The Muromachi period marked a huge change
in Japan as the Ashikaga clan took control
of the shogunate and moved the headquarters
back to Kyoto, to the Muromachi district of
the city. With the return of the government
to the capital, the popularizing trends of
the Kamakura period came to an end, and cultural
expression took on a more aristocratic, elitist
character.
In this video, we’ll be covering major events
and arts of Japan’s Muromachi period.
The introduction of Zen Buddhism had a major
impact on Japanese intellectual thought, and
aesthetic. Temple complexes developed for
public ceremonies and to accommodate religious
persons, and Zen gardens shift away from the
typical Heian era shinden-style gardens, to
smaller, modest gardens to promote meditation.
Zen's roots in China also restarted interest
in contemporary Chinese thoughts and arts,
expanding the range of subjects and styles
seen in Japanese painting. The style gradually
evolves from its Chinese roots to a more Japanese
style. We start to see more individual painters
with distinct styles.
Finally, we will talk about the Ashikaga Patronage.
The Ashikaga were great patrons of the arts,
and used it to establish their influence as
a national ruler, and to strip the imperial
court of their traditional role as cultural
influencers.
In particular, they favored the Kano School
of Painters.
First, Let’s talk about how the Ashikaga
clan came into power.
By the end of the 13th century, the Kamakura
bakufu has lost control of its alliances with
other samurai clans, and by 1319, they allowed
an able emperor to take the throne.
Emperor Go Daigo, made a series of attempts
to overthrow the bakufu: The first two attempts
were unsuccessful, and he was deposed and
exiled to the island of Oki.
Third time’s the charm, right? In 1333,
he managed to escape, and allied with a Kamakura
general named Ashikaga Takauji. Together,
they crushed the already weakened Kamakura
regime. Go Daigo returned to Kyoto, having
crushed the bakufu forever, and started his
new golden age of imperial rule. Yea! Right?
Um, no. Unfortunately for him, this period,
called the Kenmu Restoration, was short lived.
Not long after, in 1335, Ashikaga Takauji,
the general who helped Go Daigo crush the
Kamakura bakufu, was feeling like he was poorly
recompensated by the emperor. He led a revolt,
chased out Go Daigo from the capital, and
placed the 14 year old Kōmyō on the throne.
In 1338, Ashikaga assumed the title of shogun.
Go Daigo fled to the southern mountains of
Yoshino, taking with him the imperial regalia.
With the support of other clans opposed to
Ashikaga, he set up a southern court in the
opposition to the northern court of the Ashikaga
puppet in Kyoto.
This period is called the Nambokuchō period,
during which civil war between the two courts
lasted for nearly sixty years.
Ultimately, In 1392, the Ashikaga shogun Yoshimitsu
persuaded the emperor Go Kameyama of the southern
court to relinquish his claim and to turn
over the imperial regalia to Go Komatsu, the
emperor in Kyoto.
Yoshimitsu promised that the position would
alternate between the southern and northern
lines, but, of course, he didn’t keep his
promise. You saw that coming, right? Yoshimitsu,
moved the seat of government to the Muromachi
district of Kyoto, so this period following
the reunification of the imperial lines is
therefore known as the Muromachi period.
A new subject in genre painting called rakuchuu
rakugai, meaning “scenes in and around the
capital,” gives us a glimpse into life during
this period of time. The subject matter is
attributed to Tosa Mitsunobu, a foremost painter
of the imperial court. The Tosa school, founded
at the end of the 12th century, became the
leading school of yamato-e painting at the
imperial court until the Meiji Restoration
of 1868.
One of the earliest surviving screens is known
as the Rekihaku set. The images typically
depict a large panorama of the imperial capital,
seen from a bird’s eye-view and framed by
gold-dust clouds. They are usually a set of
two folding screens made up of six-panels
each, called byōbu.
The clouds break up particular points to reveal
the streets and buildings of the city. On
these screens, three areas in particular are
given prominence: the Gion festival procession
as it passes through the merchant district;
the mansions of court aristocrats; and the
headquarters of the bakufu and the mansions
of the powerful daimyo in the Muromachi district.
This reflects the three classes present in
Kyoto at the time: the townsmen, the court
aristocracy, and the samurai.
These scenes offered an idealized view of
the city though it's different seasons. The
viewing begins from the right on the right
screen, with summer progressing over six panels
toward the fall at the imperial palace. The
left screen then takes the viewer through
winter and into spring. Accordingly, they
depict the various festivals that take place
over the course of the year.
They project a peaceful, joyful, and even
prosperous image of the city - in striking
contrast of reality - a city war torn and
half destroyed.
Zen Buddhism, imported from China’s Ch’an
sect, was established in Japan at the end
of the 12th century, but didn’t but it didn’t
flourish as an independent sect within the
worldly Heian period. However in the more
somber times of war, this sect’s emphasis
on the stern, self discipline and need to
perceive the true nature of things made it
more receptive to the period’s scholars
and elites. Zen would continue to have a strong
influence on Japanese intellectual thought
and behaviour.
The main goal of Zen Buddhism was to attain
Enlightenment through intense meditation.
The sect is less interested in worldly affairs,
and lived with humble means in comparative
poverty.
The seriousness of the sect attracted the
intelligentsia, and found an audience among
the cultural and military elite.
There are two main practices to attain deep
awareness of truth.
The first is Zazen, which is meditation while
sitting straight-backed with legs crossed.
One must be completely present in the here
and now, objectless thoughts
The second is Kōan, which are questions or
exchanges with a master that cannot be understood
or answered with rational thought. One must
break through rational patterns of thought
to the clarity of intuitive Enlightenment.
Wabi is an aesthetic associated with Zen.
It values pleasures taken in austerity and
solitude, beauty perceived in simplicity,
and an appreciation of objects weathered by
time.
The concept of wabi initially referred to
the quality of the life led by an ascetic,
but over time it developed into an aesthetic
ideal to be sought after in one’s daily
life.
The element of sabi, often paired with wabi,
adds the notions of detachment and tranquility,
such as one achieves at the end of life. These
two aesthetic concepts became fundamental
to the performance of the tea ceremony, which
developed in the 15th c., out of the Zen practice
of drinking strong tea in order to stay awake
while meditating.
And together they make Wabi Sabi. Which is
really fun to say. And I don’t think this
has anything to do with wasabi, Not that I
know of anyways…
The composition of the Buddhist temple changed
under Zen. A central complex was developed
for public ceremonies and alongside it a series
of private subtemples, or tatchū, built to
accommodate religious leaders, often retired
abbots, and their monastic and lay adherents.
Tōfukuji, one of the first Zen temples to
be built in Kyoto, preserves the appearance
of an early Zen monastic complex. Founded
in 1236, and completed in 1255, It was severely
damaged by fires in 1319 and 1334, but quickly
rebuilt with the support of bakufu leaders.
Tōukuji has the earliest extant example of
a new type of gate, called the sanmon, or
mountain gate. Built over a period of 40 years,
the gate is a two-storied structure with three
entrance doors and a functional second story,
which is accessed by a covered stairway.
While the exterior preserves the more restrained
and sober aesthetic of the Chinese Southern
Song period building, the interior of the
second floor turns to the bright ornamentation
typical of Chinese decoration in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries with designs painted
in green, red, brown, black and gold. Enshrined
in the single room are sculptures typical
of a sanmon- images of Shaka and the 16 rakan
- great practitioners who had achieved Enlightenment
were particularly revered in Zen.
Of course, we have to talk about the Zen gardens.
These landscape gardens were created as an
aid to meditation. By the middle heian period,
gardens were incorporated into temple compounds
that were laid out in imitation of the residences
of the nobility. However, the gardens associated
with Zen subtemples are very different. They
were constructed in a limited amount of space,
and this very limitation is used as an asset
in their design, which is kept extremely simple.
Furthermore, as aids to Zen practice, the
objects they contain seem to invite metaphysical
interpretation. Most of them are constructed
largely from small pebbles and rocks, with
live plantings limited to moss and simple
shrubbery, and are called karesansui, or dry
landscapes. Although some Zen gardens also
incorporate water features such as ponds.
Ryōanji has the most famous karesansui, and
it has become the epitome of Zen tranquility
and reflection. The temple was founded on
the western outskirts of Kyoto in 1450. Like
much of the rest of Kyoto, it didn’t survive
the war intact, but by 1488 it had been rebuilt.
The temple was burned down again in the late
18th c, and the present garden dates to around
that time. Made entirely of rocks set amidst
raked pebbles, one interpretation of its imagery
is that it is a seascape. Another interpretation
has been of a tigress leading her cubs across
a river. Whatever the image invoked, the spare,
simple beauty of the design has seldom been
equaled.
Zen Buddhism’s focus on universal truth
expressed in the present moment vastly widened
the range of themes painted by monks and for
temples. This includes paintings of famous
Zen eccentrics and evocative landscapes. Artists
connected to particular temples developed
considerable skill at working in very different
styles and using different kinds of materials.
Monk-painter Kichizan Minchō was a versatile
artist who was appointed to Tōfukuji. This
large painting depicts the death of the Shaka
Buddha to be displayed each February on the
anniversary of his death. Executed in 1408,
the picture is conservative in style and treatment,
but also displays a somewhat free style of
brushwork. The outlines are of varying width
and some shading is used to model the old
and emaciated faces of the Buddha’s disciples.
While it’s not totally monochromatic, it
primarily uses red as an accent against the
different flesh tones and black.
There are two types of Zen paintings, exemplified
here by two of Minchō’s paintings:
The Dōshakuga, illustrated by this 1421 painting
of Kannon in a white robe. And the shigajiku,
illustrated by this 1413 landscape.
The Dōshakuya tradition of imagery depicts
Buddhist themes. It’s intended to convey
the subjective experience of receiving spiritual
insights or revelations.
Subjects include Bodhisattvas, great Zen masters,
and eccentrics.
Overall, they move away from mysticism and
toward pragmatism and realism, values that
Zen Buddhism fit easily with.
The Kannon sits in an informal pose in a grotto,
her traditional abode, and gazes out over
the ocean. The bodhisattva is treated as a
beautiful, languid and feminine figure, clad
in a simple white robe and bedecked with gold
jewelry. Her divinity is suggested only by
the crown and halo, created from a perfect
circle of mist through which part of the rock
behind can be seen. In addition, this image
is a marker of the feminization of Kannon,
which had begun earlier on the continent,
and which, with paintings such as this, is
almost complete. The Bodhisattva of Compassion
will from this point onward usually be depicted
as a beautiful but matronly figure.
Shigajiku is a type of landscape painting
which combines a monochrome image of an imaginary
landscape with poetry in a hanging scroll.
This practice can be traced back to Chinese
precedents:
China’s educated elite had long expressed
themselves through poetry and calligraphy,
but during the Tang dynasty they had also
begun to turn to the calligraphic brush to
painting landscapes as another way of expressing
their feelings on a subject, or to commemorate
a particular event.
The Song dynasty was a great golden age of
landscape painting by these scholar-officials,
to which The Chan school in China was culturally
very close. (Remember that Zen is derived
from the Chan school) The Chinese monk-painters
also began to paint personal calligraphically-brushed
monochrome landscapes as expressions of Zen
thought and practice.
Along with the import of religious learnings,
these trading missions also brought in many
Chinese paintings and objects of art which
profoundly influenced Japanese artists working
for Zen temples and the shogunate. Not only
was subject matter influences, but also the
use of color. While Yamato-e used strong,
bright colors, The Zen paintings followed
the Chinese style, where paintings were generally
monochrome with black and white or different
tones of a single color.
Mokuan was ordained as a priest in Kamakura
and journeyed to China to perfect his knowledge
of Zen.
His hanging scroll, Four Sleepers, depicts
Kanzan and and his friend, Jittoku fast asleep
with the monk Bukan and his tiger.
Zen eccentrics Kanzan and Jittoku, worked
in the kitchen of a Chan temple in 7th century
These two embody the Zen concept of the untrammeled
soul. The monk Bukan raised Jittoku and was
reputed to ride in the mountains on a tiger.
Medium grey, fairly broad strokes are used
for the bodies, while fine strokes are used
for the facial features, and dark ink is used
for the details on shoes, belt, and hair.
Only the briefest details are supplied about
the setting. A light wash suggests rocks beside
the figures and and the shoreline before them,
while darker strokes are used for the vines,
tree branches and river rocks. While sparse,
each stroke is intentionally chosen with particular
darkness and size for particular elements.
Let’s talk about three important painter-priests
who who were associated with the Zen temple,
Shōkoku-ji. Josetsu, Tenshō Shūbun, and
Sesshū Tōyō. Shūbun was Josetsu’s student,
and Tōyō was Shūbun’s student.
Josetsu 
painting ‘Catching a Catfish with a Gourd'
marks a turning point in Muromachi painting.
Another example of a doshakuga, there are
31 inscriptions written at the top, each by
a different poet, one of which refers to the
painting as being in the "new style."
In the foreground, a man is on the bank of
a stream holding a small gourd and looking
at a large slithery catfish. Mist fills the
middle ground, and the background mountains
appear to be far in the distance. It is generally
assumed that the "new style" of the painting,
refers to a more Chinese sense of deep space
within the picture plane.
This painting is also a kōan, or thought
problem, used to aid in attaining Enlightenment.
It prompts the worshiper with a puzzle: How
to catch a slippery catfish in a gourd.
Tenshō Shūbun painting, Reading in the Bamboo
Study, depicts a scholar’s study, almost
hidden in the bamboo grove. At the top is
a long introduction and five brief inscriptions,
each by a different person. The building has
a thatched roof and a large window, through
which the scholar can be seen holding something,
perhaps a book. Close to the house, a sharp
bluff is capped by two pine trees, one straight
and the other bent. The gradation of the paint
with short, repetitive strokes describes the
natural elements with a somewhat decorative
effect, but leads a convincing impression
of space.
The work utilizes several common motifs from
the Song dynasty, which in turn were common
in shigajiku paintings. This includes the
scholar and his attendant crossing the bridge,
the scholar visible through the window of
his study, fishing boats close to land, and
the temple buildings in the distance. Also,
the dominant motif of crossed pine trees and
the placement of most of the elements to one
side are devices often used by the Southern
Song painter Xia Gui, whose works were highly
prized by Japanese collectors, including the
Ashikaga shoguns. These landscapes were an
imagined ideal Chinese landscape, rather than
what would be seen around Kyoto.
Perhaps the most well known artist of this
period was Sesshū Tōyō. He later moved
from Kyoto to Yamaguchi, where he met the
Ōuchi family. With the financial support
of the Ōuchi family, he was able to travel
to China at the newly established capital
of the Ming dynasty, Beijing. There, he studied
contemporary Ming landscape paintings, as
well as earlier Southern Song and Yuan dynasty
works. When he returned to Japan, he was a
much-sought-after artist throughout his later
life.
One of his most characteristic landscapes
is a winter scene, probably part of a set
of landscape hanging scrolls of the four seasons.
In this painting are motifs from the Chinese
Southern Song landscape painting to create
an original and what is considered a typically
Japanese statement.
In the lower right with the motif of two trees
growing at the edge of the water, the viewer's
eye is lead back into the space by the diagonal
lines of a stepped pathway, along which a
man with a wide brimmed hat is climbing, presumably
toward the temple complex visible above him.
The hills through which he travels and the
mountains in the background surround the temple
buildings, making them seem like a warm oasis
in a cold, icy wasteland. The foreground passages
of rocks and trees are described with firm,
dark brushstrokes while the distant mountains
are only outlined against the gray sky. Above,
an undercut bluff fades behind the mist.
This landscape painting by sesshū is in haboku,
or broken ink style, the strokes are made
freely and rapidly, executed in a style in
which ink seems to have been effortlessly
applied. However easy it may look, it takes
skill. With incredible economy of means, Sesshū
has suggested land at the edge of water, large
trees, and tall background mountains, and
has even peopled his composition with two
figures in a boat close to shore and a village
of houses with the distinctive flag-bearing
pole of a sake house.
During the 14th century, the development of
the great Zen monasteries in Kamakura and
Kyoto had a major impact on the visual arts.
Suibokuga, an austere monochrome style of
ink painting introduced from Song and Yuan
dynasty China largely replaced the polychrome
scroll paintings of the previous period.
By the end of the 14th century, monochrome
landscape paintings had found patronage by
the ruling Ashikaga family and was the preferred
genre among Zen painters, gradually evolving
from its Chinese roots to a more Japanese
style.
In the late Muromachi period, ink painting
had migrated out of the Zen monasteries into
the art world in general, as artists from
the Kano school and the Ami school adopted
the style and themes, but introducing a more
plastic and decorative effect that would continue
into modern times.
Ashikaga were great patrons of the arts, especially
those espoused by Zen masters. During the
Muromachi period two distinct cultural environments
grew up around the retreats of two of the
retired Ashikaga shoguns: The villa of Yoshimitsu,
which became known as the Kinkakuji, or the
temple of the golden pavilion; and the bills
of his grandson Yoshimasa, or the Ginkakuji,
or Temple of the Silver Pavilion.
Both were constructed as elegant settings
for retirement, where Yoshimitsu and Yoshimasa
could devote themselves to leisure pursuits.
Not until after their deaths were the buildings
converted into temples.
The Kinkakuji is a three-storied structure
covered in gold foil. I saw it in person,
and can confirm, it’s very shiney. Set at
the edge of a large artificial lake, the gardens
also have two pagodas and a large three-storied
pavilion overlooking a lake. The original
Kinkakuji was destroyed in 1950 but was rebuilt
and restored soon after.
Modeled on a Chinese prototype often seen
in kara-e painting, the pavilion is designed
to house several different types of activities.
The first floor serves as an informal relaxation
and contemplation of the lake and garden,
is provided with Heian shinden-style hinged
lattice panels that can be raised so that
the interior is opened up for viewing. The
second floor - in the style favored by the
warrior elite - is an enclosed L shaped space
with a deep veranda along the lake to serve
as a kind of moon-viewing platform. The top
floor was designed as a temple room to be
provided with statues of Amida Buddha and
twenty five bodhisattvas as well as a buddha
relic acquired from Engakuji in Kamakura.
Yoshimasa’s Ginkajuki is quite the opposite
of Kinkakuji. Unlike what the name and association
with the previous temple would suggest, it
was never covered in silver leaf.
Ginkajuki is a two storied, two roofed building.
The first floor was used for meditation and
had walls composed of sliding doors which
could be opened up to a view of the lake and
extensive gardens.
The second floor was designed as a chapel
dedicated to Kannon, and it may have been
intended to have the interior covered in silver.
Unlike the gardens designed for the aristocratic
mansions of the Nara and Heian period, or
the viewing gardens of Zen subtemples, the
gardens of Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji were more
like parks intended for leisurely walks, during
which it was most important to be able to
view the pavilions from different viewpoints.
Yoshimitsu and Yoshimasa were both avid supporters
of the arts. It was a way to give themselves
legitimacy as a national ruler and to eclipse
the imperial court, whose role as the nation’s
cultural center was the last shred of function
it maintained.
A school of painters called the Kanō school
rose to prominence with Kanō Masanobu. The
Kanō, whose heyday was more in the second
half-of the sixteenth century and in the 17th
century, continued to be an influence in kanga,
or Chinese style painting Kanga is essentially
a more modern term for kara-e.
The Kanō were descended from a low-ranking
samurai family from the area around Shizuoka
prefecture and had an affiliation not with
Zen but with the Nichiren or Hokke sect of
Buddhism. Nichiren Buddhism began with yet
another strong and charismatic 13th century
religious leader, Nichiren. Based exclusively
on the Lotus Sutra, it emphasizes the recitation
of the Lotus Sutra’s title “Namu myōho
renge kyō” - in much the same way as the
nembutsu mantra is chanted in Pure Land Buddhism.
Nichiren’s son, Motonobu was an artist who
helped establish the Kanō style, and position
the school as the chief painters to the shogunate.
Motonobu was a remarkably versatile painter,
capable of working in the brightly colored
yamato-e style of narrative painting, in a
meticulous Chinese genre of bird and flower
paintings, and in a freer style of kanga,
combining figural and landscape motifs.
This latter style was fully developed by the
early sixteenth century and is well represented
in six panels by Motonobu depicting Zen patriarchs,
originally designed as wall and door paintings,
but now refashioned into handing scrolls.
These paintings were executed around 1513
for the abbot’s room in the kyakuden, or
guest hall, of daisenin. Although these are
only a portion of the paintings that originally
decorated this room, they represent a continuous
sequence moving from right to left. With the
exception of the second painting, each panel
depicts one or two Zen patriarchs engaged
in various activities such as sweeping, gazing
at peach blossoms, and bidding a friend farewell,
set in a strongly delineated Chinese-style
landscapes.
This one shows Kyogen achieving Enlightenment
while sweeping with a bamboo broom. Kyogen
was asked by his master about his life before
birth in his present incarnation. Unable to
reply, Kyogen set himself singlemindedly to
find the answer. When buddhist texts failed
to help, he burned his library and sought
answer though meditation. Finally, while he
was tending his garden, a tile fell off the
roof of his house and at the sound Kyogen
achieved Enlightenment. The painting shows
him sweeping the area of his yard; at his
feet is the tile shattered into three pieces.
Startled by the noise, he has taken a step
backward and raised his right hand in amazement
at the event and at his sudden Enlightenment.
In general, Motonobu established the center
of the composition with a single motif, such
as Kyogen’s house. Then, interest or tension
is created with secondary elements, placed
on a diagonal. Such as this large boulder
on the right and the bamboo grove. This also
suggests recession into the picture while
challenging the primacy of the central image.
The image demonstrates the adoption of Chinese
influences, as it sets Japanese style architecture
against Chinese model landscapes.
With the close of the Muromachi period, Japan’s
medieval epoch also comes to an end. Although
the system of military dictatorship, or bakufu,
would continue for the better part of three
centuries, Japan’s society and culture enter
into a new age which elsewhere in the world
has been characterized as Early Modern.
Japan becomes increasingly secular, and while
Buddhism and Shinto will remain important
social and political influences, culturally
they will take a back seat as the breakdown
of boundaries between the sacred and profane
begun by the Zen monk-painters continues.
It is the merchants and artisans - the lowest
of the four classes - who begin to take their
place, not only as creators of Japanese art,
but also as its leading patrons.
We’ll be covering that in the next video
on Japanese Art History.
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