Kanō Tōshun Yoshinobu (狩野洞春美信): the Surugadai House
Kanō Yoshinobu (狩野美信, 1747–1797) was a Japanese painter of the mid-Edo period. Yoshinobu is his personal name, Tōshun (洞春) his art name; in object descriptions the two appear combined as Kanō Tōshun Yoshinobu. He was the eldest son of Kanō Gensen and, already in 1755 – after his father's death, at the age of nine – took over the Surugadai Kanō house as its fourth head.
Omote-eshi: the Second Rank of the Shogunate Painters
The painter houses in the service of the shogunate were strictly ranked. At the top stood the four Oku-eshi houses – among them the Kobikichō house – which had direct access to the Shōgun. Below them followed the Omote-eshi, and among these the Surugadai house held first place; its head bore the rank of Gobōzu. This order determined the flow of commissions, income, and social standing, as well as the pictorial tasks that fell to a given house.
A Career That Began at Age Nine
That Yoshinobu took over the house as a child was no exception within this order: the name and the position had to be maintained, while the actual training was then taken on by relatives or workshop assistants. Yoshinobu led the house for four decades, until his death in 1797.
Birds and Autumn Flowers as a Set of Paintings
Birds among autumn flowers belong to the core repertoire of what a painter house in the service of the shogunate had to supply: paintings for the seasonal change of the tokonoma, correct in subject matter and without personal idiosyncrasy. Autumn is the most rewarding season for this, because chrysanthemum, maple, and autumn grasses stand out clearly from one another in their coloring, giving the painter a range of tones that spring does not offer in the same way. When such a motif appears as a pair or a set of three, the sheets belong together and are hung together.
