Page 58 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

cat. 9 57
Dish with lotus leaf and
geometric pattern,
late 16405,
Hizen ware porcelain,
Kokutani style,
m
:
33 ( 3) diameter,
Idemitsu Museum of Arts,
Tokyo

The emerging Tokugawa government appears to have used such a system to great effect.
Controlling symbolism (even kazari) to its advantage, the Tokugawa government prescribed that con-
sumption of luxury goods be correlated with status (as defined by the government), issuing sumptuary
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regulations (ken'yakurei) periodically from the beginning of their rule. The alternate attendance system
enacted at the same time required all daimyo to maintain residences both in their domains and in Edo,

which served as a geographical reminder that the power of the realm lay with the Tokugawa in Edo.
In addition, a visual system was consciously employed to demonstrate this power in two-dimensional
designs and architectural spaces, particularly in government-commissioned monuments such as the
mortuary shrines of the Tokugawa in Nikkô, discussed below. The new system of aesthetics was also
employed by others within the culture. While the Tokugawa defined the new symbolism, specific luxury
goods, as recognized signifiers of wealth and status, were possessed by a wider circle than ever before.
Starting with the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, which placed Tokugawa leyasu (1542 -1616) at the
helm of state, the first half of the seventeenth century was a pivotal time for the Tokugawa regime.
The Kan'ei era (1624-1644) saw the first full flowering of peace in the Japanese archipelago as well as the
first steps toward the creation of a unified entity out of the 26o-odd semiautonomous nation-states. By
midcentury the Tokugawa hegemony was ensured for the next two hundred years. Initially, the vitalized
spirit of the Momoyama period (1573-1615) persisted in kazari, but as new realities became central in
the Tokugawa period, other styles of ornamentation became popular.