Page 313 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

Certainly the most famous and possibly the with guns and other trade goods from the West. post-Onin cultural salon centered about his
most brilliant monk in the medieval Daitoku-ji He would probably have concluded that, Silver Pavilion. This phase of Japanese culture is
lineage was Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481), a bitter although competition existed, Japan was a commonly referred to as the "Culture of the
critic of the hypocrisy, worldliness, and self- promising field and that Christianity could be Eastern Hills" (Higashiyama bunka), from the
satisfaction of Gozan monks. By the middle of most rapidly implanted by seeking the conver- location of Yoshimasa's villa.
the Muromachi period the Zen institution as a sion of sympathetic daimyo and their wives, in Late fifteenth-century elite culture blended
whole, and especially its Gozan branches spon- the hope that their domains would then be con- courtier, warrior, and Zen elements. The pre-
sored by the military government and patro- verted en masse. This policy might well have vailing tone was monochromatic, reflected in
nized by people in high places, was showing worked successfully in 1492, as it was to work the vogue for ink painting, and the dominant
signs of religious complacency. Ikkyu (see cat. in the 1550$, 15605, and 1570$. In 1492, aesthetic was expressed in such terms as "mys-
221, 238) spent the greater part of his long life however, efforts to promote Christianity would tery and depth" (yugen), "the beauty of worn
criticizing, often with vitriolic intensity, the not have had the fortuitous tacit support they and rustic things" (sabi), and "cultivated
corruption, stupidity, and pretensions of the would later receive from a unifier like Nobu- poverty" (wabi). These cultural preferences,
Zen clergy. For much of his life Ikkyu avoided naga who, bent on curbing the power of militant imbibed by daimyo in Kyoto, were transplanted
monastic office, preferring to spend his time Buddhism, was uncommonly willing to tolerate by them to their castles and garrison towns.
wandering the streets and pleasure quarters of Christian missionary activity, to entertain mis- Some daimyo', like the Hosokawa, Ouchi, and
Kyoto and Sakai, writing satirical verses and sionaries at his castles, and to permit the build- Hojo, became major and generous patrons of the
making Zen accessible to the common people ing of churches and seminaries in the capital and arts in their own right. The walls and screens of
through straightforward and humorous sermons the territories he was bringing under his the great castles would become grounds for the
in the vernacular. He was at the same time a control. powerful decorative painting of the sixteenth-
poet of passionate intensity and moral serious- century Kano masters.
ness, and a brilliant calligrapher, whose brusque, Buddhist monasteries, especially Rinzai Zen
slashing style reflects his character. Toward the monasteries, remained centers of cultural
end of his life he reluctantly accepted the head- Cultural life leadership. The abbot's quarters (hojd) of Zen
ship of Daitoku-ji, working hard to restore it A perceptive and open-minded European find- monasteries set the style for domestic archi-
and its subtemples after the ravages of the Onin ing his way to Japan in 1492 would have been tecture. Zen dry-landscape gardens (kare
War. He forged ties between Sakai merchants intrigued by its cultural vitality and would sansui), like those of Daitoku-ji, Ryoan-ji, or
and the monks of Daitoku-ji, many of whom quickly have identified several overlapping cen- Saiho-ji (the Moss Temple), brought Japanese
were experts in the monastic style of Tea Cere- ters and modes of cultural activity. Kyoto, garden design to an unparalleled level of sub-
mony, which the merchants were eager to learn. recovering from the Onin War, was a major tlety and sophistication, combining directness
Irreverent, fearlessly eccentric, sometimes cultural center. Although the imperial court had and simplicity with abstraction. Many Zen
harsh and histrionic, the antithesis of a Zen lost its political leadership and some of the cul- monks were also masters of calligraphy, Chinese
dignitary, Ikkyu exerted great and lasting influ- tural hegemony it had enjoyed in earlier cen- poetry, ink painting or portraiture. The Zen
ence on the Zen tradition. turies, it was still a cultural arbiter. The age did monastic custom of formally serving tea to
Zen monks played a major role in the intro- not see the compilation of great imperial poetry monks and monastery guests was carried into
duction of Neo-Confucianism to Japan. Keian anthologies to rival those of the Heian and secular society, there to be transformed into a
Genju (1427-1508), a Rinzai monk and Neo- Kamakura periods, but emperors and courtiers passion among warriors, merchants, and vil-
Confucian scholar who had studied Chan in still wrote poetry and prized fine calligraphy. lagers. Zen ideas of the "dropping of self,"
Ming China, was one of the most distinguished There was a vogue for linked verse (renga), "original emptiness," "no-mind," "spontaneous
of these, patronized by the Kikuchi daimyo among courtiers and at all levels of literate soci- self-perception of Buddha-nature," and "direct
family of Higo Province, then by the Shimazu ety. When it could afford to restore or rebuild experience of reality" all influenced painting,
of Satsuma. In Satsuma, in addition to teaching damaged palace buildings, the court commis- calligraphy, No drama, Tea, and the martial arts.
Zen, he published a commentary on the Confu- sioned screens and hanging scrolls from early Culture was also vigorous at the popular
cian classic The Great Learning and established masters of both the Tosa school of Japanese style level. Mendicant monks and balladiers traveled
a tradition of Neo-Confucian studies. painting and the Kano school, which was greatly the country, teaching the lessons of Buddhism
In his Journal Columbus spoke frequently of influenced by Chinese painting styles of South- from paintings depicting the life of the Buddha
converting the island people he encountered to ern Song (1127-1279). or the various realms of paradise and hell. Blind
Christianity. Had he visited Japan he would Several of the Ashikaga shoguns were cul- lute players wandered from town to village,
quickly have inquired about its religious life and tural pace-setters, connoisseurs and collectors of bringing to imaginative life the clash of arms
weighed the prospects for Christian conver- Chinese and Japanese art. Yoshimitsu set his that ended the twelfth century with their tales
sions. Like the later Portuguese and Spaniards, stamp on the style of the late fourteenth cen- of the rise and fall of the Heike clan or the
spearheaded by the Jesuit missionary Francisco tury. In the creation of what came to be known exploits of the young tragic hero Yoshitsune.
Xavier, who arrived in Kagoshima in 1549, he as the "culture of the Northern Hills" (Kita- Wandering poets like lio Sogi (1421-1502)
might have found some Japanese daimyo, per- yama bunka), after his Golden Pavilion in the attended village gatherings for the composition
haps even some lower-ranking samurai and northern hills of Kyoto, Yoshimitsu brought of linked verse (renga). Troupes of Sarugaku
their wives, who were genuinely curious about together emperors, courtiers, warriors, Zen and No performers entertained crowds in
the teachings of Christianity. He would no monks, actors of the emerging No drama, and shrines and temple compounds across the
doubt have found more who were prepared to the arbiters of shogunal taste known as dobo- country.
tolerate and even promote Christianity if that shu. The eighth shogun, Yoshimasa, played a No theater matured in the fifteenth century:
brought the "Southern Barbarians'" black ships, similar, though less resplendent, role in the the creative genius of Zeami (c. 1364-^ 1443),

312 CIRCA 1492