Page 62 - Designing_Nature_The_Rinpa_Aesthetic_in_Japanese_Art Metropolitan Museum PUB

Asian classics, to note that “it would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that the
real religion of Heian was the cult of calligraphy.” It was the works from this era

that inspired Tawaraya Sōtatsu and Hon’ami Kōetsu — originators of the Rinpa
aesthetic — in their own use of decorated papers, with gold and silver pigments
and cut leaf, and in the integration of eloquent calligraphy into pictorial compo-

sitions (e.g., cats. 10, 12, 13).
During the Heian period, a distinctive Japanese writing system known as kana, designing nature
based on a phonetic syllabary, was used to write waka and vernacular literature
such as The Tale of Genji and The Ise Stories. Members of the Heian cultural elite

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