Page 161 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

Roles for workers expanded manyfold in the late Muromachi and the Momoyama periods,
and the division of labor developed further with huge commercial gains in the second half of the seven-
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teenth century. A new interest in scientific inquiry and analysis followed the spread of academies
and a publication boom in the seventeenth century, and taxology became a craze in the eighteenth
century. Perhaps influenced by these developments, some painters revealed an extremely close,
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systematic observation of all subjects, including workers. The Occupations and Activities of Each Month
screen (cat. 88) shows the exhaustive level of scrutiny that a mid-eighteenth-century town painter
would devote to the subject of the urban worker. This pair of half-sized screens depicts about 975
people: 124 merchants; 80 artisans; 68 street vendors, fortune-tellers, and entertainers; 50 samurai;
i 6o 24 itinerant monks; and a wide assortment of men, women, and children shopping, performing,
frolicking, or celebrating the events of the year. Animals and birds of a great variety are also shown.
Virtually every product from lotus leaves to loquats is being sold; every kind of handcrafted item from
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fans to footwear is being created before our eyes. This painting is exceptionally rare for its inclusion
of monthly events — such as selling pines at the New Year and dolls in the third month and the
Buddhist nenbutsu dance in the seventh month — shown in a complex scene of tradespeople at work.
The one factor in this comprehensive treatment that remains vague is the location. The town exhibits
none of the defining characteristics of a specific place.

The interest of Edo-period artists in handicraft manufacture and other types of work extended
to understanding and illustrating the tools, methods, and settings for every step in the process of
creation. Woodblock print book illustrations of the time provided such information, which found its
way onto three-dimensional decorative objects. A Nabeshima dish from the early nineteenth century
(cat. 89) shows workers digging and filtering clay, then shaping, firing, and decorating vessels, and
finally selling the finished porcelain product.

FARMING AND The Confucian construct for society promulgated by the shogunate was reflected in officially sanc-
PEASANTRY: tioned art themes. The overarching concept of Confucianism deemed that a peaceful and prosperous
FROM C O N F U C I A N state could be achieved when benevolent leadership from above was combined with cooperative,
T H E M E T O respectful support from the lower echelons. In this system farmers would feed the people, artisans
G E N R E S C E N E S create essentials for living, merchants transfer goods between producers and consumers — and every-
one worked to sustain the administrators who led and protected them. Success hinged on a clear under-
standing and respect for hierarchy, not only among the four classes but within each class, community,
and family.
The painting theme of Rice Cultivation in the Four Seasons was the ideal didactic Confucian
subject. This motif, along with that of sericulture (raising silkworms to produce raw silk), was judged
appropriate for temples as well as for meeting halls in a samurai or daimyo residence where the
guardians of the land would hold audiences with their subjects. In China the stages of cultivating rice
through the year had been painted as a Confucian theme since at least the thirteenth century, with
the purpose of enhancing respect for and encouraging the peasants whose difficult labors supported
the populace. Chinese paintings and woodblock print books illustrating rice cultivation and sericulture
were imported into Japan. A handscroll attributed to the Chinese artist Liang Kai (active early thirteenth
century) was copied by Sôami (1485? -1525), whose version in turn formed the basis for the first