Page 129 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

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Portrait o/Tofeugaïua leyasu
Early seventeenth century
Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
5
:
82.9 x 41.3 (32 /8 x i6 /4)
University Museum, Faculty of
Letters, Kyoto University
• At first glance, one would scarcely
suspect that this stately portrait rep-
resents one of the shrewdest and
most powerful generals in Japanese
12 8
history — Tokugawa leyasu, the first
shogun of the early modern period.
The great warlord is shown in tradi-
tional courtier robes and cap rather
than formal samurai costume or
armor. He holds a ceremonial scepter,
conventional in portraits of warriors,
but the only indication of his samurai
status is the long sword tucked into
his robes. Such a portrait would nor-
mally have been commissioned exclu-
sively for family members to use in
memorial services for the deceased.
But leyasu was widely venerated as
the Buddhist-Shinto deity Tóshó
Daigongen (Great Incarnation Illumi-
nating the East), and images were
made in great number throughout the
Edo period based on portraits made
immediately after his death in 1616.
The altarlike curtains and raised plat-
form with red lacquer pillars and
guardian lion-dogs, reminiscent of a
shrine setting, contribute to the aura
of religiosity. The background land-
scape may be an imaginary early view
of the shrine complex at Nikkó, the
site of leyasu's mausoleum.
leyasu rose to power by defeating
political rivals and building alliances
at the battle of Sekigahara in 1600. At
the decisive battle of Osaka Castle in
1615, he decimated the last vestiges
of the Toyotomi clan's military power,
an event many historians use to
mark the beginning of the Edo period.
The military government leyasu
established in Edo, headed by fifteen
successive generations of Tokugawa
5i shogun, ruled Japan for the next two
and a half centuries. VH