Kanō Motonobu

Kanō Motonobu (狩野 元信^?, August 28, 1476 – November 5, 1559) was a Japanese painter. He was a member of the Kanō school of painting. Through his political connections, patronage, organization, and influence he was able to make the Kano school into what it is today. The system was responsible for the training of a great majority of painters throughout the Edo period (1615–1868). After his death, he was referred to as Kohōgen (古法眼).

The Kanō family are presumed to be the descendants from a line of warriors from the Kanō district. The Kanō district is now called Shizuoka Prefecture. The forebear of this family was Kanō Kagenobu. He seems to have been a retainer of the Imagawa family. It has been reported that he painted a picture of Mount Fuji for a visit to the shogun Ashikaga Yoshinori in 1432. The Kano family dominated the painting world from the end of the Muromachi period (1333–1568) to the end of the Edo period (1600–1868).

Kanō Masanobu, Motonobu’s father, was the founder of the Kanō school. Kano Masanobu was the official court painter to the Ashikaga shogunate in 1481. Masanobu was a professional artist whose style derived from Kanga style. Masanobu’s descendants were the people that made up the Kano school. The Kano school had secular ink painters.

Motonobu was likely trained in Kanga (Chinese-style ink painting) by his father and probably acquired his skill as a portrait painter. One example of this would be the priest Tōrin, 1521; Kyoto, Ryōan-ji. Motonobu was given many commissions for paintings from a variety of sources, including the Ashikaga government, members of the aristocracy, and major Kyoto shrines and temples. From these commissions Motonobu was able to develop his painting skills further. Motonobu, like his father, commissioned for the Ashikaga shoguns.

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