Japan

A

Historical Development

Cultural imports began to arrive in Japan from continental East Asia around 300 bc, starting with agriculture and the use of metals. These new technologies eventually helped build a more complex Japanese society, whose most remarkable and enduring structures were huge, key-shaped tombs. Named for these tombs, the Kofun period endured from the early 4th to the 6th century ad.

In the middle of the 6th century, Japan embarked on a second phase of extensive cultural borrowing from the Asian continent—largely from China. Among the major imports from China were Buddhism and Confucianism. Buddhism was particularly important, not only as a religion but also as a source of art, especially in the form of temples and statues. Although Buddhism eventually became a major religion of Japan, some evidence indicates that the Japanese initially were drawn more to its architecture and art than to its religious doctrines.

In Japan’s first state, the arts were almost exclusively the preserve of the ruling elite, a class of courtiers who served as ministers to the emperor. For most of the 8th century the court was located at Nara, the first capital of Japan, which gave its name to the Nara period (710-794). At the end of the 8th century the capital moved to Heian-kyō (modern Kyōto), and Japan entered its classical age, known as the Heian period (794-1185). By the beginning of the 11th century, the emperor’s courtiers had developed a brilliant culture and lifestyle that owed much to China but was still uniquely Japanese. Poetry flourished especially, but important developments also took place in prose literature, architecture (especially residential architecture), music, and painting (both Buddhist and secular).

As the Heian court reached its height of cultural brilliance, however, a class of warriors (samurai) emerged in the provinces. In the late 12th century the first warrior government (known as a shogunate) was established at Kamakura. Japan entered a feudal era of frequent wars and samurai dominance that would last for nearly four centuries, first under the Kamakura and then under the Ashikaga shoguns.

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The culture of the Kamakura period (1185-1333) is noteworthy particularly for its poetry, prose, and painting. Although the Kyōto courtiers lost their political power to the samurai, they continued to produce outstanding poetry. Warrior society contributed to the national culture as well. Anonymous war tales were among the major achievements in prose. Painters produced narrative picture scrolls depicting military and religious subjects such as battles, the lives of Buddhist priests, and histories of Buddhist temples and of shrines of Japan’s native religion, Shinto.

The Kamakura shogunate ended with a brief attempt to restore imperial rule. Then in 1338 the Ashikaga shoguns established their seat near the emperor’s court in the Muromachi district of Kyōto. During the reign of the Ashikaga (known as the Muromachi period), which lasted until 1573, Japan again sent missions to China. This time they brought back the latest teachings of Zen Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism, as well as countless objects of art and craft. Zen Buddhism, which had been introduced to Japan during the Kamakura period, contributed to the development of Muromachi-period artistic forms. Chinese monochrome ink painting became the principal painting style. Dramatists created classical nō theater, performed for the upper classes of society. And beginning in the 15th century, the tea ceremony, a gathering of people to drink tea according to prescribed etiquette, evolved. The poetic form of renga, or linked verse, also developed at this time. The linked verse style, in which several poets take turns composing alternate verses of a single long poem, became popular among all classes of society.

In 1603 a third warrior government, the Tokugawa shogunate, established itself in Edo (present-day Tokyo), and Japan entered a long period of peace that historians consider the beginning of the country’s modern age. During this era, known as the Tokugawa period (1603-1867), Japan adopted a policy of national seclusion, closing its borders to almost all foreigners. Domestic commerce thrived, and cities grew larger than they had ever been. In great cities such as Edo, Ōsaka, and Kyōto, performers and courtesans mingled with rich merchants and idle samurai in the restaurants, wrestling booths, and brothels of the areas known as the pleasure quarters. These so-called chōnin, or townsmen, the urban class dominated by merchants, produced a new, bourgeois culture that included 17-syllable haiku poetry, prose literature of the pleasure quarters, the puppet and kabuki theaters, and the art of the wood-block print.

Japan’s seclusion policy ended when Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States sailed into Edo Bay in 1853 and established a treaty with Japan the following year. The Tokugawa shogunate was overthrown in the Meiji Restoration of 1868, and Japan entered the modern world. During the early years of the new order, known as the Meiji period (1868-1912), Western culture largely overwhelmed Japan’s native heritage. Ignoring many of their traditional arts, the Japanese set about adopting Western artistic styles, literary forms, and music. By the end of the Meiji period, however, the Japanese not only had resuscitated many traditional art forms but also were making impressive advances in modern styles of architecture, painting, and the novel.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, Japan has moved steadily into the stream of international culture. Japan’s influence on that culture has been especially pronounced since the end of World War II (1939-1945). Japanese movies, for example, have received international recognition and acclaim, and Japanese novels have been translated into English and other languages. Meanwhile, traditional Japanese culture has flowed around the world, influencing styles in design, architecture, and various crafts, such as ceramics and textiles.

B

Literature

Throughout most of their history, the Japanese people have written poetry and prose in both Chinese and Japanese. This section deals mainly with literature written in the Japanese language.

Japan’s earliest literary writings are simple poems found in the country’s oldest existing books, the Koji-ki (Records of Ancient Matters, 712) and the Nihon shoki (Chronicles of Japan, 720) of the early Nara period. The mid-Nara period witnessed the compilation of Manyōshū (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves), an anthology of some 4,500 poems written in the 7th and 8th centuries. Courtiers wrote most of the poems in Manyōshū, the great majority of them in the 5-line, 31-syllable waka (or tanka) form. Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, the best known of the poets, also wrote in a longer form that makes up a small percentage of the poems in the anthology. Some of the poems are celebrations of public events, such as coronations and imperial hunts, but even at this early time Japanese poetry was primarily personal. Its two main subjects were the beauties of nature, especially as found in the changing seasons, and heterosexual romantic love.

During the Heian period, court poets, using the waka form exclusively, reduced the range of poetic topics. Proper subjects had to meet the poets’ ideal of courtliness (miyabi) and demonstrate a sensitivity to the fragile beauties of nature and the emotions of others, an aesthetic known as mono no aware. The Kokinshū (Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems, begun in 905) set the standard for all future court poetry. Meanwhile, the invention of the kana syllabary (in which each symbol represents a syllable) enabled the Japanese to write freely in their own language for the first time. (Previously, most writing was in Chinese.) The invention of kana also stimulated the development of a prose literature. Court women took the lead in writing prose, using forms such as the fictional diary and the miscellany, a collection of jottings, anecdotes, lists, and the like. The two greatest Heian prose writings were the work of court women: Makura no sōshi (Pillow Book), a miscellany by Sei Shōnagon;, and Genji monogatari (Tale of Genji, 1010?) by Murasaki Shikibu, a lengthy novel evoking court life during the mid-Heian period.

The early Kamakura period saw the production of two great works of literature: Shin kokinshū (New Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems, 1205?) and Hōjōki (An Account of My Hut, 1212). Shin kokinshū, which ranks with Kokinshū as the finest of the court poetry anthologies, stresses achieving “depth” in verse through the application of aesthetic values such as yūgen (mystery and depth). Hōjōki describes the attempts of its author, former courtier and priest Kamo no Chōmei, to divest himself of all but the most minimal material possessions to prepare himself, upon death, to enter the Pure Land paradise of the Amida Buddha (see Pure Land Buddhism).

The Heike monogatari (Tale of the Heike, begun 1220?) recounts the story of the war between the Taira clan (also known as the Heike) and the Minamoto clan during the late 12th century. It ranks second only to the Tale of Genji among the great Japanese prose writings of premodern times. The tale evokes the lives of both the warrior and the courtier elites during the transition from the ancient courtly age to the feudal age. The product of more than a century and a half of textual development, Heike monogatari was not completed until the late 14th century.

One of the most important literary developments of the middle and late Muromachi period was linked verse poetry (renga). As the creative potential of the classical waka declined, linked verse gained great popularity. Renga masters, such as Sōgi in the late 15th century, became famous not only for their poetry but also as traveling teachers who spread the linked verse method throughout the country.

In the Tokugawa period, townsmen living in the great cities produced most of Japan’s major literature. Haiku, consisting of just the first seventeen syllables of the waka, became a means for expressing emotional insights, or enlightenments, especially when composed by a master such as Bashō. Even today, haiku enjoys enormous popularity in Japan, and over the years countless non-Japanese have tried their hands at composing haiku. The last years of the 17th century and the first years of the 18th century saw an epoch of cultural flourishing known as the Genroku period. Much of Genroku culture focused on the pleasure quarters of the great cities. Prose writer Saikaku gained fame for his stories about the affairs of the pleasure quarters, especially about courtesans and prostitutes and the merchants and samurai they entertained.

Although the modern age has seen important developments in poetry, the novel is the literary medium that has enjoyed the most artistic success. Since Futabatei Shimei published Ukigumo (The Drifting Cloud, 1887-1889), considered Japan’s first modern novel, Japanese writers have steadily gained international prominence. Inspired both by their native literary traditions and by writings in European languages, including English, French, German, and Russian, Japanese writers have created a corpus of fine novels. One of Japan’s most acclaimed novelists is Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, author of Sasameyuki (1943-1948; translated in English as The Makioka Sisters, 1957), a re-creation of the life of an Ōsaka family in the years just before World War II. Another is Kawabata Yasunari, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. In his novels, Kawabata draws heavily on traditional Japanese literary styles, and his own style has been characterized as haiku-like. Prominent late 20th-century writers include Ōe Kenzaburō, the second Japanese recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature, and Abe Kōbō. See also Japanese Literature.

C

Art and Architecture

Japan’s oldest indigenous art is handmade clay pottery, called Jōmon, or cord pattern, pottery. Produced beginning about 10,000 bc, it marked the beginning of a rich ceramic-making tradition that has continued to the present day. During the Kofun period, sculptors fashioned terra cotta figurines called haniwa that depicted a variety of people (including armor-clad warriors and shamans), animals, buildings, and boats. The figurines were placed on the tombs of Japan’s rulers.

When Buddhism arrived in Japan, its architecture and art profoundly influenced native styles. Hōryūji temple, built near Nara in the early 7th century, has the world’s oldest wooden buildings, as well as an impressive collection of Buddhist paintings and statues. During the Nara period, many new temples were erected in and around the city. The most famous temple is Tōdaiji, where an approximately 16-m (53-ft) Daibutsu (Great Buddha) statue is housed in the world’s largest wooden building. Possibly inspired by the temples of Buddhism, a distinct style of Shinto architecture began to develop. Drawing on native traditions such as raised floors and thatched roofs with deep eaves, Shinto produced artistically fine structures such as the Ise Shrine and the Izumo Shrine.

After the emperor’s court moved to Heian-kyō in 794, the construction of Buddhist temples continued. Many were now built in remote areas, where they were designed to blend harmoniously with their natural settings. The esoteric Shingon sect of Buddhism arrived from China creating a demand among Heian courtiers for the visual and plastic arts of Shingon. These included mandalas (diagrams of the spiritual universe used for meditation) and paintings and statues of fantastic beings, sometimes fierce with extra limbs or heads. Beautifully appointed residences (called shinden residences) also began to appear at this time. These rambling structures opened onto raked-sand gardens, which featured ponds fed by streams that often flowed under the residences’ raised floors. Although no examples of shinden residences exist today, narrative picture scrolls from the late Heian period depict these residences of the courtier elite. These scrolls, known as emakimono, represent one of the first forms of indigenous, secular painting in Japan. One of the most impressive examples of emakimono is an illustrated version of the 11th century prose epic, the Tale of Genji.

During the early Kamakura period, Nara-era traditions of realistic sculpture inspired a sculptural revival that produced dynamic, individualized figures. But probably the finest products of Kamakura art were narrative picture scrolls. Indeed, with the notable exception of the earlier Tale of Genji scroll, most of the finest surviving emakimono date from the Kamakura period. These include the Ippen scroll, which depicts the journeys of Ippen, an evangelist of Pure Land Buddhism. The scroll portrays landscape scenes, towns, Buddhist temples, and Shinto shrines throughout Japan.

Architecturally, the Muromachi period is best remembered for the construction of Zen temples. Notable examples are the so-called “Five Mountains” temples of Kyōto, which were situated mainly around the outskirts of the city to take advantage of the mountain scenery that borders Kyōto on three sides. These temples became the settings for most of the best dry landscape gardens (waterless gardens of sand, stone, and shrubs) constructed in Muromachi times. Two of Japan’s most famous buildings, the Golden and Silver pavilions, are on Zen temple grounds. The creation of the tea ceremony accompanied the development in the 15th century of the shoin style of room construction, featuring rush matting (tatami) for floors, sliding doors, and built-in alcoves and asymmetrical shelves. In painting, the Muromachi period is best known for a monochrome ink style that originated in China during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). The landscape paintings of masters such as Shūbun and Sesshū exemplify the adaptation of the style in Japan.

Many schools of painting flourished during the Tokugawa period, including one that used Western techniques such as shading and foreshortening to produce the illusion of space and depth. The most popular by far, however, was genre art, or art depicting people at work and play. From mid-Tokugawa times, the most popular medium for genre art was the wood-block print. Artists often used the wood-block print technique to create ukiyo-e, or “pictures of the floating world” (referring to the pleasure quarters of Japan’s great cities). Among the favorite subjects of ukiyo-e artists were courtesans and kabuki actors. The artist Utamaro is particularly known for his tall, willowy courtesans, while Sharaku famously captured the spirit and emotions of kabuki actors. In the late Tokugawa period, genre art was dominated by two artists, Hokusai and Hiroshige. Hokusai became famous throughout the world for The Wave (1831), a view of Mount Fuji through a huge, curling wave. Hiroshige created the print series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (1833), which is considered a masterpiece and is well known outside Japan.

One of the greatest architectural works of the Tokugawa period was the Katsura Detached Palace, built in the 17th century. Its clean, geometric lines had a powerful influence on post-World War II residential architecture in many foreign countries. By contrast, the mausoleum of the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu at Nikkō, built during the same period, is extraordinary for its elaborate decoration.

Among Japan’s best-known modern architects are Tange Kenzō, Ando Tadao, and Isozaki Arata. All have won international fame. Tange’s buildings include the Hall Dedicated to Peace at Hiroshima and the main Sports Arena for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Ando, who is largely self-taught and a prolific theorist, is best known in the United States for his Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Isozaki, who studied under Tange, designed the Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art and museums in Nice, France, and Cairo, Egypt. See Japanese Art and Architecture.

D

Music and Dance

The earliest reported form of music and dance in Japan was gigaku, imported from China by a Korean performer sometime in the early 6th century. In gigaku, masked dancers performed dramas to the accompaniment of flute, drum, and gong ensembles.

The ancient music and dance of Shinto is called kagura. In kagura, performers danced for the pleasure of the gods and expressed prayers asking for prolonged or revitalized life. Drums, flutes, and sometimes cymbals provided music, and as in gigaku, the dancers often wore masks.

The ritual music of the emperor’s court, gagaku, accompanied dancing called bugaku. In addition to the instruments already mentioned, gagaku employed a type of double-reed pipe or oboe (hichiriki) and a mouth organ (shō). Of all the musical sounds of Japan, the exotic tones of these two instruments are probably the most unusual to Western ears.

Sometime in the late 16th century, Japanese musicians began playing a three-stringed, banjolike instrument called the samisen, which had originated in the Ryukyu Islands. Both the kabuki and puppet theaters adopted the instrument as an accompaniment, and it was also played frequently by geisha, a class of professional female entertainers that emerged in Tokugawa times. No sound is more symbolic of the Tokugawa “floating world” than the notes of the samisen. Even today it commonly accompanies classical dance recitals.

In the modern era the Japanese wholeheartedly embraced Western classical music. Japan has produced some of the world’s leading classical performers, conductors, and composers. Well-known Japanese musicians of the 20th century include Ozawa Seiji, an internationally renowned conductor, and Tōru Takemitsu, who gained fame for composing modern music using traditional Japanese instruments. Modern Japanese dance draws on both traditional and Western styles, and includes the avant-garde butō dance form. See also Japanese Music.

E

Theater and Film

Theater developed in close conjunction with music and dance in premodern Japan. Thus gigaku, bugaku, and kagura were early forms of theater. Later, various other elements were added to Japan’s theatrical repertoire, including juggling, acrobatics, and magic. By the Kamakura period, two major forms of theater incorporating all of these elements had evolved: sarugaku and dengaku. In the late 14th century the classical drama form of nō (meaning “ability”) was created out of the dramatic elements of sarugaku and dengaku. Historians attribute this transformation largely to the efforts of two dramatists, Kan’ami and his son Zeami. Kan’ami and Zeami changed the straightforward, plot-oriented style of earlier dramatic forms into a style of performance emphasizing symbolic meanings and graceful movements.

A nō play has been described as a dramatic poem that is based on remote or supernatural events and centers on a dance by the main actor. The movements and dance in nō are highly stylized, even ritualistic. Actors frequently use masks and wear resplendent robes, presenting a sumptuous visual display to audiences. Nō plots are usually very simple. There is little of the conflict between characters that is a cornerstone of Western theater. Rather, the emotional or psychological problems of the main character provide the theme of most nō plays. For example, in a typical play, a person from the past returns as a ghost, and a Buddhist priest assists him or her in overcoming worldly passions and achieving salvation in Amida Buddha’s Pure Land paradise. The main character might be a warrior still fighting ancient battles or a court lady from the Heian period still agonizing over a lost love. A small orchestra of flutes and drums accompanies the actors, and a chorus narrates the story and shares dialogue with the actors.

Kyōgen (“mad words”) are humorous, fast-paced prose plays that developed along with nō. The earliest kyōgen served as interludes in nō plays to provide background information about the characters and their settings. But actors also performed kyōgen as unrelated comical or farcical skits. In contrast to nō, which is usually serious and gloomy, kyōgen skits provided medieval audiences with at least a measure of broad, slapstick humor. In a common kyōgen plot, clever servants outwit their warrior masters.

The townsman culture of the Tokugawa period produced two new forms of theater, kabuki and puppet theater, in the 16th and 17th centuries. Kabuki means “off balance” and was used to describe novel or eccentric behavior. Although it drew upon the traditions of nō and kyōgen, kabuki evolved primarily out of dances and skits performed by troupes of female actors. Women performers were later banned from kabuki for engaging in prostitution, and kabuki became all male. This led to the creation of the onnagata, a man who plays women’s parts. Kabuki plays are composed of numerous episodes and feature spectacular fights and dances, quick costume changes, heroic sacrifices, and star-crossed lovers. The text of the plays is less important than the acting, and kabuki actors embellish or alter scenarios as they see fit. To reveal emotions, they display exaggerated facial expressions and strike dramatic poses.

Japanese performers have used puppets to entertain audiences at least since the Heian period. However, puppet theater developed its characteristic form in the 16th century. In this form, puppet theater brings together puppets that enact stories, chanters who narrate the stories, and the playing of the samisen as accompaniment to the performance. Puppet theater reached its high point in the plays of Chikamatsu Monzaemon, whose best-known works focus on the conflict between duty and human feelings. One plot, for example, follows a love affair between a merchant, already committed by his family to another woman, and a prostitute. Often the lovers in such plays commit double suicide. See also Japanese Drama; Asian Theater.

Japan has a vital modern theater, which often combines elements of traditional Japanese dramatic forms with Western themes and theatrical devices. Yet contemporary Japanese drama has probably achieved its greatest success in film. Japan produced its first movies in the 1890s, and in the 20th century the Japanese film industry evolved into one of the most prolific and respected in the world. Japanese film reached its golden age in the period immediately before and after World War II. Among the masterpieces of that time are the films of director Akira Kurosawa, whose most famous films include Rashomon (1950) and The Seven Samurai (1954). The quintessential Kurosawa actor was Mifune Toshirō, who made 16 films with the director. Toshirō also performed in several American movies.

Whereas Kurosawa is probably best known for his samurai stories, including some based on Shakespeare such as Ran (1985; the story of King Lear, set in 16th-century Japan), other Japanese directors have gained fame for the aesthetic qualities of their work. One of the finest such directors was Mizoguchi Kenji, whose beautiful film Ugetsu monogatari (1953; Ugetsu, 1954), the story of an enchanted romance in medieval Japan, earned wide acclaim and was one of the first films to draw international attention to the quality of the Japanese film industry.

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