Page 10 - 2021 March 16th Japanese and Korean Art, Christie's New York City

In a richly decorative statement about power and beauty, Judging by the fine-quality pigments, brilliant color and
pine and plum trees face one another in an auspicious and attention to precise detail, we can guess that these screens
highly detailed grouping of East Asian birds and flowers. were commissioned by a member of the Kyoto aristocracy
These late-seventeenth-century screens, emerging for the or a high-ranking member of another elite status group.
first time after forty years in a private collection in New The composition retains the grandeur and formal qualities
York, are a rare example of the best work of an important established by artists in the Momoyama period. Bold trees
seventeenth-century master. A closely related work by anchor the outer corners and stretch across the central
Kano Eino, featuring cranes rather than paired pheasants, body of water, fed by a waterfall at the far left. Clouds and
is in the collection of the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo. mist bands of gold leaf enhance the lush landscape and
suggest that the screens were commissioned by a client
Kano Eino succeeded his father, Kano Sansetsu (ca.
accustomed to live in luxury—no expense was spared.
1589–1651), as the third head of the local, Kyoto-based
Dark outlines used for the trees and rocks contrast with the
branch of the preeminent Kano family workshop. The other
delicate depictions of birds and flowers.
branch of the family had relocated to Edo (Tokyo) to work
for the Tokugawa shoguns. The most important family of The artist presents a veritable encyclopedia of local birds
professional painters in Japanese history, stretching from and flowers. On the right screen we have: a pair of Siberian
the sixteenth to the twentieth century, the House of Kano rubythroats on the pine at far right; a China rose in the lower
served as official painters to the imperial and military right corner; a pink-petaled midget crabapple tree hiding
elite for over four centuries. In addition to excelling in the behind the pine; a spectacular golden pheasant amidst
family style, Einō is widely known as the author of History pink peonies; a small Eurasian bullfinch at the apex of the
of Painting in This Realm (Honchō gashi), the first full- pine branch; a pair of yellow-throated buntings in flight at
fledged history of painting written in Japan. His scholarly left; and yellow Japanese roses at left. On the left screen
text, with biographies of over four hundred artists from as we see, from the right: Japanese sparrows; a spectacled
far back as ancient Japan, is based on a work by his father, teal and a common gadwell duck; rhododenrum on the
and is still a fundamental research tool for Japanese art shore; a pair of blue and white Japanese flycatchers on the
historians. A shortened version appeared in 1691 in five plum branch; a ring-necked pheasant; a Daurian redstart
woodblock-printed volumes entitled Record of Ancient on the plum branch in the fifth panel from the right; and
Painting (Honchō gaden), and the full work was published finally, more rhododendrum, as well as Camellia japonica.
in 1693.