Battle of the Painters

I highly recommend Ryutaro Abe's "Tobaku"! This is a novel centered around Hasegawa Tobaku, a painter from the Azuchi-Momoyama period. It's thrilling to read about how he competes on equal footing with the elite group of painters, the Kano school, and becomes widely known to the world as an artist. The novel depicts the struggles and glorious life of a lone wolf, with Kano Eitoku, who lived in the same era, as his rival. It's a substantial read, spanning two volumes. Kano Eitoku, the rival in this novel, possesses overwhelming artistic talent but is an arrogant and unpleasant character. In the novel "Hana Chō no Yume" (Dream of Flowers and Birds) by another author, seen from Eitoku's perspective, Tobaku is portrayed as a wondrous maverick who threatens them solely with his skill, without belonging to the Kano school. Reading "Hana Chō no Yume" after "Tobaku" is interesting because you can see the contrast, thinking, 'Ah, so this is how Eitoku saw him...'