The Renewal of Vision in Painting under Tokugawa Yoshimune

• In Event: Copying and the Circulating Image in Early Modern East Asia

Abstract

This presentation analyses painting production under Tokugawa Yoshimune (1684-1751), the eighth shogun, demonstrating that the shogun led to a renewal of vision and pictorial approach in the Kyoho era.

Yoshimune was known both for his revivalism and his enterprising spirit. He stocked many hand-painted copies (funpon) based on old Chinese and Japanese masterpieces in the possession of daimyo families, sometimes even copying them himself. He also ordered the Nagasaki magistrate to import albums of famous paintings from the Ming dynasty and earlier in addition to importing Dutch paintings and other paintings from the Song and Yuan periods.

It is significant that Yoshimune played a leading role in producing new paintings, too. His comment that “this falcon shows too much of his back” appears on the underdrawing based on a sketch of a falcon by Kano Hisanobu (1696-1731), and Yoshimune’s ink line corrected the overly wide outline of a falcon whose depiction was based on studying the object from multiple viewpoints. The sketches of an elephant by Hisanobu also evince deep shading in three dimensions, traits that had never appeared in previous Kano school sketches.

Yoshimune acquired his new vision through collecting, studying, and copying numerous Dutch and Chinese illustrated books and paintings. As a result, the Kano school, too, received an update in vision and iconography. Curiously, however, the innovations found in Hisanobu’s sketches were not immediately reflected in the Kano school’s finished paintings. This talk will investigate the reasons behind this omission.

Author

• Hiroko Kato, Tokyo National Museum