Pheasants among Trees: Flowers of the Four Seasons

Bird-and-flower painting flourished in the Chinese court during the Northern and Southern Song dynasties and was perpetuated by both court and professional artists during the Ming dynasty. In Japan such paintings were an important component of the Kano-school repertoire. During the turbulent years of the sixteenth century, birds that symbolized power and martial prowess (the hawk), longevity (the crane), and imperial elegance (the pheasant) were featured in paintings, together with similarly auspicious flowers and trees. Defined by strong ink brushstrokes, given brilliance by the application of vibrant colors, and set against the opulent background of gold leaf on folding or sliding screens, these images took on a heroic dimension. Their grandeur appealed to the wealthy and powerful members of Momoyama warrior society, as well as to the clergy of the more affluent Buddhist temples. Rendered in the hanging-scroll format, they remained impressive, if less monumental, symbols of status.

Although this pair of hanging scrolls was made just prior to the close of the Muromachi period, it represents a transition toward the boldly decorative compositional schemes associated with Momoyama-period taste. The arrangement of pictorial elements derives from the large-scale screens that were central to Kano-school work. The evergreen in the painting at the right and the loquat in the painting at the left extend their branches toward each other, serving as a frame for the stagelike setting. In the right scroll a pair of pheasants are shown in a narrow field bordered, in the foreground, by dandelions and violets of spring and, at the water's edge, by crimson azaleas of summer. In the left scroll golden pheasants perch on a craggy rock. Withered leaves on the loquat tree evoke autumn; the red-berried spearflowers are emblematic of winter. The pheasants are meticulously rendered, their wings and crests highlighted with fine, nearly invisible strokes of gold. The brushwork in both paintings is in keeping with the formal style of the Kano school which employed fluctuating contour lines, modeling with ax-cut strokes and washes, and wet ink dots applied to images of rocks to indicate moss and other vegetation.

Each scroll bears the cauldron-shaped "Naonobu" seal of Kano Shōei (1519-1592), the third son of Motonobu (cat. no.71) and a third-generation leader of the school. "Shōei" is the name by which the artist is most widely known today, but in fact it was the name he adopted when he took the tonsure in his later years. "Naonobu," his given name, appears on his seals, which are found on many of his extant works. The seal on the scroll at the right is impressed on the left side rather than on the right, inviting speculation that the works could once have been part of a triptych, in which case a third scroll would have been placed to the right of the present pair. However, the balance and symmetry of the two compositions make the existence of a third component unlikely.

Although his reputation was long overshadowed by the achievements of Motonobu, his illustrious father and mentor, and by the innovative genius of his own son Eitoku (1543–1590), Shōei has more recently been recognized for his own achievements. Highly regarded during his lifetime, he was given many important commissions by prestigious temples and Shinto shrines, as well as by the imperial court. Occasionally, he worked in concert with his celebrated son; the best known of the works they produced together are the ink-monochrome paintings created in 1566 for Jukōin, a subtemple of Daitokuji, Kyoto.[1]

Many of Shōei's extant paintings, on folding and sliding screens, hanging scrolls, and fans, feature bird-and-flower compositions—either in ink monochrome or in brilliant color—that hark back to models established by his father. Recently rediscovered genre scenes, particularly those on a reduced scale, have spurred revision of the traditional assessment of Shōei as an artist less versatile than his father or his son.

While many of Shōei's paintings are executed in a soft brushwork (gyō) technique, this pair is in the formal style, reminiscent of a single six~panel folding screen entitled Rooster and Pines, also attributed to Shōei, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.[2] Similarities of execution have been noted in one of the male birds in Pheasants and Azaleas and the pheasant that appears in the large hanging scroll of nirvana painted by Shōei for Daitokuji in 1563.[3] It is therefore possible that the Burke paintings were made during the early 1560s, before the artist embarked on his collaboration with Eitoku on decorating the interior of Jukōin.
SW

[Miyeko Murase 2000, Bridge of Dreams]

[1] For the Jukōin screens, see Doi Tsugiyoshi 1978, pls. 8, 9.
[2] Ibid., fig. 11.
[3] Wheelwright 1981, pl. 72.

Toyobi Far Eastern Art Inc. , New York, until 1982; sold to Burke]; Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation , New York (until 2015; donated to MMA)

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Tsuji Nobuo 辻惟雄, Mary Griggs Burke, Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha 日本経済新聞社, and Gifu-ken Bijutsukan 岐阜県美術館. Nyūyōku Bāku korekushon-ten: Nihon no bi sanzennen no kagayaki ニューヨーク・バーク・コレクション展 : 日本の美三千年の輝き(Enduring legacy of Japanese art: The Mary Griggs Burke collection). Exh. cat. [Tokyo]: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 2005, cat. no. 48.

Murase, Miyeko, Il Kim, Shi-yee Liu, Gratia Williams Nakahashi, Stephanie Wada, Soyoung Lee, and David Sensabaugh. Art Through a Lifetime: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection. Vol. 1, Japanese Paintings, Printed Works, Calligraphy. [New York]: Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, [2013], pp. 106–107, cat. no. 132.

Carpenter, John T. The Poetry of Nature: Edo Paintings from the Fishbein-Bender Collection. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018, p. 22, fig. 2.