Kano School of painting

The Kano school  of painters – the most important and distinguished painting tradition  in Japan was established in the late fifteen century by Kano Masanobu  ( 1434-1530) – he lived almost 96 years! Kano school`s painting  traditions and style continued for more than four hundred years, until the early XXth century.

There are very interesting observations about  Kano school`s painting technique which is very relevant and worth to mention, made by the authors of the book Felice Fischer and Kyoko Kinoshita which I bring below :

Kano painting  practices:

“Modal painting”:

“Each mode had generically unique  features, such as the use of hard outline for landscape elements  and “axe-cut strokes” on rock forms in the mode of Xia GUI or the lack of  an outline – generally referred to as the “boneless” method – for landscape elements in the mode of Muqi. In historical records of painting projects, these modes appear mostly in conjunction with large scale paintings, but surviving works indicate that they also were applied to smaller scale  formats such as hanging scrolls and folding fans“.

“The Kano painters inherited this legacy, and Masanobu’s accent is almost certainly tied to his mastery of modal painting. However it should be emphasized that modal painting did not merel entail the imitation of the styles of continental  works. Rather it constituted a more complex and creative  practise based upon the painters ability to mix and match a wide range of artistic habits associated with a Chinese master and recombine them in inventive ways for Japanese pictorial format”.

“Architectural Painting”:

“One of the distinguishing factors that enabled the rise of the Kano house was its ability to produce large scale  paintings, namely those affixed to the walls and sliding door panels of architectural interiors, quickly and masterfully. Kano’s paintings became a part of architectural looks of Zen temples and castles”.

“The Kano Synthesis”:

“The painting history credit Kano Motonobu  ( son of Kano Masanobu) with the successor mastery  and synthesis of two separate  traditions of paintings, one indigenous and the other continental. This combination was incapsulated by traditional term  wakan, which joined the characters “wa” ( Japan)  and “ kan”(China). This term had been used for centures to refer to cultural production  that artfully integrated  the practices of two cultures”.

“The most significant  of original Japanese paintings: “Yamato-e “ ( “Japanese pictures)  styles were Tosa and Oguri lineage, which are styles derived from ancient Japanese art  that was associated with the imperial court  and aristocracy.  In visual terms, the embrace  of Yamato-e took on many forms, but two of the most significant were the mastery of illustrated  handscrolls and the adoption of a gold leaf  ground for painting. The indigenous practice of painting works on an all gold ground was similarly transposed to the Kano menu. The adoption of a metallic painting support  required not only the specialised ability to apply pigments to this surface, but also an unerring sense of design and composition, so that the negative space  surrounding motifs  could imply a ground plane or other context  for the otherwise floating pictorial elements.  The Kano school applied  the concept  of the gold-leafed  canvas in innovative ways to new subjects. As the XVI century Kano painters generated more visually complex gold surfaces in a number of ways”:

• “by mixing and matching gold foil and paint”;
• “introducing three dimensional patterns into the gold surface by layering the gold upon raised gesso design as – moriage”
• “cutting the gold leaf down to thin strips or miniature squares sprinkled across the surface”;
• “manipulations the metallurgy of the gold to introduce yellow or reddish  tints”;

A good example of mixing Chinese and Japanese painting traditions is a painting below:

“Landscape Panels mounted on Yamato-e screens. The background is depicted in classical Yamato-e fashion, with gold clouds  and colourful nature imaginary, while the landscapes  affixed to the screens  are ink monochrome works in the Chinese tradition as adapted by medieval monk painters”.

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Kano School images are very inspiring to draw. Also I am very much attracted to oil colours  because they  do give a high aesthetic to paintings, luxurious velvety look,  special depth and brightness. I tend to like oils also because I think I get better results with them when I paint trying  a Kano style of Japanese ancient paintings XVI-XVIII centuries, which are highly decorative and just amazing. There are no strong brushstrokes, but very gentle curves and very precise lines. To explain what exactly I mean, I have attached below the cover of the  book I have been reading : “Ink and Gold Art of the Kano”, written by art writers Felice Fischer and Kyoto Kinoshita in collaboration  with Philadelphia Museum of Art  and Yale University Press. “Kano” is the name of most famous and valued Japanese painting school which was amazingly sussceful over the centuries.

“Study of Peonies” (oil on canvas)

I picked up an object  to paint  – 2  peonies ( below). I  took a special paper for  oil painting and  covered it with acryling paint in gold shade. I tried to make the gold colour  base for the  whole painting slightly uneven, making symmetric squares with a brush, so it won’t  look flat. I watch tutorials in YouTube  which teach oil painting techniques and I know that you can paint oils on acrylics but not vice versa.  When it dried out and acrylics dry out very quickly, I used a pencil to sketch  stems, leaves and flowers. I started to work on stems, analysing how Japanese masters did paint them  and that  was very challenging, because ALL their lines are very elegant. I hope I will obtain the same “easy and elegant” look with practice. My lines do look heavier, of course.  I didn’t pursue to get an exact copy, but I did  copy details – how leaves and petals, stem are done because I really like that style of drawing and painting. I was very much confused at the beginning with an idea that I copy someone’s work, but I have learned from Kano history book that actually Japanese painters of this school copied in their  turn Chinese artists  of that time. Obviously they have developed their own unique style and I see as well: as I progress –  I do develop my own  style as well. Below the cover of the book I attached the original – 2 peonies and my work in progress. I am very happy with stems and leaves so far I do have an ambition to produce at some point  the same kind of highly aesthetic images as Kano School masters did.

Below is my  work in progress. While doing it  I have learned a lot in terms of mastering technique in oil painting. I have used black and gold shades of acrylic paints and different shades of green, scrlett red and bordo, grey, brown and white oils paints. I had to us  special mediums for the first time and now I am starting to get a better understanding which one works how and which one works for me better. There are lot of mediums on the market. I tried Stand oil ( linseed) and Medium a Peindre by J.G.Vibert – this one is also oil. However they are VERY different. The first one is very thick and doesn’t stretch the oil paint well, but gives gloss and using it you can get some special effects. But the problem is that it doesn’t dry out. So after a week of waiting  I had to take off the excess of this  linseed oil medium with a brush. working with brush in different way did let me get some interesting effects on my  paintings, which you can see on the stems,  and leaves. The  other medium stretches ( dilutes) the oil paint very well and I used it for my fine lines- which were absolutely necessary in this project. At the bottom of this page you can find my completed work. In general I  am very happy because it is my first oil painting. I hope I did everything  right and it WILL dry out:)), so  it will not be ruined when my tutor will receive it by post. I like how I managed with the details: stems and leaves. However, when I will do it on canvas, I will do it more proportionate, making the stems ( the green part)  longer, this is an A3 format paper.