Artworks

Fusuma paintings of the Jukōin, Daitokuji

Artwork · Kanō Eitoku · 1566 · fusuma-e · Jukō-in

Commissioned in 1566 by Miyoshi Yoshitsugu from Kanō Eitoku (1543–1590) and his father Shōei for the abbot’s residence of Jukō-in. Eitoku, then in his early twenties, painted the central room facing the garden: the four seasons over sixteen panels in vigorous ink against faint gold. Instead of vertical motifs at the corners he placed three massive trees — a gnarled plum for spring, two pines for winter — diagonally opposite, with ducks, rocks and marsh grasses between, drawing the eye into space. A new formula for fusuma beyond his grandfather Motonobu’s. 1 Mason 2005, pp. 255–257, figs. 294–295. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.