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Chapter 29Japan

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Japan (1336 to Present)

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The Zen Garden

• Began as a Chinese Buddhist tradition and filtered into Japan in the 12th century.

• Zen teachings assert everyone has the potential for enlightenment, but worldly knowledge and mundane thought patterns are barriers to achieving it.

• Followers must succeed in breaking through the boundaries of everyday perception and logic – most often accomplished through meditation.– Zen means meditation

• Zen often incorporated into gardens to facilitate meditation.

Karesansui (dry landscape) garden, Ryoanji temple, Kyoto, Japan, Muromachi period, ca. 1488.

The Zen world is centered on austerity, self-control, courage and loyalty and meditation is key to enlightenment. The meticulous arrangements of raked sand circling around prominently placed stones and gardens which contain no water are ultimately serve for spiritual refreshment, a place of contemplation and rejuvenation. 4

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Muromachi Painting Styles

• Muromachi painting displays great variety in both style and subject matter.

• Dramatic works of art with splashed-ink or haboku style, which is a technique rooted from Chinese culture.

• Haboku painters pause to visualize the image, then load their brush with ink and applies ink in primarily broad rapid strokes – sometimes even dripping the ink onto the paper.

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Sesshu Toyo, splashed-ink (haboku) landscape, detail of the lower part of a hanging scroll, Muromachi period, 1495. Ink on paper, full scroll 4’ 10 1/4” X 1’ 7/8”; detail 4’ 1/2” high. Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo.

In this haboku landscape, the artist applied primarily broad, rapid strokes, sometimes dripping the ink on the paper. The result hovers at the edge of legibility, without dissolving into abstraction.

This is one of the six panels Motonobu designed as a fusuma (sliding door painting) for the abbot’s room in a Zen temple..

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Kano Motonobu, Zen Patriarch Xiangyen Zhixian Sweeping with a Broom, from Daitokuji, Kyoto, Japan, Muromachi period, ca. 1513. Hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, 5’ 7 3/8” X 2’ 10 3/4”. Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo.

By the 17th century the Kano School has become a national painting academy. The Kano style, in contrast the the splashed-ink paintings of Muromachi, displays exacting precision in applying ink in bold outlines by holding the brush perpendicular to the paper.

This scroll depicts a Zen patriarch experiencing enlightenment, bold outlines define the forms.

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Momoyama Painting

• Huge castles were constructed during this time period by the warlords of the era to reinforce their power. – Oda Nobunaga who overthrew the Ashikaga– Toyotomi Hideyoshi took control over the

government after Nobunaga’s assassination– Tokugaw Ieyasu assumed title of showgun

and established a clan to rule Japan for two and a half centuries.

• These castles symbolize their authority

Himeji Castle, near Osaka, Japan, Momoyama period, 1581; enlarged 1601–1609.

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KANO EITOKU, Chinese Lions, Momo-yama period, late 16th century. Six-panel screen, color, ink, and gold leaf on paper, 7’ 4” X 14’ 10”. Imperial Household Agency, Tokyo

Each Momoyama warlord commissioned lavish decorations for the interior of their castles – including fusuma and byobu (folding screens) in ink, color and gold leaf. The lions came to be associated with power and bravery becoming an important symbolic motif during the Momyama period.

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Ukiyo-e Prints

• Ukiyo-e paintings were a dominant genre, meaning “pictures of the floating world”. The word “floating” is meant in the Buddhist sense of the passing or transient nature of life.

• Ukiyo-e works depict scenes of everyday life such as geishas, brothels domestic life, etc. – Generally on woodblocks, however are also

displayed on scrolls and painted screens. • Western civilization was taken by these prints

with the flat areas of color, unmodulated tones, lack of shadows or contrast and odd compositional angels.

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SUZUKI HARUNOBU, Evening Bell at the Clock, from Eight Views of the Parlor, Edo period, ca. 1765. Woodblock print, 11 1/4” x 8 1/2”. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Clarence Buckingham Collection).

KITAGAWA UTAMARO, Ohisa of the Takashima Tea Shop, Edo period, 1792–1793. Woodblock print, ink and color on paper, 1’ 2 7/8” X 9 3/4”. British Museum, London.

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ANDO HIROSHIGE, Plum Estate, Kameido, from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, Edo period, 1857. Woodblock print, ink and color on paper, 1’ 1 1/4” X 8 5/8". Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn (gift of Anna Ferris).

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KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, from Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, Edo period, ca. 1826–1833. Woodblock print, ink and colors on paper, 9 7/8” x 1’ 2 3/4”. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Bigelow Collection).

TAKAHASHI YUICHI, Oiran (Grand Courtesan), Meiji period, 1872. Oil on canvas, 2’ 6 ½” X 1’ 9 5/8”. Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, Tokyo.

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KANO HOGAI, Bodhisattva Kannon, Hanging scroll, ink, color and gold on silk, 5’ 4 3/8” x 2’ 9 3/8”. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (gift of Charles Lang Freer).

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TANGE KENZO, national indoor Olympic stadiums, Tokyo, Japan, Showa period, 1961–1964.