Page 155 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

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the action. Carpenters, painters, and plasterers are depicted in scrolls that show the building of temples fig. i
Beach and Pine,
and shrines, but these figures are still subordinate to the overall narrative. mid-sixteenth century,
The worker as a theme in its own right first appeared at the end of the Kamakura period detail from a pair of
six-panel screens,
(1185 ~ !333) in paintings of Poetic Contests Between Workers. This motif was an extension of the well- ink, color, and gold
established painting genre Poetic Contests Between the Thirty-six Immortal Poets. Both types of on paper with cut silver
leaf,
and
gold
painting are rooted in waka poetry: the Thirty-six Immortals were the authors of the poems, and some- each 106 x 312.5 (41 /4 x 123),
3
Tokyo National Museum
times workers and the sight or sound of their labor were the subject of a poem. As artisans and
merchants gained power and influence, especially when commerce flourished in the Muromachi period
fig. 2
(1392 -1573), both poets and painters gave more and more attention to the activities of these working Tóhoku'in Poetic Contests
classes. Some paintings of imaginary poetry contests between workers might have been created Between Workers (detail: gambler
and spiritual medium),
to amuse aristocrats at parties; others might have been dedicated to the Buddha — as were waka — dated 1214, handscroll;
ink and light color on paper,
on behalf of laborers by their noble patrons. 3 79 (31 Vs) high,
The earliest dated scroll of the Poetic Contests Between Workers theme is the Tóhoku'in Poetic Tokyo National Museum
Contest scroll (fig. 2). Dating to 1214, it is one of two examples from the Kamakura period; more scrolls
on the subject date from the Muromachi to the early Edo period. These include as town workers not

only those engaged in handicrafts but also spiritual mediums, physicians, itinerant monks, jugglers,
and prostitutes. Each worker is identified either by a cursory setting or by the tools and products of his
or her trade, identifications clarified by the accompanying labels. The subjects are squeezed between
poetic text and thus are extremely simplified. The worker is portrayed as an easily discernible symbol
of a profession.
The next phase of portraying workers is seen in Muromachi-period screen paintings known
as Scenes In and Around Kyoto (rakuchu-rakugaizu), a subgenre of paintings of famous places. In the
first half of the sixteenth century paintings of famous scenes around Kyoto, then the capital, were
developed for the samurai and aristocracy to affirm their power as well as to decorate their houses. In
the earliest prototypes the scenes emphasized are of the imperial palace and the residences of the
Ashikaga shogun and the Hosokawa family, governors-general of Kyoto — the triumvirate of governing
forces in Kyoto at the time. Among these residences are scattered images of the famous temples,
shrines, locales, and spectacles in the city. These screens, in their unromanticized, realistic depiction
of the city's inhabitants, served as a precursor for true genre painting, which developed in the
Momoyama period (1573-1615), and for genre painting's descendants in ukiyoe.