Hasegawa school

also: Hasegawa-ha · 長谷川派

school 16th-early 18th century Japan

The Hasegawa school (長谷川派) was a small Kyoto school of Japanese painting founded in the sixteenth century by Hasegawa Tōhaku, the master of the Pine Trees screen, and it faded out around the beginning of the eighteenth century. Tōhaku trained in the orbit of the Kanō school and saw himself as the stylistic heir of the great ink painter Sesshū, and his workshop specialized in the large, quiet surfaces Momoyama patrons wanted: sliding-door panels and folding screens for temples and tea culture. Most of its painters were Tōhaku's own sons and students, or men trained by Kanō masters, and the school's work drew deeply on Chinese-inspired monochrome ink painting, softened with mist, atmosphere, and spare lyricism. Small and short-lived beside the mighty Kanō school, it nonetheless produced some of the most beloved images in Japanese art.

Lead image of the Wikipedia article "Hasegawa school".
Lead image of the Wikipedia article "Hasegawa school".Public domain (credit: Hasegawa Tōhaku) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Monochrome ink (suiboku) painting in Chinese-inspired styles
  • Misty, atmospheric landscapes whose forms dissolve into empty space
  • Large folding-screen and fusuma (sliding-door) formats for temple and tea-culture interiors
  • Kanō-school structure tempered by a lighter, more lyrical touch
  • Ink and pale washes over sparing color - a restrained, meditative palette
  • Bird-and-flower and landscape subjects treated with spare, contemplative calm

Key figures

  • Hasegawa Tōhaku (1539-1610) — Founder and the school's great master, painter of the Pine Trees screen
  • Hasegawa Kyūzō (1568-1593) — Tōhaku's son and most talented pupil, dead at twenty-five
  • Hasegawa Togaku (d. 1623) — Painter of the school's second generation, active into the early Edo period

Example works

Sources

← Back to the catalog