Artwork
Farming and Herding Buffalo in Summer
Farming and Herding Buffalo in Summer is an unspecified painting by the Kanō school artist Kano Hideyori. It dates from 1504 and is held in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. This painting depicts rural labor in summer, showing farmers tending rice fields and herding water buffalo under an open sky.
- Accession no.
- 2015.594
- Credit line
- Gift from the Collection of George Gund III
About this work
Overview
Unlike idealized landscapes, it focuses on everyday tasks, aligning with a broader tradition of monthly cycle imagery in Japanese art.
This painting depicts rural labor in summer, showing farmers tending rice fields and herding water buffalo under an open sky. Unlike idealized landscapes, it focuses on everyday tasks, aligning with a broader tradition of monthly cycle imagery in Japanese art. The scene reflects an administrative ideal: order, productivity, and harmony between human effort and nature. It belongs to a genre that visualized seasonal rhythms as markers of societal stability.
Subject & Meaning
The painting portrays agricultural labor not as hardship but as orderly, essential activity. Farmers bend over seedlings, while a handler guides two water buffalo, animals symbolizing endurance and dependable work. Travelers on a path suggest movement within a functioning society.
These elements together convey a vision of governance rooted in seasonal rhythm, where the ruler’s legitimacy is tied to the land’s fertility and the people’s diligence.
Technique & Style
Executed in ink and color on screen panels, the work employs clear outlines and flat planes of pigment typical of the Kano school. Figures are rendered with restrained detail, emphasizing posture and function over individual expression. The composition balances activity and space, using horizontal bands to organize the field, path, and sky. Atmospheric perspective is minimal, prioritizing clarity and symbolic legibility over naturalistic depth.
History & Provenance
Attributed to Kano Hideyori, son of the influential Kano Motonobu, the painting likely dates to the late 15th or early 16th century. While historical records on Hideyori are fragmentary, his association with the Kyoto Kano atelier places him within a lineage that shaped Japanese courtly painting. This work may have been commissioned for a noble residence or temple, serving as both decoration and political allegory.
Context
The painting fits within a tradition of 'twelve months' imagery, where each season was linked to specific rituals and labors. Similar scenes appeared in scrolls and screens across Japan, often commissioned by elites to affirm social harmony. Summer labor, in particular, was tied to Confucian ideals of diligence and the Buddhist notion of right livelihood. These works reinforced the connection between earthly order and cosmic balance.
Legacy
Though less celebrated than later Kano works, this painting preserves an early example of genre depiction in Japanese screen painting. It influenced subsequent artists who continued to render seasonal labor as a visual language of governance. Its emphasis on ordinary life, devoid of myth or spectacle, laid groundwork for later Edo-period depictions of commoners, subtly shifting the focus of Japanese art toward the rhythms of daily existence.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Kanō Hideyori (狩野秀頼) was a Japanese painter of the Kanō school in Kyoto. His date of birth and death are unknown, however he was active in the mid-16th century, the beginning of the Momoyama period (1573–1603). Not much…
