Kano Eitoku

Japanese: 狩野永徳 - かのう・えいとく

Year of death: September 14, 1590 (October 12, 1590)
Year of birth: Tenbun 12.1.13 (1543.2.16)
One of the most representative painters of the Momoyama period. Born into a family of painters in Kyoto that had continued from his great-grandfather Masanobu. The eldest son of Kano Shoei. It is known that in 1552, his grandfather Motonobu took the young Eitoku to pay his respects to Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru of the Muromachi shogunate, and it is assumed that Eitoku was trained by his grandfather from a young age and was expected to have a future as the head of the Kano family. The sliding screen paintings of Jukoin Temple at Daitokuji, which was founded in 1566 to commemorate the soul of Miyoshi Nagayoshi, were produced by Eitoku, who was only 24 years old, together with his father Shoei. Eitoku was in charge of the main room of the abbot's chamber, and painted "Flowers and Birds of the Four Seasons." In the following year, it is recorded that he produced a painting for the residence of Konoe Maehisa ("Gotokyo-ki"), giving us a glimpse of his success. In his 30s and 40s, Eitoku worked on a succession of sliding screen paintings to decorate the interiors of buildings for the powerful people of the time, such as Oda Nobunaga's Azuchi Castle (1576), Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Osaka Castle (1585) and Jurakudai (1587), Ogimachiin Imperial Palace (1586), Tenzui-ji Temple (1588), which Hideyoshi built on the grounds of Daitoku-ji Temple for his mother, Tenzui-in, and the Kyoto Imperial Palace (1590). The reason he was able to solely undertake the production of sliding screen paintings for large-scale buildings such as castles and imperial palaces was that during Motonobu's time, a studio production method had already been established that allowed him to master all kinds of painting techniques, from Buddhist paintings to portraits, picture scrolls, and ink paintings, and to respond to a wide range of orders, and Eitoku succeeded in expanding the studio by inheriting this method. At the same time, while based on Motonobu's painting techniques, he also created a style that anticipated the tastes of the changing times and the expanding customer base that included the newly emerging samurai. As recorded in the Honcho Gashi (1693), when feudal lords built large mansions and installed gold walls, they always sought out Eitoku's paintings, and his talent was apparent in his gold and silver partition paintings. Moreover, his "large paintings," which depicted "pine and plum trees measuring 10 or 20 jo in length and figures measuring 3 or 4 feet" with rough brushwork and ink painting using a straw brush, were praised for their innovative and bizarre style. The painting techniques that Eitoku devised for the huge walls of great halls built after Hideyoshi had a significant impact on the Momoyama art world. However, many of Eitoku's masterpieces, including the sliding screen paintings at Jukoin Temple, have shared the fate of the buildings and have not been passed down to the present day, and there are few surviving pieces that have traditionally been thought to be Eitoku's paintings, such as the "Chinese Lion Screen" (owned by the Sannomaru Shozokan Museum), the Uesugi version of the "Rakuchu Rakugai Screen" (owned by Yonezawa City), and the "Xuyou Sufu" (owned by the Tokyo National Museum) and "Boyi Shuqi," which are hanging scrolls made from fragments of sliding screen paintings. There is a theory that the "Cypress Screen" (owned by the Tokyo National Museum), which is said to be a sliding screen painting at the residence of Prince Hachijonomiya Toshihito in 1590, is an Eitoku painting based on its style, and since it is assumed that the predecessor to the sliding screen paintings at the main temple of Nanzenji Temple was that at the Ogimachiin Palace, it is possible that this includes Eitoku's paintings. After Eitoku's death, Hideyoshi, who mourned the death of his beloved son, Kakusho, built Shoun-ji Temple (now Chishaku-in Temple) in 1582, and the paintings on the walls of the temple fell into the hands of the group led by Hasegawa Tohaku, temporarily threatening the Kano family's position in the art world. However, the Kano family later gathered their power and succeeded in securing the foundations of a school that was highly valued by the Tokugawa Shogunate. <References> "Complete Collection of Wall Paintings: Daitoku-ji Shinjuan and Juko-in," Doi Tsugiyoshi's "Eitoku and Sanraku," Takeda Tsuneo's "Japanese Art No. 94: Kano Eitoku" (Shibundo)

(Hiroyuki Suzuki)

Source: Asahi Japanese Historical Biography: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. About Asahi Japanese Historical Biography

Japanese:

没年：天正18.9.14(1590.10.12)
生年：天文12.1.13(1543.2.16)
桃山時代を代表する画家のひとり。曾祖父正信より続く京都の絵師の家に生まれた。狩野松栄の長男。天文21(1552)年,祖父元信が幼い永徳を引き連れて室町幕府将軍足利義輝への正月参賀に赴いたことが知られ(『言継卿記』),若年より祖父の訓育を受けて狩野家総領としての将来を嘱望されていたものと想像される。三好長慶の菩提を弔って永禄9(1566)年に創建された大徳寺聚光院の障壁画は,父松栄と共に弱冠24歳の永徳が制作に当たったが,方丈の主室である室中は永徳が担当して「四季花鳥図」を描き,翌10年には近衛前久邸の座敷絵制作が記録され(『言継卿記』),活躍の片鱗がうかがえる。30,40歳代の永徳は,織田信長の安土城(1576),豊臣秀吉の大坂城(1585)と聚楽第(1587),正親町院御所(1586),秀吉が生母天瑞院のために大徳寺山内に建立した天瑞寺(1588),京都御所(1590)など,時の権力者の建築物の室内を飾る障壁画をつぎつぎと手がけた。城や御所などの大規模な建築の障壁画制作を一手に請け負うことができた理由は,すでに元信の代に仏画から肖像画,絵巻,水墨画まで,あらゆる画法を修得して幅広い注文に応じられる工房制作の方式が整えられ,これを継承した工房の拡充に永徳が成功したことがあげられる。同時に,元信の画法を基礎に置きながら,変化に富んだ時代と,新興武家などに拡大した受容者層の好みを先取りするスタイルを創り上げたことも大きい。『本朝画史』(1693)に,武家諸侯が大邸宅を築いて金壁を設けるときは必ず永徳の画を求めた,と記されているように金碧障壁画にその手腕が発揮された。しかも「長さ10,20丈もある松梅や3,4尺もある人物」を粗放な筆法で描き,水墨画の時は藁筆を使う「大画」は新意に満ちた怪々奇々の画風だったと評されている。秀吉以降に造られた大広間の巨大な壁面のために永徳が工夫した画法が,桃山画壇に与えた影響は少なくない。しかし,永徳の代表作となるべき多くの障壁画は建物と運命をともにして今には伝わらず,聚光院の障壁画のほか「唐獅子図屏風」(三の丸尚蔵館蔵),上杉本「洛中洛外図屏風」(米沢市蔵),障屏画の断片を掛幅に改装した「許由巣父図」(東京国立博物館蔵)と「伯夷叔斉図」など,従来から永徳画と考えられてきた遺品は少ない。天正18(1590)年の八条宮智仁親王邸の障壁画と伝承される「檜図屏風」(東京国立博物館蔵)を,その作風から永徳画と判断する説があり,また,南禅寺本坊の障壁画の前身が正親町院御所のそれと推測されるので,この中に永徳画が含まれている可能性もある。永徳の死後は,愛児鶴松の死を悼んだ秀吉が天正19年に創建した祥雲寺の障壁画(現智積院障壁画)の制作が長谷川等伯一派の手に落ち,画壇での地位を一時脅かされたが,狩野家は,その後一族の勢力を結集し,徳川幕府に重用される門派の基礎を確保することに成功した。<参考文献>『障壁画全集大徳寺真珠庵・聚光院』,土居次義『永徳と山楽』,武田恒夫『日本の美術94号狩野永徳』(至文堂)

(鈴木廣之)

出典　朝日日本歴史人物事典：（株）朝日新聞出版朝日日本歴史人物事典について　情報

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