Page 61 - JAPAN THE SHAPING OFDAIMYO CULTURE 1185-1868

emperor Go-Shirakawa (1127-1192) and freed from a twenty-year banish-
ment in Izu, amassed an army of more than twenty thousand men, were
the Heike routed. The Genji troops, led by Yoritomo's impetuous half
brother Yoshitsune (1159-1189), repulsed the Heike at the decisive Battle
of Dannoura in the spring of 1185.
Yet, even before the Heike had been driven from power, and
within a month after the burning of Tôdaiji and Kôfukuji, the court of
Kyoto had ordered the reconstruction process to begin under the leader-
ship of a monk of Tôdaiji, Shunjôbô Chôgen (1121-1206). Chógen ener-
getically pursued the task, raising much-needed funds and traveling to
China to engage an expert Chinese bronze caster. He also found timbers
in Suó and brought them to Nara. A replica of the bronze colossus was
dedicated in the eighth month of 1184, in the presence of both the
cloistered emperor Go-Shirakawa and Yoritomo, who traveled from Ka-
makura to attend the ceremony. Ten years later, the reconstruction of the
Great Buddha Hall also was completed. It was the first major public
project accomplished by a new coalition that included the court, the
Genji warriors, and the clerics, and a symbol of the new era of steward-
ship of the affairs of the state by the warriors.
When the Genji warrior clan established its government at the
end of the twelfth century, many Japanese artistic traditions already had
been in place for more than two centuries. Buddhist temples and Shinto
shrines had their own workshops of painters called edokoro, the name
based on the earlier and more official body within the imperial palace.
Sculptural traditions had been firmly based in Nara as well as in Kyoto.
Out of the new creative impetus generated by the reconstruction
projects at Tôdaiji and Kôfukuji emerged the Kei school and its new
style. Its stylistic influence extended to the east, centered around Kama-
kura, the seat of the warrior government. The sculptor Unkei (d. 1223),
who along with his father, Kôkei, led the campaign to restore the Bud-
dhist icons at Nara, propagated a style that took root under the patronage
of Hôjô Tokimasa (1138-1215), the warrior chieftain in the east.
Meanwhile, new Buddhist monasteries were being built in Kama-
kura. Zen temples with new architectural features based on Chinese
models were founded during the period of renewed, sustained contact
with mainland China encouraged by the Hôjô regents in Kamakura. In
the fourteenth century, especially, hundreds of Japanese Zen pilgrims
went to China, many for sojourns often to fifteen years. Chinese monks
also visited Japan at the invitation of the patrons of Zen monasteries, the
Hôjô family members (cats. 47, 54, 55). The Chinese emigré monks were
great teachers of sinology as well as religion. The cultural fringe benefits
that Chinese Chan (Zen) Buddhism brought to Japan were enthusiasti-
cally received by the new warrior elite, who as patrons had found some-
thing new, something that had not been handed down to them by the old
régime.
Renewed contacts between Japan and China led to the adoption
of two Chinese painting traditions: the Song Dynasty portrait tradition,
and an ink painting tradition that incorporated new subject matter and
techniques. Chinese paintings at Butsunichian, a sub-temple Engakuji
and the mortuary chapel of Regent Hôjô Tokimune (1251-1284) included,
according to an inventory made around 1365, two new categories of
painting: portraits of Chinese Chan (Zen) masters, and ink paintings of
Daoist and Buddhist saints, landscapes, and flowers and birds.
When Yoritomo accepted the title Seiitdshdgun in 1192 he proba-
bly was uncomfortable with the idea that he had also inherited the
stewardship of the arts and culture, which had always been the province
of the aristocrats. His painted portrait, perhaps the single most important
painting in this exhibition, presents him in courtly attire (cat. i). The
painting is part of a set of three portraits at Jingoji that survive from an
original set of five: Go-Shirakawa at the center; a courtier; two Taira clan

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