4.3 Muromachi Period: Culture and Religion

Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), the third Ashikaga shogun, built his mansion in the fashionable Muromachi area of Kyoto. He grew up with close ties to the court and nobles and took on many of their sentiments about art and culture. He backed the Gozan establishment. He fostered the arts, especially Noh. He retired from public offices and took tonsure, moving into his Kitayama-dono retirement villa, which had a pavilion covered in gold leaf. After his death, his retirement villa became Rokuon-ji, and the entire temple today is known as Kinkaku-ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion).

The Golden Age of Japanese Art and Muromachi Culture: 1378-1490

Muromachi Culture can be divided into two periods, Kitayama bunka or Kitayama Culture and Higashiyama bunka or Higashiyama Culture, named after areas of Kyoto.

Kitayama bunka

Kitayama Culture (Kitayama bunka, “north mountain culture”) started during the rule of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. It is named for the Kitayama region where Yoshimitsu built Kinkaku-ji (the Temple of the Golden Pavilion). Yoshimitsu encouraged the development of noh or nō drama, renga or linked verse poetry, and painting. He sponsored Nouami (1397-1471) head of the Ami family, who became his advisor and the curator of his art collection, art critic, and complier of a catalog of Chinese paintings. The Ami family profoundly influenced Japanese art and culture. The Ami family also painted in the style of the Chinese Southern Song painters. During Kitayama Bunka contacts with China were increased and Zen Buddhism gained influence and strongly affected aesthetic sensibility. Kitayama Bunka is considered to end in 1441, after the death of Ashikaga Yoshinori, the sixth Ashikaga shogun.

Noh are dramatic performances with dance, music, and poetry. The plays combine chanting, mime, and slow dance poses with music and elaborate costumes and masks. The subject of the plays comes from history, legend, and magic and is highly influenced by Buddhism. During the Kitayama bunka, Noh was popularized by Seami Motokiyo (1363- 1443) and his father Kan’ami (1333-1384). Currently, most of the plays that are performed were written by him.

Higashiyama Bunka

Higashiyama Culture or Higashiyama bunka originated and was promoted by Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa.  Yoshimasa built the hana-no-gosho or Flower Palace, considered one of the great architecture creations of the times. Yoshimasa chose to devote his life to aesthetics. He retreated to his retirement villa which later became known as Ginkaku-ji (the Temple of the Silver Pavilion). There he assembled a great number of the leading artists.

Higashiyama Bunka artists’ artistic ideal and aesthetics were heavily influence by Zen Buddhism with the concept of wabi-sabi (beauty in simplicity). They furthered the development of chadō (Japanese tea ceremony), ikebana (flower arranging), Noh, and sumi-e (ink wash painting). Much of what is commonly thought of as Japanese culture originated or developed during this period.

Painting

Ink painting came into use thanks to Josetsu (“as if unskillful”). Josetsu (1405–1496) was one of the first suiboku (ink wash style) Zen painters. At Taizō-in, a sub-temple of Myōshin-ji, is one of his most famous works entitled Catching a Catfish with a Gourd (c. 1413). It shows a comical-looking man fishing against a background of a winding river and a bamboo grove. It is thought to have been inspired by a riddle, “How do you catch a catfish with a gourd?” It can be viewed as a piece of Zen humor, or as a kōan in visual form.

Many great painters came from this period such as Tenshō Shūbun (active 1414 –1465); Sesshū Tōyō (1420-1506); and Kanō Masanobu (1434 –1530) who is generally considered the founder of the Kanō school of painting.

The Kanō school (Kanō-ha) became one of the most famous schools of Japanese painting dominating from the late 15th century until the Meiji period which began in 1868. The most famous of the Kanō family was Eitoku (1543–1590). Some examples of Kanō school castle decoration are found at Nijō Castle.

The other famous art school was the Tosa School. It was devoted to yamato-e, paintings specializing in subject matter and techniques derived from ancient Japanese art, as opposed to schools influenced by Chinese art.

Rock Gardens

Rock gardens, for which Japan is so famous, developed in the Muromachi era, under Zen influence. Rocks and white sand were used to create abstract representations of nature. Famous rock gardens are at Ryōan-ji and Tōfuku-ji Temple.

Literature and Poetry

Literature in the time was heavily influenced by Buddhist themes.

Yoshida Kenkō (1284-1350) was a Buddhist monk living as a hermit who wrote Essays in Idleness. The Taiheiki (Records of Great Pacification, Chronicle of Great Peace) was written in the late 14^th century and recounts the wars between the northern and southern courts with a Zen moral theme.

In poetry, renga (collaborative poetry) or linked verse came into full flower. It was popularized by the Buddhist priest Sōgi (1421–1502), who was a Zen monk from the Shōkoku-ji. In his renga, two or more poets collaborate to create a poem by writing alternate stanzas.

Religion

The most important development in religion during this period was the expansion of the Gozan (Five Mountains) system, which was creating a hierarchy of temples. As the system developed Nanzen-ji (which was known as First Temple of The Land) was designated as the top in a supervisory role over all others. Kyoto’s Five Mountains generally included Tenryū-ji; Shōkoku-ji; Kennin-ji; Tōfuku-ji; and Manju-ji, which changed occasionally. Beneath these top tier monasteries was a nation-wide system of smaller temples. The system promoted Zen, especially Rinzai. The Gozan system acted as government ministries promulgating laws, passing down norms, and reporting on local conditions. The monks and priests worked as translators, diplomats, and advisers.

In Shinto, Yoshida Kanetomo (1435-1511) founded Genpon-Sōgen Shinto (“Shinto of the Original Founder”) or Yuiitsu Shintō (“Only one Shintō”), which sought to separate Shinto from Buddhism. He is considered to have helped save Shinto from complete submersion in Buddhism.

Japan at this time was much divided, for further historical developments in its unification, see Rise of the Unifiers.