Kanō Chikanobu (1660–1728), Mount Fuji

This is a Japanese ink-wash hanging scroll by Kanō Chikanobu, depicting Mount Fuji rising beyond a wooded shoreline. The composition is reduced to its most essential elements: a distant mountain, a low bank of pines and other trees, and an expansive field of mist. With only a few rapid strokes and pale washes, the artist evokes an immense landscape extending far beyond the modest dimensions of the painting.

Mount Fuji appears almost weightless in the distance, its broad triangular form emerging subtly from the surrounding atmosphere. The mountain is neither outlined in detail nor modeled through accumulated texture; instead, it is suggested through a single restrained tonal passage. The lower shore is executed more vigorously, with abbreviated horizontal strokes defining the land and quick, spontaneous touches indicating clusters of trees. The contrast between the concentrated foreground and the nearly immaterial mountain creates an extraordinary sense of depth.

The painting depends upon extreme simplicity and economy of means. Rather than describing the landscape comprehensively, Chikanobu selects only those forms necessary to awaken the viewer’s perception. The unpainted and lightly washed passages become mist, water, sky, and immeasurable distance. Emptiness is therefore not an absence but the principal space through which the painting breathes.

The execution is direct, rapid, and spontaneous. Variations in the moisture and pressure of the brush remain visible, allowing the creative act itself to become part of the subject. The distant mountain appears almost as a momentary revelation—a form perceived suddenly and intuitively before dissolving again into mist. In this respect, the work resonates strongly with the Zen concept of sudden awakening, or satori: understanding achieved not through elaborate description but through immediate and concentrated perception.

Although created within the disciplined tradition of the Kanō school, the painting shares the essential qualities of Zen ink art: simplicity, spontaneity, restraint, and the ability to express a vast spiritual and natural world through a minimum of brushwork. The artist does not merely represent Mount Fuji; he transforms it into an image of stillness, clarity, and enlightened awareness.

Kanō Chikanobu was among the leading Kanō-school painters active in eighteenth-century Edo and was particularly accomplished in bird-and-flower compositions. He was the eldest son and pupil of Kanō Tsunenobu and succeeded his father in 1713 as the third head of the Kobikichō branch of the Kanō school. As a principal painter within the official Tokugawa artistic establishment, Chikanobu inherited a rigorous tradition grounded in Chinese painting while developing a refined and distinctly Japanese sense of atmosphere, decorative balance, and poetic abbreviation. 

In this remarkably concise landscape, Chikanobu demonstrates that monumentality does not depend upon physical scale or descriptive complexity. A few rapidly placed strokes establish the shore, several washes suggest the limitless atmosphere, and the faint silhouette of Mount Fuji completes the entire world. The result is a masterful expression of Japanese ink painting in which visual economy becomes a vehicle for spiritual insight.

Signed “Chikanobu hitsu” (周信筆) at lower left and sealed.

{Image size: 12 3/8 x 20 1/4 inches}. {Scroll size: 45 1/2 x 23 1/2 inches}.

This work will be featured in the special exhibition Time Well Wasted: Five Hundred Years of Japanese Ink Painting, held at Michaan’s Auctions from August 16 to 21, 2026, and will be published in the accompanying book of the same title by Jingwei Zeng.

Horizontal creases, soiling and light vertical areas of white discoloration. For condition report and additional photos, please contact the Asian Art Department.