Kwannon in Fan Format 観音 | Kanō Eishin 狩野永真 | 1692-1731

The painting is unsigned, but it comes with a certificate from 1855 stating that it is a painting by "Kanō Eishin." However, there are two "Kanō Eishin" whose names are written with the same characters. I assume this is a painting by the later one, since the earlier one almost always signed his paintings. The later Eishin became the 10th studio head at the main studio in Edo (Tokyo) and was an okueshi, meaning an official painter of the Shogunate.

The most appealing aspect of this image is undoubtedly its format. The fan as a pictorial surface was frequently used, but mostly in a horizontal position – hardly ever upright. Yet the Kwannon, with her seat on a rock and her halo, fits wonderfully into this pictorial form; the treatment of the subject appears completely natural.

One must ask, however, why the painter chose this unusual format. A seated Kwannon can easily be placed in a rectangular, vertical format, as has often been done. What is special about the fan-shaped frame, which has been rotated 90 degrees? It has a curved, convex, and concave outer line on the right and left. A Kwannon corresponds to a Christian saint; she is not detached in Nirvana but remains connected to the world. She helps people with small problems; that is, she can be invoked for all sorts of things. She often expresses this approachability by slightly bending her upper body. The frame on the right, with its convex curve, now decisively reinforces this turning towards the person seeking help. And on the left, the concave curve achieves the effect of opening herself towards the supplicant: this Kwannon addresses people more intensely than if she were seated in a normal rectangular format.