Kano Eitoku’s Screen
The following discussion centers on contextualizing Yukio Lippit’s proposition that Kano School’s willingness to “continuously reinvent its artistic practices to suit an ever-changing world” (Yukio 2015, 1) to the case study of Kano Eitoku’s Eight-fold screen named Cypress.
The conspicuously large scale that the screen holds (h.169.5, l.460.5 cm) renders a sense of immediacy to the viewers about Eitoku’s mastery of executing the grand painting, a skill that he accumulated and refined while working on the large-scale castle interiors. Viewing the screen from the right to the left, one encounters the main body of the cypress, starting at the second panel and extending to the fourth. Given the heavy forms and proportions of the main tree body occupying the three consecutive panels, Eitoku portrays a conceivable focal point for the viewers to recognize the cypress as the pivotal subject throughout the entire painting. Additionally, the tree branches of the cypress are carried in a continuous, dynamic, and energetic manner by Eitoku, extending even to the last panel of the screen. In other words, the eight panels are expected to grow beyond the framing of each panel, echoing with each other to render a coherent visual narrative centered on the cypress tree. However, the tree branch centered on the middle level of panels No.4 and No.5 discernibly disconnects from each other, failing to bring a realistic or representational expression of the cypress. A similar disconnected tree branch repeats between panels No.6 and No.7. To this end, one should revisit the physical form of the screen, which suggests its physical structure could be manipulated to divide spaces in practicality. Imagining the eight-fold screen folds at panels No.4 and No.5, one realizes the challenge of switching perspectives or relative standing positions to reconcile with the painted mismatched tree branch. The flat, painted cypress thus renders a more engaging interaction with the viewers to appreciate it beyond a physical divide, but a pictorial representation of image and life that urges a rethinking of viewing distance and perspectives. Wu Hung advanced the artists’ moves of “pursuing a three-dimensional spatial representation on a flat surface” (Wu 1998, 18) to the modern concept of pictorial space. Adapting this art-historical term to Eitoku’s screen here, I argue that Eitoku’s treatment of screen transcends the surface of paintings rather, he values the materiality and innate three-dimensional characteristics of the screen and internalizes them to create a pictorial space.
Eitoku’s willingness to adapt his artistic practice finds another ground when viewers recognize his extensive use of gold that filled nearly the entire background and the brushstrokes modeled on Chinese painting masters. First, the background is decorated with varying degrees of fallen or deteriorated gold, suggesting the use of gold foils or gold leaves. Yukio attributes such an abundant use of gold paint as a distinctive characteristic of Yamato-e, particularly adopted by the Tosa lineage (Yukio 2015, 7-9). Thus, Eitoku’s integration of gold paint here symbolizes his acknowledgment and appreciation of Japanese traditional indigenous painting practice. Such an indigenous practice is complicated by Eitoku’s brushstroke renderings that suggest a foreign influence. For instance, the axe-cut strokes on the rock forms and the cypress are notable techniques of Chinese painters such as Xia Gui (Yukio 2015, 5). The coexistence of Yamato-e’s embracement of gold paint and Chinese master painters’ brushstroke techniques reveal Eitoku’s active artistic practice to internalize, adapt, and mix established legacies to the presence.
Cited Works:
Wu Hung, “Introduction: The Screen,” in The Double Screen, 9-28.
Yukio Lippit, “The Kano School: The First One Hundred Years,” Ink and Gold; Art of the Kano (New Haven and London: Philadelphia Museum of Art; Yale University Press, 2014), 1-12