Kano Masanobu 狩野正信

Kano Masanobu (about 1434 to 1530) was a Japanese painter of the Muromachi period and the founder of the Kano school, which would dominate Japanese painting for some three centuries. He served as an official painter to the Ashikaga shogunate, working in the tradition of monochrome ink painting influenced by Chinese models. Masanobu established the workshop and family lineage that his descendants, beginning with his son Kano Motonobu, expanded into a powerful professional school combining ink technique with bold composition. His leadership laid the organisational and stylistic foundations on which the later Kano school was built.