Eight Views of Omi Province

The subject of this handscroll is the Eight Views of Omi, the region around Lake Biwa near Kyoto. The landscapes are executed in a soft, evocative style that suggests rather than delineates forms. Above each scene is a Japanese poem, written in elegant cursive Japanese hiragana script following to the left of the title in Chinese characters. Tan'yu's signature at the end of the scroll gives his title as "Seal of the Law, official of the Imperial Palace." The title Hoin (Seal of the [Buddhist] Law) was an honorific ecclesiastical title awarded to painters of high standing. After early training in Kyoto, Kano Tan'yu moved to Edo and became an official painter for the Tokugawa shoguns. He established an atelier in the Kajibashi district of Edo and received many important commissions, including the decoration of Edo Castle in 1622 and Nijo Castle in Kyoto in 1626.

In addition to mastering the Chinese painting styles that had become a specialty of the Kano school, Tan'yu became proficient in the elegant courtly style of traditional Japanese painting that was a specialty of artists of the Tosa and Sumiyoshi schools. This style was popular among Tan'yu's patrons, who predominantly belonged to high level daimyo families but consciously sought to acquire the cultivation and prestige of Kyoto court culture.