Page 69 - JAPAN THE SHAPING OFDAIMYO CULTURE 1185-1868

i Minamoto Yoritomo cles portray Yoritomo as a suspicious,
hanging scroll; ink and color on silk brutal, and ruthless warrior, the portrait
139.4 x 111.8 (547/8 x 44) here represents him as a courtly official
Kamakura period, rather than as a mighty military chieftain.
ist quarter of 13th century This painting is part of a set of four
Jingoji, Kyoto surviving portraits at Jingoji; the others are
of the retired emperor
Go-Shirakawa; the
National Treasure
courtier Fujiwara Mitsuyoshi (1132-1183);
A courtierlike figure wearing tailed cer- and Taira Shigemori (1138-1179), the eldest
emonial headgear (kdburi), carrying a cer- son of Kiyomori (1118-1181), the warrior
emonial sword, and clad in starched chieftain of the defeated Taira clan. These
formal silk attire (kowasdzoku) is seated on four in turn are believed to correspond to
a three-layered tatami mat. He holds a four paintings from an early set of five that
shaku, a wedge-shaped, thin wooden slat, was once at Sentôin, Jingoji, as recorded in
on which the program for a ceremony an early fourteenth century document of
would be written. His blue sash (obi), orna- Jingoji. The fifth portrait of the set, that of
mented with a gold phoenix design, termi- Taira Narifusa (fl. 1157-1177), a chamberlain
nates in strands of gold and blue. Its outer of Go-Shirakawa, has long been lost.
borders are decorated with parallel bands How the ensemble was formed and
of green, yellow, blue, and red and a zigzag came to be at the Esoteric Buddhist sanc-
pattern in gold. The eyes look sharply to- tuary of Jingoji may be partially explained
ward the right, and the lightly bearded by several interconnected circumstances
face and neck of the sitter are white, of the politics played out around the per-
slightly tinted with thin brown washes, son of the ex-emperor Go-Shirakawa dur-
starkly contrasting with the red of the ing the second half of the twelfth century.
robe's lining. Sentôin was built in 1188 to prepare for an
The black outer robe (/io), which dom- imperial visit by Go-Shirakawa, which
inates the composition, is intricately orna- took place two years later. Go-Shirakawa
mented with floral patterns in lustrous and Yoritomo were both associated with
black paint over a ground of matte black, a the temple through the priest Mongaku
feature that has become more readable (fl. c. 1173-1203), a former warrior who was
from the recent cleaning and remounting responsible for much of the extensive re-
of the scroll. The peony roundels on the building campaign at Jingoji in 1182, and
white silk undergarment (shitagasane) are whose painted portrait also survives at the
rendered in pale ink. The hem of the sit- same temple. Mongaku had angered Go-
ter's silk trousers is ornamented with intri- Shirakawa by plying him with excessive re-
cate floral and checked patterns of silver quests for funds for the rebuilding
leaf, now tarnished. Along the borders of campaign, and was exiled to Izu Province
the tailpiece of the headgear are four (part of present-day Shizuoka Prefecture).
rhomboid patterns. The painting has suf- There he met Yoritomo, who had been ex-
fered damage along the upper border and iled there also, and their close association
in the right half of the tatami mat, includ- began. Later, it was through Yoritomo's
ing its sheathing cloth. The green mala- support and the eventual funding from
chite pigment of the tatami surface has Go-Shirakawa that Jingoji was successfully
flaked off considerably, exposing the silk rebuilt.
support underneath. The courtier Mitsuyoshi played an in-
Executed in the consummate picto- termediate role between Go-Shirakawa
rial technique of the courtly tradition of and Yoritomo when the latter became the
yamato-e indigenous to Japan, this paint- power to be reckoned with and an ally in
ing is one of the earliest extant examples Go-Shirakawa's ploy to be rid of the politi-
of formal secular portraiture. The sitter is cal influence of the Taira clan. Mitsu-
traditionally identified as Minamoto Yori- yoshi's portrait, in composition a mirror
tomo (1147-1199), the first shogun who, af- image of Yoritomo, faces to the left. Taira
ter defeating the rival Heike, or Taira, clan Shigemori, the subject of the fourth por-
at Dannoura in 1185, ruled Japan from Ka- trait, was, unlike his father, favorably
makura as the chieftain of the Minamoto treated by Go-Shirakawa and became the
clan. In 1192, soon after the death of the Inner Minister of the old regime, but he
formidable retired emperor Go-Shirakawa was dismissed by Kiyomori and died
(1127-1192), Yoritomo received from the young, before his father. Shigemori's por-
court the coveted title of Seiitaishdgun trait also faces to the left, counterbalanc-
(Great General Who Quells the Barbari- ing that of Yoritomo. The entire set when
ans). Yoritomo became the supreme com- assembled as a group exudes a strong com-
mander of the warriors and the head of memorative character and can be seen as
the military government, and concurrently an expression of political symbolism.
was appointed to Senior Second Rank, a The surviving four paintings at Jingoji
prestigious court rank from which he are by different hands, although since the
could claim legitimacy and exert influ- early fourteenth century they have been
ence. Although medieval military chroni- attributed to Fujiwara Takanobu (1142-
1205), a low-ranking courtier serving the re-

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