Page 243 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

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134
Gion Festival
Seventeenth century
Pair of six-panel screens; ink, color,
and gold on paper
3
Each 152.5 x 356.5 (60 x I40 /s)
Kyoto National Museum

• The Gion Festival is said to have
originated in the ninth century when
a plague devastated the city of Kyoto.
242 This summer festival has been held
ever since as a protection against
such plagues, which tended to occur
in the humid heat of summer. The
distinguishing feature of the Gion
Festival is a type of large-wheeled
float, the name of which is literally
translated "mountain halberd" (yama-
boko). The halberd is represented by
the long vertical shaft above the float.
Each float is built, moved, and pre-
served by the men of sharply defined
districts in central Kyoto. The festival
thrived until the Onin War (1467 -
1477), which laid ruin to large parts of
the city. The revival of the festival in
the early sixteenth century became a
133 are often shown together, as here, symbol of the renewal of Kyoto itself.
Mokujiki Byakudó (1750-1825) and enshrined in the kitchen or Previously, the festival's patrons had
Ebisu and Daikokuten hearth of a Japanese home as tutelary been the military class; the new
deities. Daikokuten, on the right,
Wood grips a wooden mallet and a sack of patrons were the ascendant machishü,
Height 27.5 (10 7/8) treasures; Ebisu holds a stylized urbanités who became the merchant
Ganshôji, Yamanashi class of the Edo period. A spirit of
sea bream in his left hand.
rivalry drove each district to lavish
• Ebisu and Daikokuten are two of the Mokujiki Byakudó was a disciple of increasingly large sums on the deco-
seven gods of good fortune (Shichi- Mokujiki Gyôdô (see cat. 132), whom ration of its float. By the Momoyama
fukujin), a pantheon of folk gods that he met at age twenty-four and period (1573-1615) these displays
found particular favor in the Edo with whom he traveled throughout were festooned with rare textiles
period. Daikokuten began as a Hindu Hokkaido and Tóhoku (the northern from Europe and bore paintings on
deity (Mahakala) in India that fought part of Honshu) until he was thirty- their ceilings by the eminent artists of
against the forces of evil, evolved two. Unlike his teacher, however, he the day. The prominence of the festi-
into a Buddhist guardian of the Three settled for the next forty-three years val is indicated by the floats' appear-
Treasures in both China and Japan, in his hometown of Shioyama, where ance in almost every screen of the
and finally became a Buddhist/Shinto most of his extant work is still located. subject Scenes In and Around Kyoto
deity who grants prosperity in Japan. In style he clearly followed his teacher, (rakuchu-rakugaizu). RTS
The origin of Ebisu is unclear, but his but in his repertory of subjects he was
name means foreigner, indicating a much less wide-ranging than either
continental derivation. The two gods Gyôdô or Enku, focusing on folk deities
such as Koyasu Jizó or Koyasu Kannon
(koyasu referring to easy childbirth)
or the seven gods of good fortune. RTS

134 (detail)