Page 40 - Bonhams Japanese Art and Antiqes sept 2015_Float

3050 (detail)
3050
ANONYMOUS KANO SCHOOL (16TH/17TH CENTURY)
Horses in a Pasture
A pair of large six-panel folding screens, ink, color and metallic flakes
on paper; featuring horses in a landscape watched by a group of
figures, unsigned
66 3/4 x 133 3/8in (169.4 x 338.8cm)
$70,000 - 120,000
This important pair of screens featuring pasturing horses is a fine
example of genre painting (fuzokuga) which gained in popularity during
the tumultuous sixteenth century. The panoramic landscape with rolling
hills that visually link the two screens creates a jewel-like setting for the school in the 15th century. The integrated pictorial space has a rather
gamboling horses. The frenetic activity – running, jumping, rolling on the
ground – is viewed with interest by a rather serene party of merrymakers
and their waiting attendants beneath a large pine on the far left.
Horses were especially valued during the late Muromachi and
Momoyama period due to the numerous military campaigns that
required swift deployment of troops. The demand for depictions
of prized steeds frolicking in a landscape, instigated by the newly
powerful warrior class who sought to celebrate their way of life, is
evident in the extant screens of horses by the various ateliers catering
to high ranking military. Not limited to the better known works of the
Unkoku and Hasegawa schools, mastery in the depiction of horses is
illustrated by a number of extant examples by Kano artists, such as
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Kano Motonobu (1476-1559; ema at the Komori Shrine in Tamba-cho,
Kyoto) and Kano Hideyori (d.c.1576-7; ema at the Kamo Shrine in
Hasumi, Shimane Prefecture).
The present screens of horses at pasture exemplify the Momoyama
penchant for experimentation with subject matter and composition
that combines disparate stylistic traditions. Kano training is evident
in the faceted rocks defined in bold outline and sharp texture strokes
on the right screen, as well as the softer configuration of landscape
outcroppings on the left. The vivid malachite green, the rounded hills
and the languid configuration of the pine tree sheltering the figural
group are grounded in the Yamato-e tradition as revived by the Tosa
low vista, more characteristic of late-Muromachi-period works, and the
mid-ground cluster of trees and barely visible roof tops is a common
feature of 15th- and early-16th-century ink monochrome landscape
painting. The screens also reflect the fascination with new leisure
pursuits and accoutrements of the time – kindred to the figures in the
anonymous Kano-school screen depicting samurai watching horses
in the collection of the Taga Shrine in Shiga Prefecture and the party
of merrymakers with a very similar picnic set in a Kano school pair of
screens entitled Amusements at Higashiyama (Kozu Kobunka Kaikan,
Kyoto), both dated to the early 1600s.