Page 157 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

dwelling. The viewer can see into every shop and study the assortment of tools and variety of products
being created, as well as discern the disposition of the shop's employees.
Professions other than the manual crafts disappeared for as long as this type of screen remained
popular, during the Momoyama and into the early Edo period. The spiritual mediums and entertainers
found in the poetic contest scrolls were replaced by fan makers, carpenters, weavers, carvers of Buddhist
sculpture, and swordsmiths, among a host of others.

A C H A N G E D The changing political and social situation in sixteenth-century Japan set the stage for the Edo-period
156 C L A S S artists' increasing focus on urban, and then rural, workers. In the long-existing structure of society the
S T R U C T U R E hereditary warrior class and the nobility held the predominant positions as governors and arbiters of
high culture. During the late Muromachi and the Momoyama periods commerce increased, along with
overseas trade, allowing wealth to accumulate for the first time in the hands of lower-class producers.
Benefiting from this newfound wealth, the lower classes were able to influence the directions that high
culture would take.
After the hundred years of political and social chaos at the end of the Muromachi period, called
the Age of the Country at War (1467 -1568), Japan began to rebuild, starting with samurai castles. Around
these castles new towns were built, forming the nucleus of the urban culture that attained such impor-
5
tance during the Edo period. The popular stone-pulling designs, images of great foundation stones
being moved (cat. 87), illustrate the ideal of a country reconstructing itself in peacetime. Nakai Nobuhiko
discusses the folklore that grew around castle building after many peasants were drafted to toil, and
6
sometimes die, on the huge projects. Much of Kyoto's repair was accomplished through the efforts of
the merchant class, and the Scenes In and Around Kyoto screens may reflect the satisfaction of watching
the old capital being rebuilt. Kyoto was still best known as the place to have fun, visit antique stores,
7
tour famous places, watch performances, and shop for anything desired. Other cities shown in paint-
ings of the Pictures of All the Workers theme could represent castle towns — which were new centers
for commerce — such as the new capital of Edo, or the old mercantile centers Sakai and Osaka. 8

Following the time of political chaos Japan was reorganized by Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582)
and Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536 -1598), whom Herman Ooms identifies in his essay as the preeminent
daimyo. These military leaders placed the Confucian system at the core of their governing philosophy.
The shogun Tokugawa leyasu (1542-1616) and his followers further solidified the four-class structure
of samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants. With the advent of the Edo period government mandate
rearranged society to forestall organized rebellion, separating samurai from the land and isolating
them from peasants. The samurai's role evolved further into that of civil bureaucrat, policeman, and
9
warrior (as needed for defense); he was dependent on the fief lord, or daimyo, for a stipend. From this
time the farmer lived under the protection of a samurai overlord but was in control of the land that
he worked. Farmers, the second highest class, supported the economy of the country by producing rice,
with which the shogunate paid its fief lords. Farmers composed the vast majority of the population
and often lived in poverty. 10
Artisans and merchants, the third and fourth classes, respectively, served the samurai from
11
their shops in the castle towns and eventually dominated the class of townspeople (chônin). In time
the shogunate's systems for controlling feudal lords (most notably the fixed stipends for samurai