Kano Naonobu (狩野尚信)
Naonobu KANO (November 25, 1607-May 7, 1650) was a painter of Kano school in the early Edo period. Being Takanobu KANO's second son and thus Tanyu KANO's younger brother, he had a child called Tsunenobu KANO. His popular name was Shume and he called himself Jitekisai.
Succeeding his elder brother Tanyu, he was invited to a residence in Takekawa-cho of theEdo region in 1630, and became a private painter of the shogunate. He quickly mastered Tanyu's style of painting and joined Tanyu with his elder brother in making the wall pictures of Nijo Castle, Shojuraigo-ji Temple, and Chion-in Temple. Later on, he spun off from Tanyu's painting style with a more moist black-and-white ink style. Some of his works have margins or composition with boldness beyond Tanyu. He applied the hakubyo (white drawing) technique of Japanese painting to the ink-wash painting in drawing a person, and thus contributed to the Japanization of the Chinese painting style. Iehiro KONOE, in his "Kaiki," highly appraised Shume's work as transcendence in the history. On the other hand, Naonobu's kinpeki-shohekiga (paintings on gold foil-pressed paper sliding doors and screens) tended to have simplification of objects, so he seems to have tended to decorate his work while Tanyu's kinpeki-shohekiga aiming at Japanizing. As for his private life, there was an occasion that he casually traveled to Kyoto and visited Kobori ENSHU. He is said to have died of sickness but there were anecdotes saying that he vanished himself and tried to go to Chugoku, or he went out to fish and got drowned. There was even some anecdote saying that he went out to fish and got drowned. That is to say, he was a carefree man enjoying his hobby.
Representative works
Ohara Goko, Fujimi Saigyo-zu Byobu (the emperor's trip to Ohara and view of Mt. Fuji while traveling west painted on folding screen) (Itabashi Art Museum)
(Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art) Rokkyoku Isso (a pair of six-panel works)
Sansui-Kacho painting (picture of landscape, flowers and birds) (Nezu Museum, former Nezu Institute of Fine Arts) Rokkyoku Isso (a pair of six-panel works)
12 Bushu Shugaku landscape scrolls (Edo-Tokyo Museum)