e .

Among the best-known works by Mitsunobu are the wall paintings and paintings on sliding doors in the Kangaku-in, a sub-temple of Onjō-ji (Mii-dera) in the city of Ōtsu .

photos

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  Pair of adjustable screens, owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art

literature

• Tazawa, Yutaka: Kanō Mitsunobu . In: Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Art. Kodansha International, 1981. ISBN 0-87011-488-3 .
• Laurance P. Roberts: Mitsunobu . In: A Dictionary of Japanese Artists. Weatherhill, 1976. ISBN 0-8348-0113-2 .

Web links

Commons : Kanō Mitsunobu  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Kanō is the family name, Mitsunobu the first name.