Kanō Eitoku

Kanō Eitoku was the grandson of Kanō Motonobu and the most celebrated painter of the Momoyama period, when warlords decorated their castles with huge golden screens and sliding doors. He worked for Oda Nobunaga at Azuchi Castle and for Toyotomi Hideyoshi, painting in a bold, large-scale manner with gold leaf grounds. Most of his castle work was destroyed, but surviving pieces include the Chinese Lions screen in the Imperial Collection and the Cypress Trees screen in the Tokyo National Museum. He led the Kanō school to dominance of official Japanese painting.