梅に水鳥図 (Ume ni mizutori zu)|Plum Tree and Waterfowl

Kano Masanobu 狩野正信

early 16th century · Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper · Asian Art

A pair of water birds glide beneath the fragile branches of a plum tree in this work bearing the seals of Kano Masanobu, founder of the Kano school of painting, which dominated mainstream Japanese painting for four centuries. The plum tree’s delicate white blossoms and a tangle of drying reeds in the lower left corner are indicative of late winter. As with many other early Kano-school paintings in the bird-and-flower genre, each of the motifs is drawn with black ink outlines, while ink washes and accents are used to suggest the texture of the tree’s bark, to which malachite green lichens cling. The birds’ downy bodies are described with a meticulous application of shell white (gofun), the same pigment used for the petals of the plum blossoms.

Artist

Kano Masanobu 狩野正信

Date

early 16th century

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, Gift of Mary and Cheney Cowles, 2020