Page 318 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

flower-and-bird painting exemplified by works the movement of the scroll from right to left; satirizing poetry competitions. The passion for
of the Piling school of Zhejiang Province and of textile patterns are carefully depicted, and the poetry and poetry competitions or perfor-
Chinese court masters such as Yin Hong (cat. starched, decorative quality of court garments is mances may have been learned by the Japanese
292). The native and imported styles are carefully shown. The old narrative realism early on from China, but the pupils surpassed
employed for separate subjects on these screens, reserved for depictions of warriors and com- their mentors in enthusiasm and ingenuity.
except in the description of the rocks, where a moners in untidy environments is exploited to One of the principal subjects of early courtly
not altogether successful attempt was made to good effect. A single detail presents a muddy painting was the serial depiction in handscroll
blend the two: sharp, calligraphic brush strokes well, a bamboo fence decorated with morning format of the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets (San-
in the Kano manner, repeated rhythmically glories, and nearby a scratching dog. The "new jurokkasen) — aristocrats all — accompanied by
inward from the edges of the rock in a more manner" is found only on the folding and slid- stylishly written transcriptions of their poetry.
yamato-e fashion. This pair of screens appears ing screens we see furnishing the interiors. By late Kamakura a scroll had been painted
to derive from a time when the confluence of There monochrome ink depictions of the new recording a poetry competition, held in 1217,
the Tosa and Kano schools was socially affirmed subjects —cranes landing on a reedy shore, a whose participants were not courtiers or aristo-
by Kano Motonobu's marriage to a daughter of bamboo grove, gibbons, rocks and grasses — cratic prelates but artisans (shokunin). The
Tosa Mitsunobu. indicate that the household is a fashionable one. laughter among courtly viewers of the scroll
The name of this latter painter is closely asso- In this handscroll Tosa, Kano, and narrative- must have been matched by the satisfaction of
ciated with the narrative handscroll (emaki) realist modes coexist in eclectic harmony. the shokunin; the painter, quite obviously, was
Seiko-ji Engi (History of Seiko Temple), almost The subject of the scroll —the miracles of amused by both.
certainly painted by Mitsunobu for the courtier Jizo —directs us to major changes occurring in Such leavening of the high art tradition from
Sanjonishi Sanetaka in 1487 (cat. 216). Miracles the style of Muromachi emaki executed outside below can be seen in the Artisans' Poetry Com-
worked by the bodhisattva Jizo on behalf of his the courtly perimeters of the Tosa school. Jizo petition. The term "artisans" is rather widely
devotees are the subject of the scroll, which was above all a compassionate divinity, acces- construed to mean "nonaristocrat"; here we are
celebrates the founding and subsequent history sible to the poor, to the underclass, even to sin- shown a blind biwa player (a public entertainer)
of Seiko-ji. Mitsunobu was an accomplished ners in hell (see cat. 212). Jizo's increasing walking and a seated priestly bow maker. The
artist, adept in various idioms of his day: the popularity from the Kamakura period on sig- rendering of this scene anticipates the brusque
court style of the Tosa school, the realism found naled also a recognition on the part of the no-nonsense depiction of village and rural life
in earlier narrative handscrolls of battle and priesthood of growing social mobility not only that became the staple achievement of later
genre subjects, and the "new manner" of ink in the warrior and merchant classes but also Japanese genre painting in the Momoyama
painting practiced by his new son-in-law Moto- among farmers and artisans, including profes- (1573-1615) and Edo (1615-1868) periods.
nobu, founder of the Kano school. The Seiko-ji sional artists and performers. The "three Ami" By the late fifteenth century even the clergy
Engi displays this threefold mastery, with (Noami, Geiami, Soami), cultural advisers to were using commoners' vernacular in their pas-
emphasis on the first two idioms. Courtiers and the shogun Yoshimasa (1436-1490) and his suc- toral letters. Rennyo (1414-1499), monk of the
palace scenes are done in the decorative, formal, cessors (cat. 224, 234), had risen from lowly Amidist (Pure Land, or Jodo) school founded by
and unrealistic way associated with "woman's origins; the great No dramatist Zeami and his Honen (1133-1212), pushed the populist ten-
painting" (onna-e): roofs are absent, to allow father Kan'ami, who enjoyed the patronage of dencies of that school to the extremes necessary
interior scenes to be seen from above; isometric the shogun Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), had begun for successful proselytization in a changing
perspective renditions of architectural elements, as strolling players. social world. He wrote of his pastoral letters,
tatami, and screens serve to mark and measure The change can be seen in certain scrolls "You should regard [a pastoral letter] as the

fig. 2. Artisans' Poetry Competition. 14th century. Japanese. Fragment of a handscroll; ink and color on paper. Suntory Museum, Tokyo

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