Page 316 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

ART IN JAPAN 1450-1550

Sherman E. Lee

TRADITIONAL PAINTING

Certainly the most traditional paintings circa In more sophisticated centers theological were widely copied in Japan —and those copies
1492 were Buddhist icons associated with sects reconciliation of Buddhism and Shinto followed copied in turn —by professional painters at-
other than Zen. Zen, born of close contacts with social and political accommodations between tached to the temples. Two hanging scrolls (cat.
Chinese emigres and then with China itself, major temples and shrines. In the eighth cen- 212) painted by Tosa Mitsunobu in 1489 are
also adopted from China the ink monochrome tury, when the court was at Nara, the powerful copies of extant paintings by a fourteenth-cen-
painting style —the "New Manner/' But the Fujiwara clan established there one Buddhist tury forebear, Tosa Yukimitsu, .who in turn
older sects possessed a repertory of thousands and one Shinto tutelary sanctum, Kofuku-ji and copied, or was much influenced by, Song
of icons whose efficacy was proven and whose the Kasuga Shrine, which cooperated closely on Chinese originals. At least six Chinese sets of
forms were therefore repeated over almost a matters religious and political. Fukukenjaku the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are still
thousand years. Some of these were modified Kannon, a form of the Bodhisattva of Compas- extant in Japan —at Eigen-ji, Zendo-ji, Honen-
very slowly over time, others were changed sion particularly efficacious for the spiritually ji, Nison-in, Jodo-ji, and K6to-in. The Chinese
more abruptly —whether little or much —in lost, was venerated as early as the eighth cen- Emma-O at Nison-in in Kyoto is the closest to
answer to shifts in the climate of faith. The tury. At Kofuku-ji, from the thirteenth century, the Japanese version displayed here.
most remarkable example of the latter is the this Buddhist deity was identified with the Mitsunobu's representation is totally
Amida Raigo, a particularly compassionate sacred deer of the Kasuga Shrine; either image Chinese, a recreation of Chinese magisterial
vision of deity in which Amida Buddha descends might serve to evoke the other, or the two trials with one of the Ten Kings of Hell as
amid a heavenly host to escort the soul of a images might be depicted together. The syn- magistrate and demons as officers of the court.
dying devotee to Amida's Western Paradise. cretic Kannon-deer image continued into the The landscape screen behind Emma-O, the
These paintings, in which the deity approaches fifteenth century, when it was at least once table, and the view of balustrade and garden
the viewer directly (raigo), became popular with depicted in an eclectic and visually realistic way. beyond combine to evoke the typical Chinese
the rise of Pure Land Buddhism (Amidism, or The Kannon, three-eyed and six-armed, was scholar-officials' environment. Bright colors
Jodo) in the Late Heian period (897-1185). rendered with extreme conservatism, but the and firm brushwork, with "nail-head" strokes
The Amida from Shonen-ji (cat. 211) is vir- deer of Kasuga shrine who bears the enthroned in the demons and "iron-wire" lines depicting
tually identical to an image dated to 1329 at Dan deity was shown sitting on its haunches, in officials and deities, characterize the profes-
O H6rin-ji, Kyoto, and thus exemplifies the three-quarter view. The immediate effect is that sional style of Buddhist icon painters. Above the
practice of repeating efficacious images. It dif- of a pictorial rendering of a sculptural image, infernal courtroom is a traditional representa-
fers notably in the decorative patterning of the seen slightly askew. Previously, figural icons tion of the deity who most particularly provides
clouds covering the lower part of Amida's body had always been shown full front, while in solace, rescue, and salvation for the sufferers in
in the Shonen-ji painting, and in the forcing of Kasuga mandala images the deer were shown in Hell: the seated Jizo within his flaming man-
the snow at the bottom to the outer edges of the strict profile. This image combines frontality dorla. In itself, it is a good late rendition of the
overlapping hills. This is a "folk art" note, also with a three-quarter view. How much of this fine-line, color-rich method of icon painting
found, for example, in the famous Sun and combination —almost bizarre by traditional adopted from Southern Song China. Particular
Moon screens at Kongo-ji in Osaka Prefecture. image-making standards —was inadvertent and styles had become mandatory for particular
By combining Buddhism (Amida) and Shinto how much a deliberate attempt at change and subjects.
(the sacred Nachi mountain and waterfall), the realism is undeterminable. The tension between The painter, however, was a master of the
Shonen-ji Manifestation of Amida Buddha at the two parts of the icon reflects the inherent Tosa school, adept at the old courtly Japanese
Nachi exemplified the syncretic system called stress in these syncretic images. style (cat. 215, 216). His proficiency at both
honji-suijaku (Original Ground-Manifest The inherently traditional reproducing of these traditional professional modes is charac-
Trace), a reconciliation of imported faith with efficacious icons is nowhere clearer than in the teristic of the period's growing eclecticism, a
native cults whereby each Buddhist deity was paintings graphically depicting the punishment mind-set increasingly common from this
paired with a local Shinto counterpart. Honji- of evil. Depictions of judgment, condemnation, time on.
suijaku belief became popular after the eleventh and punishment may have originated in The Ten Realms of Reincarnation (Jikkai Zu,
century, particularly in rural and mountain Chinese Daoist lore but were soon adopted by cat. 213), a pair of six-fold screens, is a striking
areas. In Amida at Nachi the worshipers at the the Buddhists. In Southern Song China, that and complex example of those combinations of
lower left include a Buddhist monk, but all are great source of Japanese pictorial styles as well manners. In itself, the folding screen was fun-
making Shinto offerings or devotions, while on as Buddhist iconography, representations of the damentally a decorative format. A few screens
the right a mountain priest of the ascetic Ten Kings of Hell became common. They were were used in religious ceremonies —the
Shugendo sect adores the manifestation. Thus exported from the southern port of Ningbo to twelfth-century "ordination" screen at T6-ji in
the Buddha has been joined with one of the Japan in considerable numbers, and many of the Kyoto is the most famous —but these were not
three most sacred shrines of the Kii Peninsula. sets still are extant in temple collections. These necessarily religious or even apropos in subject

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