Kanō Masanobu

Kanō Masanobu (1434–1530) was a Japanese painter who served the Ashikaga shogunate in Kyoto as its official painter and is counted the founder of the Kanō school. Working in the capital by 1463, he succeeded Sōtan as official painter to the shogunate, though his provincial origins and lack of court rank drew aristocratic criticism.

He painted in the Chinese-derived suiboku ink-wash tradition of Tenshō Shūbun, adding firmer, more clearly defined forms, and produced Zen subjects alongside Buddhist deities. Few works survive, among them Zhou Maoshu Appreciating Lotuses, and his son Kanō Motonobu built the family workshop into Japan's dominant painting school for four centuries.