Azuchi-Momoyama Period (1568-1600)

The type of painting which saw the most striking development in this period was shohekiga, or "partition paintings," which include paintings on paper applied to walls and sliding doors, as well as decorations painted on wooden doors and ceiling panels. A distinctive type of shohekiga that originated in this period was the so-called kompeki shohekiga, also then known as dami-e. In these works, gold and silver leaf was used to represent clouds and gold pigment was used to represent the earth's surface, while other features were painted in brilliant shades of red, green, or blue. Favorite themes included such real-life subjects as flowers, trees, birds, and scenes from everyday life that may be grouped together as manners and customs.

One artist who played a large role in developing this new style was Kano Motonobu's grandson Kano Eitoku (1543-90). From an early age Eitoku displayed the ability of a genius, and he made his grandfather's style into something still more powerful. The composition of his bird-and-flower sliding door panels in Kyoto's Jukoin Temple has a lively sense of movement and a bright atmosphere that seems to symbolize the arrival of a new age. Eitoku was chosen by the military leader Oda Nobunaga to decorate the interior partitions of his Azuchi Castle, and after Nobunaga's death he was in charge of painting similar decorations for Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Osaka Castle and for his sumptuous Jurakudai residence in Kyoto. These works no longer exist, but surviving examples of Eitoku's screen paintings give a good idea of his painting style. After Eitoku's death, his many disciples continued to be active in the mainstream of the painting establishment of the day. Attention must also be given to the activities of Hasegawa Tohaku (1539-1610), who placed himself in opposition to the Kano school. In depicting Japan's four seasons, Tohaku developed his own distinctive style, and his pair of ink-on-paper six-panel folding screens titled "Pine Trees" are especially famous.

The so-called southern barbarian screens (namban byobu) of the latter half of the 16th century, which depicted foreign ships and the unfamiliar appearance of visiting Europeans, also draw our attention. They vividly convey to us the feelings of curiosity and surprise with which the Japanese at that time encountered Western Europeans and their products.

(1) Screen with Cypress Tree

This work is by the famous Momoyama period artist Kano Eitoku, who mastered Japan's earlier artistic traditions but went beyond them to establish a new style of his own which superbly expressed various aspects of the spirit of his times. Although he has left us some outstanding examples of paintings which depict a large number of minute details, he seems to have preferred more focused subjects which boldly dominated large surfaces, on which thick colors were applied to a gold background. Here the surface of a screen displays the vibrant colors of the boughs of a large cypress tree, whose powerfully depicted trunk also adds to the painting's appeal. In this famous work there is a "feeling of life" which stimulates the human spirit and at the same time gives testimony to Eitoku's artistic genius.

(2) Pine Trees

These screens show a pine grove in thick mist. It may be said that it was by Tohaku (1539-1610) that ink paintings of a distinctively Japanese type became firmly established. While showing some influence from the works of the 13th-century Chinese Zen monk Muqi (Mokkei in Japanese), this work's evocative techniques, which use an alternation of thick and light brushstrokes to create a rich sense of space, are very much Tohaku's own.

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• Scroll Painting(Emaki)
• Screen and Partition Painting(Shoheiga)
• Buddhist Painting(Butsuga)
• Ink Painting(Suibokuga)
• Litearati Painting(Bunjiga)
• History of Painting