Japanese Art and Architecture

I

Introduction

Japanese Art and Architecture, works of art produced in Japan from the beginnings of human habitation there, sometime in the 10th millennium bc, to the present.

Historically, Japan has been subject to sudden invasions of new and alien ideas followed by long periods of minimal contact with the outside world. Over time the Japanese developed the ability to absorb, imitate, and finally assimilate those elements of foreign culture that complemented their aesthetic preferences. The earliest complex art in Japan was produced in the 7th and 8th centuries ad in connection with Buddhism. In the 9th century, as the Japanese began to turn away from China and develop indigenous forms of expression, the secular arts became increasingly important; until the late 15th century, both religious and secular arts flourished. After the Ōnin War (1467-1477) Japan entered a period of political, social, and economic disruption that lasted for nearly a century. In the state that emerged under the leadership of the Tokugawa clan, organized religion played a much less important role in people's lives, and the arts that survived were primarily secular.

Painting is the preferred artistic expression in Japan, practiced by amateur and professional alike. Until modern times, the Japanese wrote with a brush rather than a pen, and their familiarity with brush techniques has made them particularly sensitive to painterly values. They found sculpture a much less sympathetic medium for artistic expression; most Japanese sculpture is associated with religion, and the medium's use declined with the lessening importance of traditional Buddhism. Japanese ceramics are among the finest in the world and include the earliest known artifacts of their culture (see Pottery). In architecture, Japanese preferences for natural materials and an interaction of interior and exterior space are clearly expressed.

Japanese art is characterized by unique polarities. In the ceramics of the prehistoric periods, for example, exuberance was followed by disciplined and refined artistry. Another instance is provided by two 17th-century structures that are poles apart: Katsura Detached Palace is an exercise in simplicity, with an emphasis on natural materials, rough and untrimmed, and an affinity for beauty achieved by accident; Tōshōgu Mausoleum is a rigidly symmetrical structure replete with brightly colored relief carvings covering every visible surface. Japanese art, valued not only for its simplicity but also for its colorful exuberance, has considerably influenced 19th-century Western painting and 20th-century Western architecture.

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II

Jōmon and Yayoi Art

The first settlers of Japan, the Jōmon people (10,000?-300? bc), named for the cord markings that decorated the surfaces of their clay vessels, were nomadic hunter-gatherers. They built simple houses of wood and thatch set into shallow earthen pits to provide warmth from the soil, and crafted pottery storage vessels and clay figurines called dōgu. The next wave of immigrants was the Yayoi people, named for the district in Tokyo where remnants of their settlements first were found. These people, arriving in Japan about 350 bc, brought their knowledge of wetland rice cultivation, the manufacture of copper weapons and bronze bells (dōtaku), and wheel-thrown, kiln-fired ceramics.

III

Kofun Art: Haniwa

The third stage in Japanese prehistory, the Kofun, or Tumulus, period (ad 300?-552), represents a modification of Yayoi culture, attributable either to internal development or external force. In this period diverse groups of people formed political alliances and coalesced into a nation. Typical artifacts are bronze mirrors—symbols of political alliances—and clay sculptures called haniwa, erected outside tombs.

IV

Asuka and Nara Art

During the Asuka and Nara periods, so named because the seat of Japanese government was located in the Asuka Valley from 552 to 710 and in the city of Nara until 784, the first significant invasion by Asian continental culture took place in Japan. The transmission of Buddhism provided the initial impetus for contacts between Korea, China, and Japan, and the Japanese recognized facets of Chinese culture that could profitably be incorporated into their own: a system for converting ideas and sounds into writing; historiography; complex theories of government, such as an effective bureaucracy; and, most important for the arts, advanced technology—new building techniques, more advanced methods of casting in bronze, and new techniques and mediums for painting.

Throughout the 7th and 8th centuries, however, the major focus in contacts between Japan and the Asian continent was the development of Buddhism. Not all scholars agree on the significant dates and the appropriate names to apply to various time periods between 552, the official date of the introduction of Buddhism into Japan, and 784, when the Japanese capital was transferred from Nara. The most common designations are the Suiko period, 552-645; the Hakuhō period, 645-710; and the Tempyō period, 710-784.

The earliest Buddhist structures still extant in Japan—and the oldest wooden buildings in the Far East—are found at the Hōryū-ji to the southwest of Nara. First built in the early 7th century as the private temple of Crown Prince Shōtoku consists of 41 independent buildings; the most important ones, however—the main worship hall, or Kondō (Golden Hall), and Gojū-no-tō (Five-story Pagoda)—stand in the center of an open area surrounded by a roofed cloister. The Kondō, in the style of Chinese worship halls, is a two-story structure of post-and-beam construction, capped by an irimoya, or hipped-gabled roof of ceramic tiles.

Inside the Kondō, on a large rectangular platform, are some of the most important sculptures of the period. The central image is a Shaka Trinity (623), the historical Buddha flanked by two bodhisattvas (Buddhist saints), a sculpture cast in bronze by the sculptor Tori Busshi (flourished early 7th century) in homage to the recently deceased Prince Shōtoku. At the four corners of the platform are the Guardian Kings of the Four Directions, carved in wood about 650. Also housed at Hōryū-ji is the Tamamushi Shrine, a wooden replica of a Kondō, which is set on a high wooden base that is decorated with figural paintings executed in a medium of mineral pigments mixed with lacquer.

Temple building in the 8th century was focused around the Tōdai-ji in Nara. Constructed as the headquarters for a network of temples in each of the provinces, the Tōdai-ji is the most ambitious religious complex erected in the early centuries of Buddhist worship in Japan. Appropriately, the 16.2-m (53-ft) Buddha (completed 752) enshrined in the main hall, or Daibutsuden, is a Rushana Buddha, the figure that represents the essence of Buddhahood, just as the Tōdai-ji represented the center for imperially sponsored Buddhism and its dissemination throughout Japan. Only a few fragments of the original statue survive, and the present hall and central Buddha are reconstructions from the Edo period (1603-1867).

Clustered around the Daibutsuden on a gently sloping hillside are a number of secondary halls: the Hokkedō (Lotus Sutra Hall), with its principal image, the Fukukenjaku Kannon (the most popular bodhisattva), crafted of dry lacquer (cloth dipped in lacquer and shaped over a wooden armature); the Kaidanin (Ordination Hall) with its magnificent clay statues of the Four Guardian Kings; and the storehouse, called the Shōsōin. This last structure is of great importance as an art-historical cache, because in it are stored the utensils that were used in the temple’s dedication ceremony in 752—the eye-opening ritual for the Rushana image—as well as government documents and many secular objects owned by the imperial family.

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