Kano Motonobu (1476-1559), Birds and Flowers of the Four Seasons (Shiki kacho zu), Muromachi period, 16th century | 狩野元信　四季花鳥図屏風　室町時代　16世紀

Botaika shoga dogu-rui tenkan nyusatsu [Exhibition and Auction of Calligraphy, Painting, and Related Accoutrements from a Certain Collector], Tokyo Art Club, Tokyo, 16 December 1912, Lot 208. 

5th Anniversary Exhibition. All-Stars of the Okada Collection: Masterworks of Korin, Jakuchu, Hokusai and the Ru Ware Kilns, Okada Museum of Art, Hakone, 2018-19, exh. no. 377 (unillustrated).

Kobayashi Tadashi ed., Masterpieces of the Okada Museum of Art, vol. 1, Tokyo, 2019, p. 104-5, no. 80.

Animals, birds and flowers associated with the four seasons harmoniously inhabit the twelve panels of this pair of folding screens. Cascading waters, rockwork, blooming peonies and camelia frame a lively ensemble of fauna: a civet cat pauses under the shelter of a pine; small birds perch among its branches – a pair of mandarin ducks float along the waters, while a tortoise half-submerged raises its head; to their left, a red-capped crane pecks at the ground beside its young. A common convention in Japanese landscape screen painting is to depict the four seasons simultaneously, unfolding from right to left in sequence, conveying both the passing of time and the harmony of all living things.

This pair of screens exemplifies the early development of the Kano school under its second-generation head, Motonobu, who established the Kano workshop as the dominant force in Japanese painting up until the close of the Edo period (1615-1868). Motonobu was the son of the founder of the Kano lineage, Kano Masanobu (1434-1530), an official painter of the Ashikaga shogunate. With access to the Ashikaga’s extensive collection of Chinese artworks, Masanobu excelled in the Chinese-influenced painting styles that dominated this period. Motonobu built upon his father’s established continental mode of painting by successfully synthesizing Japanese (wa) and Chinese (kan) styles. His ingenuity came from adapting the smaller-scale Chinese-style paintings seen on fans and albums to the larger-scale formats of folding screens and fusuma panels, embellishing these smaller models with bolder brushwork and outlines, befitting the overall more imposing compositions that were coming into vogue. With an increasing number of commissions for the decoration of daimyo castles and residences, Motonobu’s innovations catered to the taste of the new cohort of warlords who were now taking political charge of the capital of Kyoto.

After the upheavals of the Warring States period and subsequent decline of the Ashikaga shogunate, the Kano studio under Motonobu’s headship was poised to serve a diversified clientele including daimyo such as Hosokawa Masamoto (1466-1507), the Imperial Palace, as well as other aristocratic families and major Zen monasteries.¹ This ensuing decentralization of power following the Onin War (1467), encouraged the rise of autonomous painting ateliers, as well as a diversified range of commissions.² The Kano’s success was their ability to capitalise on this change to the socio-political terrain – they employed their vast knowledge of Chinese subjects while successfully synthesizing them with Japanese decorative sensibilities to adapt to any number and type of project. Their fixed position and renown by the Momoyama period (1573-1615) led to numerous commissions from both Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) and Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598). Motonobu’s consolidation of the Kano workshop’s structural organisation was also key to their political and financial success in the succeeding periods of upheaval: a twin-studio structure was likely set up, with Motonobu’s son, Kano Shoei (1519-1592) managing standard commissions, and his grandson, Kano Eitoku (1543-1590), overseeing the high-intensity production for major castles and palaces.³ Eitoku’s grandson, Kano Tan’yu (1602-1674), would be appointed the first official painter for the Tokugawa shogunate in the new capital of Edo in 1617.

It was undoubtedly Motonobu’s style that laid the groundwork for subsequent artists, both within and beyond the Kano lineage; his emboldened approach to familiar Chinese themes ushered in the dramatic compositions seen in the proceeding Momoyama period. Here, large trunks of pine lean diagonally across the panels; the stalks of bamboo are rendered in modulated colouration and branches of plum bear small white blossoms on their gnarled branches. The civet or musk cat (jakoneko) – a nocturnal feline animal exotic to Japan but familiar from imported Chinese paintings beginning in the thirteenth century – was a subject returned to on a occassion by artists affiliated with the Kano school.

1. Yukio Lippit, Painting of the Realm: The Kano House of Painters in 17^th Century Japan (Seattle, 2012), p. 17.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

來源

《某大家書画道具類展観入札》，東京美術倶楽部， 東京， 1912年12月16日， 編號208

展覽

《美のスターたち-光琳・若冲・北斎・汝窯など名品ぞろい-》，岡田美術館， 箱根， 2018年， 展覽編號377（沒載圖）

出版

小林忠編，《岡田美術館名品撰》，卷1，東京，2019年，編號80

此對六曲屏風以十二扇面薈萃四季祥瑞花鳥：飛瀑瀉於嶙峋石組間，盛放牡丹與山茶框構出靈動的生態景緻。貍貓棲息松蔭之下，雀鳥停駐枝椏，鴛鴦悠游水面，龜甲半沒水中昂首，左側丹頂鶴偕雛鳥俯首啄食。日本山水屏畫慣以右至左鋪陳四季流轉，既喻時序更迭，亦顯萬物和諧共生。

本對屏風為狩野派第二代宗師元信早期作品之佼佼者。元信乃狩野家創始者正信（1434-1530）之子，後者曾任足利幕府御用繪師。元信得以鑑賞足利家族龐大的中國藝術收藏，遂精研主導這一時期之中國風繪畫風格。彼在父親確立的大陸繪畫模式基礎上，成功融匯日本（和）與中國（漢）風格，其匠心在於將扇面、冊頁等小幅中式繪畫形制，成功轉化為屏風、襖繪等巨幅創作，以雄渾筆觸與輪廓強化原本的精細範式，來契合整體更顯磅礴的構圖。隨著大名城堡宅邸裝飾委託遞增，元信之變革恰迎合京都新政權武將階層之審美取向。

歷經戰國亂世與足利幕府衰微，元信執掌的狩野畫室於應仁之亂（1467年）後權力分散之際，得以為多元客群提供服務，包括細川政元（1466-1507）等大名、皇宮殿宇、公卿世家及重要禪寺。¹ 此權力結構轉變促發自主繪畫工坊興起，委託創作類型亦趨多樣。² 狩野派成功關鍵在於善用社會政經環境變遷，他們廣泛運用中國題材，並成功結合日本裝飾美學，以適應各類委託需求。至桃山時代（1573-1615年），其穩固地位與聲譽使他們獲得織田信長（1534-1582年）與豐臣秀吉（1537-1598年）等重要委託。³元信對狩野畫室組織結構的整合，更成為後續動盪時期維持運作與財務成功之基石：他可能設立了一個二元工房結構，由其子狩野松榮（1519-1592年）管理常規委託，而其孫狩野永德（1543-1590年）督導主要城堡宮殿之高強度創作。永德之孫狩野探幽（1602-1674年）於1617年被任命為德川幕府於新都江戶的首任官方畫師。

元信之風格無疑為後世奠定了根基，無論狩野家系內外；他對傳統中國主題的雄渾演繹，開啟了後續桃山時期恢弘構圖之先聲。屏風中斜逸的蒼松枝幹橫跨數扇畫面，竹枝以漸層設色暈染，而作為「歲寒三友」的梅枝於虯曲枝枒間綻放細白花萼。屏風中描繪的貍貓（jakoneko）作為夜行性貓科動物，雖非日本原生物種，卻因十三世紀起傳入的中國繪畫而為人所熟知。

1. 由岐雄·利皮特，《Painting of the Realm: The Kano House of Painters in 17th Century Japan》，西雅圖，2012年，頁17。

2. 同上。

3. 同上。