Installation of Her Brush: Japanese Women Artists from the Fong-Johnstone Collection. Photograph by Eric Stephenson.

Daughters of the Ateliers

Painting traditions in Japan were commonly passed down in the form of apprenticeships or from father to son. Some lineages like the Kanō school of painting endured for centuries. These professional painters subsisted through the patronage of wealthy clients.

Artists in this section emerged from such artistic families and, thanks to their talent and tenacity, became sought-after artists and continued their family’s artistic legacy while creating their own distinctive interpretations.

A slender, elegantly dressed woman in flowing robes sits crosslegged on a tuft of grass upon a rock. She strums a lute that rests in her lap. Behind her is a vague suggestion of a landscape, and a large, moon-like orb frames the top half of her body. Expand Expand
Kiyohara Yukinobu 清原雪信, 1643–1682, The Goddess Benzaiten and Her Lute (biwa), 1660s–80s. Ink, color, and gold on silk. Gift of Drs. John Fong and Colin Johnstone, 2018.150.

Some, like Kiyohara Yukinobu, chose to sign their works with the term uji-me (literally, daughter of the clan), identifying themselves as upholders of their family’s artistic school.

Famous during her lifetime, Kiyohara Yukinobu was a professional painter like her great uncle, Kanō Tan’yū, who led the Kanō school of painting in his time. Signing her works with “Brush of Yukinobu, Daughter of the Kiyohara Clan,” she identified with the family’s atelier.

The figure strumming a lute (biwa) is Benzaiten, patron-goddess of music and wisdom in Buddhism. The delicate treatment of the facial features, wooden instrument, and textiles contrasts with the broader, bolder brushstrokes of the landscape, as was characteristic of the Kanō school.