Page 263 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

Oda Nobunaga in hopes of displacing the hegemon and appropriating the land. The mountains of
Yoshino (cat. 161) were a potent site for such rituals of symbolic possession. The "innocent" rite of
cherry viewing there by Toyotomi Hideyoshi slots into a long lineage of political gestures that make
use of acquisition by visual means.
Mandalization: The two great Buddhist mándala, the Adamantine and Womb Worlds, were
conceptually superimposed over the physical landscape. Among the earliest sites to be mandalized
were Kumano (as the Womb, or female, mándala; cat. 185) and Yoshino (the Adamantine, or male,
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mándala; cat. i6i). These mandalized areas were domains conducive to transfiguration, salvation,
and temporal power. 4

262 Heaven or hell: Sacred mountains came to be seen as physical corridors to other worlds, a notion
that originated in Chinese Daoism. Mount Fuji, for example, was considered the Paradise of Miroku
(Sanskrit: Maitreya), Buddha of the Future; andTateyama was thought to be the locus of the blood-pool
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hell for women. Certain sites were also viewed as haunts of nature spirits, or kami. Kami not properly
propitiated could wreak harm, even death, to transgressors. In a related sense such sites could confer
immortality. Mount Fuji in particular, because its name was homophonous with the characters meaning
"no death," was associated with longevity. This concept is especially evident in the rendition of Fuji by
Nagasawa Rosetsu (cat. 158) — the cranes being another symbol of longevity — and made explicit in the
multiple images of Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai (cats. 169,171 -176). 6
Conflation with poetic views: The tradition of associating poetry with landscape began with Chinese
poems on the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers. Transferred to Japan, it was superimposed
over Japanese scenery, like the Eight Views of Ômi (cat. 143). Allusions to even a few of the Eight Views
were sufficient to structure meaning, as in Ike Taiga's Wondrous Scenery o/Mutsu (cat. 164), where
motifs from the original Chinese Eight Views were worked into a topographical scene.
Resonances of national identity: Although not landscape in the imagistic sense, the maps on two
porcelain dishes (cats. 141,142) authoritatively place Japan at the center of the world, a world that, it
might be added, counts the Land of the Dwarves and the Land of Women among the countries on the

periphery as "Other." Even though by the nineteenth century, when these maps were created, Japanese
surveyors had more accurately determined the shape of the country, these symbols of Japanese national
cohesiveness remained extremely popular. Fuji, too, became an important symbol of national identity.
Simulacra or replicated sites: The practice of absorbing the mana of famous places by replicating
them began rather early in Japan. In the ninth century the emperor's son-in-law constructed in his
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garden a replica of Shiogama in the "Deep North"; reproductions of famous views also may be found
in the garden of the seventeenth-century Katsura Detached Palace. The city of Edo relied on numerous
such simulacra for authority. The site most replicated was Mount Fuji (eight of them in Edo alone),
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which was climbed in effigy on special days. This practice also had implications for painted replicas
of places.
One of the difficulties in studying Edo-period attitudes toward landscape is the problem of
establishing to what degree — and on what levels — ancient attitudes and practices lingered. How long
did travelers, for example, continue to subscribe to the notion that local gods must be propitiated? One
can say with certainty that Edo-period travelers were keenly aware of historical topography. The poet
Matsuo Bashó (1644-1694) made a point of seeking out the site where Fujiwara Sanetaka, riding past a
crossroad deity without bothering to dismount to pay obeisance, fell off his horse and died as a result