Kano: A rare cultural exchange

As the stylishly dressed museum visitor was looking at the fan paintings, hanging scrolls and folded screens, she was carefully positioning her iPhone to capture their beautifully ink-brushed flowers and birds.

Smiling with delight, the photographer had come to the Philadelphia Museum of Art from Seattle and was understandably enthralled. These historic paintings are a significant and proud legacy of her family’s history, for Nadine Kano is a direct descendant of the artists who created the exquisite objects now on view in the museum’s Dorrance Galleries.

“Ink and Gold: Art of the Kano ” is “the first major exhibition outside Japan to be dedicated to the Kano painters,” declared Timothy Rub, the museum’s director and chief executive officer.

In an accompanying catalog, Masanori Aoyagi, the commissioner for cultural affairs of Japan, added that this is “the first (exhibit) to represent the entire 400-year history of the Kano School.”

With many rare objects borrowed from celebrated Japanese collections and historic landmarks, the impressive show will only be seen here in Philadelphia and runs through May 10.

Felice Fischer, the museum’s Luther W. Brady curator of Japanese art and senior curator of East Asian art, organized the momentous exhibit to focus well-deserved attention on this esteemed family of painters who defined artistic excellence and dominated Japanese artmaking for four centuries. The curator referred to the artists as “the pride of Japan.”

Surrounded by her ancestors’ paintings, Nadine Kano, the communications and business executive and French-trained pastry chef, admits she has “a celebrated and revered name in Japan.”

“But here in the United States, it’s ‘whatever!’ ” she laughed.

Crowning achievement

Certainly the impressive exhibit and its scholarly catalog aim to “open people’s eyes” and broaden Western recognition of the Kano painters. On the other hand, Fischer noted “even the Japanese have never seen some of these (fragile) works,” making the Philadelphia show even more consequential and significant.

This exhibit, which took several years to realize, is a crowning achievement of Fischer’s lengthy career devoted to the study of East Asian art. In early 2014, the curator was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, one of the most prestigious civilian honors given by the Japanese government. In addition, Nadine Kano shared that her family had recently “adopted” Fischer, giving the curator the acclaimed Kano name.

To protect the light-sensitive works done in ink and natural pigments on silk or paper, many pieces are only temporarily on view during the show’s run.

It is an amazing logistical challenge, since rotations of objects take place every four weeks to minimize their exposure to environmental conditions. Thus, there are essentially multiple shows in one.

Fischer emphasized that each installation has “like works and themes, so a screen is replaced with a screen. ... It is for our sanity!” However, there are approximately 22 painted objects, sketches on hand scrolls and decorated albums that will remain and not be removed during the exhibit.

Significantly, a few loaned pieces have been classified as “Important Cultural Property” by the Japanese government. There are even a couple of paintings that carry the label of “National Treasure,” the highest official designation. These special works of Japanese heritage have been judiciously staggered for display; thus, representative examples are seen in all variations of the exhibit.

On April 15, the third and final display of more than 30 previously unseen pieces will be installed for the remainder of the show.

Adaptable artists

Beginning in the 15th century with the original Kano studio in Kyoto and then expanding to Edo ( now Tokyo) later in the 17th century, the hereditary line of painters established a strong academy-like tradition of instruction and was quite inventive serving the upper echelon of Japanese society. The artists benefited from an array of supporters that included the shoguns (military rulers), who wanted to demonstrate their cultural weight as connoisseurs of art, as well as Imperial clients and wealthy merchants, who wanted private residences, castles, and temples beautifully embellished.

Across generations, this family of professional ink painters demonstrated a willingness to adapt to changing societal conditions. They expanded the range of subject matter, as they produced landscape views, portraits, scenes of village life, and literary and mythic subjects. The Kano school artists also decorated public and private buildings with gold-leafed screens and sliding wall panels that helped to increase the interior lighting of rooms but also flaunted the wealth of their elite patrons. Soon after the arrival of U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry in Japan in 1853 and the island nation’s opening to foreign trade, Western colors were exuberantly added to the palette of the Kano painters.

It is quite breathtaking to see the monumental screens and sliding doors comprising multiple gold-leafed panels and dating back hundreds of years. Such objects are decorated with painted images that become cohesive, panoramic compositional scenes as if they were CinemaScope movies. With a graceful flow that is sometimes enhanced by leaping animals, spreading tree branches and winding waterways move the viewer’s eye across these mural-like paintings.

Almost no object says Asia like a hand-held fan. From early on, the Kano painters decorated these cooling aids, assimilating them into the artistic repertoire. Working on both the traditional Chinese circular form and the more intricate folded Japanese type, fans were commissioned as personal cooling devices for the shoguns’ women, diplomatic gifts as well as items for export. It is understandable that these fragile accessories are quite rare today. Yet many painted fans have survived because they were remounted on flat screens, creating an intriguing yet fanciful design.

Astounding legacy

Although there have been artistic dynasties like the Peale or Wyeth families, none has had the remarkable longevity of the Kano painters, who spanned 16 generations. As painter-in-attendance to the shogun, Kano Masanobu (1434-1530), who was also a “peddler of medicines,” was “the founder of the Kano school ... (and established) the characteristics of Kano painting for generations to come.” His work reveals a sensitive and masterful use of controlled line to define his solitary figures in a craggy landscape that evokes a connection with Chinese tradition.

As the show is chronologically arranged, it becomes apparent why Kano Tan’yu (1602-1674) is considered one of the greatest and most illustrious of the artists from this enterprising and talented family. Tan’yu’s craftsmanship is obvious in both his meticulous brushwork (well seen in several landscape sketches also on display) and his application of squares of gold leaf, appearing almost like a mosaic that provides its own fascinating decorative pattern. He is believed to be the first to sketch Mount Fuji, a major site on his commute from Edo to Kyoto; these drawings resulted in numerous paintings that helped to make the mountain peak a symbol of Japan.

Fischer, in one of her two catalog essays, wrote, “His prodigious painting talents were matched by his sociability and diplomatic skills in navigating the complex networks of both military and aristocratic patrons.”

During a gallery tour in February, the curator rather excitedly pointed out the gourd-like signature seal of Tan’yu on numerous objects that he had painted with landscapes populated by nearly life-size animals that were based on direct observation.

The show concludes with a formidable Philadelphia connection. Ernest Fenollosa (1853-1980), an early scholar-collector of Japanese art, initially became familiar with Japanese culture at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. Two years later, he arrived in Tokyo, developing a close and significant relationship with several Kano painters, supporting their efforts during the waning years of the family dynasty. He had an impressive collection of work in his Tokyo residence. After Fenollosa’s death, his daughter, who had married into the formidable Biddle family of Philadelphia, gave many of his late Kano paintings to the museum. Most appropriately, a few of these brightly colored pieces are now displayed in the closing section of the exhibition.

The paintings of “Ink and Gold” strikingly indicate how the Kano artists exemplify remarkable talent, demonstrating “exquisite craftsmanship, rooted in skill and discipline.” Without crossing the International Date Line, this exhibition is an unprecedented opportunity to savor an enduring and beautiful aspect of Japanese art history.

Fred B. Adelson is a professor of art history at Rowan University. Contact him at fbadelson@gmail.com.

If you go

‘Ink and Gold: The Art of the Kano’ is free with museum admission. The remaining rotation schedule is April 15 to May 10, 2015. For information, call (215) 235-SHOW (7469).

Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia. Call (215) 763-8100 or philamuseum.org

Tickets are adults, $20; seniors (65 & over), $18; students (with valid ID), $14; youth (13–18), $14; children (12 & under), free.

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday: 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Wednesdays and Fridays until 8:45 p.m.