Japanese Screen Painting, Circa 1700 'Tales of Ise' by Tosa Mitsusuke

Purple Trousers (Fujibakama), Illustration to Chapter 30 of the Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari) Tosa School (second half of the 17th century) Ink, ...

The Handsome Pillar (Makibashira), Illustration to Chapter 31 of the Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari) Tosa School (second half of the 17th Century) I...

Horses Kano Tanshin Morimasa (1653-1718) Two-panel tea-ceremony Japanese screen or furosaki Ink on gold leaf, late 17th-early 18th century Measures: H 55 cm x W 182 cm The Kano school was closely aligned with the warrior class in Japan. The samurai, who lived in a closed and rigid hierarchical society established by the Shogunate, were drawn to the energy and freedom horses symbolize; Kano school artists commonly depicted the equine creatures as they are here, in unfettered and carefree family groups. China originally introduced horse paintings to Japan; the works typically focused on capturing the essence of horses in their various environments and often involved integrating human figures into the images. Kano Tanshin Morimasa (1653-1718) was the son of Kano Tanyu...

Pines and Cranes Anonymous. Kyoto Kano School. Late 17th/early 18th centuries, circa 1700. Pair of six-panel Japanese folding screens. Ink, gofun, pigment and gold leaf on paper. This bold composition presents two pine trees extending to the left and right across a gold leaf background. One tree is silhouetted against a green ground, golden clouds obscuring its true size, the other stretches across a stylized waterway. The pines are paired with Manchurian cranes with red crests and snow white plumage. Both have been highly auspicious motifs in East Asia since Chinese antiquity. Here the artist utilized fluid and instinctive ink brushstrokes to define the trunk, branches and tail feathers, in strong contrast to the precision and sharp angularity of the crane’s legs and beaks. The adoption of this vast metallic painting support required an unerring sense of design and composition, so that the negative space surrounding motifs could imply context for the otherwise floating pictorial elements. The brushwork detailing the trunks of the pines, the exaggerated dimensions of the pine trees and the strength and dynamism of the composition are all reminiscent of Kano Eitoku...

Around the middle of the Edo period, say to have been drawn in Tosa Mitsunari of the hands of the Tosa School, the Heian period of person (noble?) Is watching the birds fly the gard...

Japanese two-panel screen: ink painting of Palm Trees on paper, Edo period (1787) beautiful painting of Japanese windmill palm trees. Ink paint...

A Meiji era Japanese two-panel wood screen, with illustrated images from The Tale of Genji that are exquisitely painted directly on wood with fine detail and precision, accented with scattered 24k gold leaf specks in cloud forms, rendered in the manner of Heian period...

Edo period (dated 1787) beautiful painting of unfurling palm leaves with romping puppies in the background. Ink painting (sumi-e) on mulberry paper. Signature reads: Okyo. Calligraph...