Falcon on Oak Tree Watching Monkeys
Artist
Kano school
(Japanese, Edo period, 1615–1868)
Date1596–1614
Mediumink with light colors on paper
Dimensionsoverall: 153.6 x 322.4 cm (60 1/2 x 126 15/16 in.)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineAlexander H. Bullock Fund and Stoddard Acquisition Fund
Object number1991.172
DescriptionSix-fold screen, ink with light colors on paperLabel TextThis screen was created by a member of a school of painters that traces its origins to the fifteenth century and the beginning of ink painting in Japan. Both the emphasis on the foreground and the powerful brushwork identify it with someone working in the circle of Kano Sanraku in the Keicho era (1596-1614). Linked to the patronage of the military class and under the leadership of great artists such as Motonobu and Eitoku, Kano school artists invented a vital style associated with a corpus of themes. The proud, fierce falcon here is heroic in spirit, evoking the ethos of the samurai class; the use of vacant space in an expansive setting dramatizes the conception. Falcon on Oak Tree was originally the left-hand screen of a pair. The right one, known only through a photograph, depicted an eagle catching a rabbit.ProvenanceKenjiro Takeda, Osaka Prefecture (to 1952); Junkichi Mayuyama, Tokyo (1952); Robert Simmons, Arlington, VA. (1952-1987); Masuda Collection (possibly Masuda Takashi, the great Meiji period industrialist and connoisseur);
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