In this elegant pair of screens, Tan’yū composed a minimalist landscape of the four seasons (from right to left: spring, summer, autumn, and winter). The landmasses were placed on the outer side of the screens, leaving the center large void space and creating a sense of spatial recession. For the right-side screen, Tan’yū retained a small corner of the mountain supporting a temple at the lower right corner. The autumn moon is depicted in the middle of the rightmost panel of the left screen (hardly visible in the photograph). Snow-laden mountains on the left of the left screen represent a wintery scene. Tan’yū brushed a thin layer of gold speckles to render mists, which suggest an atmosphere of fog and glowing light that penetrates through. Most of the pictorial elements are abbreviated to the extreme, and save for controlled touches of dark ink spots suggesting vegetation.
\r\nTan’yū’s monumental works are mostly on sliding door panels and murals, designed to decorate palatial buildings such as the Nijō Castle, but he produced a surprisingly small number of folding screens representing landscapes in ink monochrome. In terms of style, this pair of screens, signed “Kano Hōgen Tan’yūsai Fujiwara Morinobu hitsu” (Painted by Kano, [with the title of] Eye of the Law, Tan’yū studio, [named] Fujiwara Morinobu) and bearing the seal “Morinobu,” closely resemble a pair of ink landscape screens in the Tokyo National Museum (TNM). The TNM screens are signed with the same names and rank, and written in a similar calligraphic style. Tan’yū was granted the title of Eye of the Law in 1638, and Seal of the Law, the highest rank, in 1662, so the present pair can be dated to sometime between these two dates, around the mid-seventeenth century.
\r\n","remarks":"source: object file"},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Gallery Label","textentryhtml":"This pair of folding screens is an excellent example of the expertise of the Kano school painters. The Kano were the official painters for the shogunate and were known for their Chinese-style paintings. The elegant calligraphic brushstrokes and the different shades of ink wash combine to evoke a landscape disappearing into the mist. The artist’s light smattering of gold on these screens imbues the landscapes with an atmospheric charm. Folding screens functioned as room separators in interior spaces. Thus, the glow that emanates from the gold undoubtedly functioned to brighten dark interior spaces where the screens would have been viewed.","remarks":"JapaneseFall2012.pdf"}],"media":[{"id":85704,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/YF1V0635","isprimary":1,"rank":15,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":null,"caption":"PUAM photo"},{"id":85705,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/YF1V0634","isprimary":0,"rank":16,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":null,"caption":"PUAM photo"},{"id":84382,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/2012-79A","isprimary":0,"rank":13,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":null,"caption":"Bruce White Photography"},{"id":84383,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/2012-79B","isprimary":0,"rank":14,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":null,"caption":"Bruce White Photography"}],"hasimage":"true","bibliography":[{"boilertext":"\"Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2012,\" Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 71/72 (2012-13): p. 105-132.","citation":"\"Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2012,\" Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 71/72 (2012-13): p. 105-132., p. 117","date":2012,"id":2988,"uri":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/24416388"}],"exhibitions":[],"geography":[{"displaygeography":"Place made: Asia, Japan","code":"Place made","continent":"Asia","subcontinent":null,"country":"Japan","region":null,"state":null,"city":null,"county":null,"subregion":null,"locale":null,"locus":null,"river":null,"excavation":null,"geoname":"http://www.geonames.org/1861060/japan.html","location":{"lat":"","lon":""}}],"terms":[{"id":2033838,"term":"Japanese","aatid":300018519,"termtype":"Culture"},{"id":2098550,"term":"autumn","aatid":300133093,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2098554,"term":"spring","aatid":300133097,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2098557,"term":"summer","aatid":300133099,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2098560,"term":"winter","aatid":300133101,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2119357,"term":"villages","aatid":300008372,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2103687,"term":"sailboats","aatid":300120023,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2033898,"term":"Edo (Japanese period)","aatid":300106643,"termtype":"Period / Style"},{"id":2120146,"term":"mountains","aatid":300008795,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2064803,"term":"screens (furniture)","aatid":300037737,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2171706,"term":"clouds","aatid":null,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2034055,"term":"Japanese painting styles","aatid":300018579,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2034064,"term":"Kano School","aatid":300018653,"termtype":"Period / Style"},{"id":2052977,"term":"paintings","aatid":300033618,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2055694,"term":"landscapes (representations)","aatid":300015636,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2162191,"term":"gold","aatid":300011021,"termtype":"Materials"},{"id":2167672,"term":"ink","aatid":300015012,"termtype":"Materials"},{"id":2043813,"term":"paper (fiber product)","aatid":300014109,"termtype":"Materials"}],"classifications":[{"id":2064803,"classification":"screens (furniture)"},{"id":2034055,"classification":"japanese painting styles"},{"id":2052977,"classification":"paintings"}],"cultures":[{"id":13690,"culture":"Japanese","alphasort":"Japanese","begindate":0,"enddate":0,"displayculture":"Japanese","displaydate":null}],"cultureterms":[{"id":2033838,"culture":"Japanese"}],"periods":[{"id":12589,"period":"Edo period","alphasort":"Edo period","begindate":1603,"enddate":1868,"displayperiod":"Edo period, 1603–1868","displaydate":"1603–1868"}],"periodterms":[{"id":2033898,"period":"Edo (Japanese period)"},{"id":2034064,"period":"Kano School"}],"attribute_groups":[{"id":2199319,"term":"Asian Art","termtype":"Collecting Area"},{"id":2199327,"term":"Prints and Drawings","termtype":"Collecting Area"}],"dimensionelements":[{"element":"Overall","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"147.80"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"357.80"}],"packages":[{"packageid":216696,"name":"2022_ART574_09_23"},{"packageid":207234,"name":"SAB_Gala2021"}],"primaryimage":["https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/YF1V0635"],"displaymaker":"Kano Tan'yū 狩野探幽, 1602–1674","displayculture":"Japanese","displayperiod":"Edo period, 1603–1868","caption":"Japanese, Edo period (1603–1868), Kano Tan'yū 狩野探幽 (1602–1674), Landscapes of the Four Seasons, 1640s. Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink and gold on paper\r\n; 147.8 x 357.8 cm (each). Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund (2012-79 a-b)","captionhtml":"Japanese, Edo period (1603–1868), Kano Tan'yū 狩野探幽 (1602–1674), Landscapes of the Four Seasons, 1640s. Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink and gold on paper\r\n; 147.8 x 357.8 cm (each). Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund (2012-79 a-b)","published_date":"2026-02-11 13:23:58.273859","campusart":[{"campuscollections":"false","campusart":0,"neighborhood":null,"lat":null,"lon":null}],"extended_content":true}