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| ==== Yoshimasa And The Silver Pavilion - Donald Keene==== | ==== Yoshimasa And The Silver Pavilion — Donald Keene==== |
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| <blockquote>The Ōnin War led not only to the birth of a new culture but also to the immediate diffusion of culture to the provinces. Poets, painters, and others fled the capital, where almost all the fighting occurred, to take refuge with local potentates. The poets introduced to their often barely literate hosts the literary masterpieces of the past, including the tenth-century anthology of poetry Kokinshū and the eleventh-century novel The Tale of Genji, and they taught their hosts how to compose poetry. Even the most barbarous warlord desired the trappings of culture that would enable him to feel like a civilized man.</blockquote> | <blockquote>The Ōnin War led not only to the birth of a new culture but also to the immediate diffusion of culture to the provinces. Poets, painters, and others fled the capital, where almost all the fighting occurred, to take refuge with local potentates. The poets introduced to their often barely literate hosts the literary masterpieces of the past, including the tenth-century anthology of poetry Kokinshū and the eleventh-century novel The Tale of Genji, and they taught their hosts how to compose poetry. Even the most barbarous warlord desired the trappings of culture that would enable him to feel like a civilized man.</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>A renga sequence was normally composed by three or more participants who took turns supplying alternating verses in seventeen and fourteen syllables. Each poet was free to change the direction of the</blockquote> | <blockquote>A renga sequence was normally composed by three or more participants who took turns supplying alternating verses in seventeen and fourteen syllables. Each poet was free to change the direction of the sequence as he saw fit. It was not considered desirable to create the impression that one poet had composed the entire sequence of a hundred or a thousand “links,” but ultimately each participant was sharing in the experience of creating one long poem</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>sequence as he saw fit. It was not considered desirable to create the impression that one poet had composed the entire sequence of a hundred or a thousand “links,” but ultimately each participant was sharing in the experience of creating one long poem</blockquote> | |
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| <blockquote>The daimyos enjoyed renga sessions so much that they offered visiting poets months or even years of hospitality.</blockquote> | <blockquote>The daimyos enjoyed renga sessions so much that they offered visiting poets months or even years of hospitality.</blockquote> |
| <blockquote>The bare nō stage itself was a perfect example of the evocative simplicity that had become an aesthetic ideal. An even more typical form of architecture invented during the Higashiyama period, the shoin-zukuri, developed into the most common variety of traditional Japanese houses. Likewise, the gardens surrounding the buildings provided models for the gardens of later centuries.</blockquote> | <blockquote>The bare nō stage itself was a perfect example of the evocative simplicity that had become an aesthetic ideal. An even more typical form of architecture invented during the Higashiyama period, the shoin-zukuri, developed into the most common variety of traditional Japanese houses. Likewise, the gardens surrounding the buildings provided models for the gardens of later centuries.</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>The tea ceremony (chanoyu), another important development in Higashiyama culture, originated in a small room at the Ginkaku-ji where Yoshimasa offered tea to his friends. Today, a tiny wooden ladle (chashaku), even if it is hardly more than a bent piece of bamboo, may be worth a fortune if a connection with Yoshimasa can be established. Most of the tea bowls used in the ceremony today are simpler and sturdier than the Chinese ceramics that Yoshimasa himself preferred, but they</blockquote> | <blockquote>The tea ceremony (chanoyu), another important development in Higashiyama culture, originated in a small room at the Ginkaku-ji where Yoshimasa offered tea to his friends. Today, a tiny wooden ladle (chashaku), even if it is hardly more than a bent piece of bamboo, may be worth a fortune if a connection with Yoshimasa can be established. Most of the tea bowls used in the ceremony today are simpler and sturdier than the Chinese ceramics that Yoshimasa himself preferred, but they harmonize even better with the bare interiors of the rooms where he first drank tea with his friends. Flower arrangement developed along with the tea ceremony, enhancing the rooms with the beauty and spiritual qualities of blossoms artistically arranged in ceramic vases</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>harmonize even better with the bare interiors of the rooms where he first drank tea with his friends. Flower arrangement developed along with the tea ceremony, enhancing the rooms with the beauty and spiritual qualities of blossoms artistically arranged in ceramic vases</blockquote> | |
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| <blockquote>The soul (kokoro) of Japan, the aesthetic preferences of the Japanese, was shaped in this period probably more than in any other. But even though Yoshimasa played a leading part in the formation of Japanese taste, his achievements have not brought him a favorable reputation. Rather, he is most often depicted by historians as a spiritual weakling, completely under the dominance of his wife, Hino Tomiko. His extravagance, his incompetence in dealing with state business, and his inability to succor the people in times of famine or to end the meaningless Onin War are deplored, quite properly. And in the eyes of most historians, his virtues, particularly his encouragement of the arts, have not compensated for his faults.</blockquote> | <blockquote>The soul (kokoro) of Japan, the aesthetic preferences of the Japanese, was shaped in this period probably more than in any other. But even though Yoshimasa played a leading part in the formation of Japanese taste, his achievements have not brought him a favorable reputation. Rather, he is most often depicted by historians as a spiritual weakling, completely under the dominance of his wife, Hino Tomiko. His extravagance, his incompetence in dealing with state business, and his inability to succor the people in times of famine or to end the meaningless Onin War are deplored, quite properly. And in the eyes of most historians, his virtues, particularly his encouragement of the arts, have not compensated for his faults.</blockquote> |
| <blockquote>The retreat that Yoshimasa built in Higashiyama is popularly known as the Ginkaku-ji, or Temple of the Silver Pavilion, a name that appropriately suggests a humbler version of Yoshimitsu’s Kinkaku-ji, or Temple of the Golden Pavilion, built some eighty years earlier. Unlike the gilded Kinkaku-ji, the Silver Pavilion was never decorated with silver leaf. The name instead suggests an age less brilliant than Yoshimitsu’s Age of Gold. The arts that Yoshimasa favored—the tea ceremony, ink painting, the nō, and the rest—had the unobtrusive elegance of oxidized silver.</blockquote> | <blockquote>The retreat that Yoshimasa built in Higashiyama is popularly known as the Ginkaku-ji, or Temple of the Silver Pavilion, a name that appropriately suggests a humbler version of Yoshimitsu’s Kinkaku-ji, or Temple of the Golden Pavilion, built some eighty years earlier. Unlike the gilded Kinkaku-ji, the Silver Pavilion was never decorated with silver leaf. The name instead suggests an age less brilliant than Yoshimitsu’s Age of Gold. The arts that Yoshimasa favored—the tea ceremony, ink painting, the nō, and the rest—had the unobtrusive elegance of oxidized silver.</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>In 1449, the year when Yoshimasa assumed the duties of shogun, the reigning emperor was Go-Hanazono (1419–1470)</blockquote> | <blockquote>In 1449, the year when Yoshimasa assumed the duties of shogun, the reigning emperor was Go-Hanazono (1419–1470) >The emperor during the war, Go-Tsuchimikado (1442–1500; reigned from 1464), was not asked his preference between the two sides. He had no soldiers at his disposal and was protected only by the aura surrounding the throne</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>The emperor during the war, Go-Tsuchimikado (1442–1500; reigned</blockquote> | <blockquote>In retrospect, the Ashikaga period (also known as the Muromachi period after the section of Kyoto where Ashikaga Yoshimitsu built his “Palace of Flowers”) might seem almost unrelievedly dark because of the wars and the way the wars affected the lives of members of the court and other educated people. If we turn, however, from those at the court to the humbler classes, as described in the popular fiction of the time, we find stories showing that despite the warfare, the period for many commoners was far from being a time of unvarying gloom. The hero of these stories is often a commoner who, by dint of hard work and mother wit, becomes fabulously rich and may even marry a princess. Granted that these stories are fiction and not fact, they could exert their appeal only if in some way they reflected the society. The Ashikaga period is frequently characterized as age of gekokujō, or those underneath conquering those above.</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>from 1464), was not asked his preference between the two sides. He had no soldiers at his disposal and was protected only by the aura surrounding the throne</blockquote> | |
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| <blockquote>In retrospect, the Ashikaga period (also known as the Muromachi period after the section of Kyoto where Ashikaga Yoshimitsu built his “Palace of Flowers”) might seem almost unrelievedly dark because of the wars and the way the wars affected the lives of members of the court and other educated people. If we turn, however, from those at the court to the humbler classes, as described in the popular fiction of the time,5 we find stories showing that despite the warfare, the period for many commoners was far from being a time of unvarying gloom. The hero of these stories is often a commoner who, by dint of hard work and mother wit, becomes fabulously rich and may even marry a princess. Granted that these stories are fiction and not fact, they could exert their appeal only if in some way they reflected the society. The Ashikaga period is frequently characterized as age of gekokujō, or those underneath conquering those above.</blockquote> | |
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| <blockquote>Unlike the writers of the prose pastiches, the most important poets of the Higashiyama era wrote a new kind of poetry, renga, that had antecedents in traditional poetry but was distinctly of its own time. The other arts, whether visual or performing, were also essentially new and strongly influenced Japanese culture in the future. Under the guidance of the former shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, the Higashiyama era represented a kind of cultural renaissance in the wake of the worst destruction Japan had ever experienced.</blockquote> | <blockquote>Unlike the writers of the prose pastiches, the most important poets of the Higashiyama era wrote a new kind of poetry, renga, that had antecedents in traditional poetry but was distinctly of its own time. The other arts, whether visual or performing, were also essentially new and strongly influenced Japanese culture in the future. Under the guidance of the former shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, the Higashiyama era represented a kind of cultural renaissance in the wake of the worst destruction Japan had ever experienced.</blockquote> |
| <blockquote>Again, when a retainer offered the shogun a splendid plum tree, Yoshinori was angered to discover that one of the middle branches had been broken. The three gardeners who had transported the tree were imprisoned for breaking the branch, and an order was issued for the arrest of five retainers of the man who had presented the tree. Three of these men fled for their lives, and the other two committed suicide. In 1435 when Yoshinori traveled to Ise, he was annoyed by the tastelessness of the food he was served. The cook, albeit a samurai, was unceremoniously sent back to Kyoto. After Yoshinori had returned to the capital, the cook, all fear and trembling, again appeared in his presence. He was immediately arrested and beheaded. Two years later, three other cooks were executed for the same crime</blockquote> | <blockquote>Again, when a retainer offered the shogun a splendid plum tree, Yoshinori was angered to discover that one of the middle branches had been broken. The three gardeners who had transported the tree were imprisoned for breaking the branch, and an order was issued for the arrest of five retainers of the man who had presented the tree. Three of these men fled for their lives, and the other two committed suicide. In 1435 when Yoshinori traveled to Ise, he was annoyed by the tastelessness of the food he was served. The cook, albeit a samurai, was unceremoniously sent back to Kyoto. After Yoshinori had returned to the capital, the cook, all fear and trembling, again appeared in his presence. He was immediately arrested and beheaded. Two years later, three other cooks were executed for the same crime</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>Yoshinori’s reign of terror was small in scale when compared with</blockquote> | <blockquote>Yoshinori’s reign of terror was small in scale when compared with similar periods of imperial persecution in China, but in Japan there was no precedent for the bloodthirsty cruelty Yoshinori showed toward those who displeased him. During the Heian period, not one person in high office was executed for his crimes, the worst punishment being banishment</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>similar periods of imperial persecution in China, but in Japan there was no precedent for the bloodthirsty cruelty Yoshinori showed toward those who displeased him. During the Heian period, not one person in high office was executed for his crimes,9 the worst punishment being banishment</blockquote> | |
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| <blockquote>No one dared to remonstrate with the shogun in the manner prescribed in Confucian texts for those who advised men in power.</blockquote> | <blockquote>No one dared to remonstrate with the shogun in the manner prescribed in Confucian texts for those who advised men in power.</blockquote> |
| <blockquote>The peasants were demanding an “act of grace” (tokusei) to cancel their debts. This was not the first time peasants (and other malcontents) had banded together for the purpose of obtaining a tokusei, but the uprising was on a larger scale and better organized than any previous confrontation between peasants and shogunate troops had been.</blockquote> | <blockquote>The peasants were demanding an “act of grace” (tokusei) to cancel their debts. This was not the first time peasants (and other malcontents) had banded together for the purpose of obtaining a tokusei, but the uprising was on a larger scale and better organized than any previous confrontation between peasants and shogunate troops had been.</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>The long-awaited tokusei was finally issued on the fourteenth day of the ninth month. This was the first time in the history of Japan that the government had bowed in this manner to demands of the common people. The decree, promulgated in the name of Kyogoku Mochikiyo, was pasted on the walls of the Council of Retainers (Samuraidokoro)</blockquote> | <blockquote>The long-awaited tokusei was finally issued on the fourteenth day of the ninth month. This was the first time in the history of Japan that the government had bowed in this manner to demands of the common people. The decree, promulgated in the name of Kyogoku Mochikiyo, was pasted on the walls of the Council of Retainers (Samuraidokoro) and displayed at prominent places inside the city and at the seven gateways. It applied to everyone, regardless of class</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>and displayed at prominent places inside the city and at the seven gateways. It applied to everyone, regardless of class</blockquote> | |
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| <blockquote>The heads of Akamatsu Mitsusuke and Azumi Yukihide (the man who had beheaded Yoshinori) were paraded through the streets of Kyoto on the twenty-first of the ninth month. The feelings of those who watched as the heads passed by were probably mixed. The executed men, denounced as traitors to the shogunate, had been punished accordingly; but it was hard to forget that it was thanks to their crime that Yoshinori’s age of terror had been brought to an end. After the heads had been carried through the streets, they were nailed to the prison gate.</blockquote> | <blockquote>The heads of Akamatsu Mitsusuke and Azumi Yukihide (the man who had beheaded Yoshinori) were paraded through the streets of Kyoto on the twenty-first of the ninth month. The feelings of those who watched as the heads passed by were probably mixed. The executed men, denounced as traitors to the shogunate, had been punished accordingly; but it was hard to forget that it was thanks to their crime that Yoshinori’s age of terror had been brought to an end. After the heads had been carried through the streets, they were nailed to the prison gate.</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>This was the immediate cause of the Ōnin War, during which the Yamana family supported Yoshihisa, the son of Tomiko, against Yoshimi, who was supported by the Hosokawa. In the first paragraph of Ōnin ki, the author blames Yoshimasa, and especially the women around Yoshimasa, for the turmoil into which the country was plunged by the war"</blockquote> | <blockquote>This was the immediate cause of the Ōnin War, during which the Yamana family supported Yoshihisa, the son of Tomiko, against Yoshimi, who was supported by the Hosokawa. In the first paragraph of Ōnin ki, the author blames Yoshimasa, and especially the women around Yoshimasa, for the turmoil into which the country was plunged by the war"</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>Ichijō Kaneyoshi (1402–1481), in “Sayo no nezame” (Waking at Night), a work written in about 1473, expressed quite a different opinion about the role of women in governmen</blockquote> | |
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| <blockquote>Ichijō Kaneyoshi (1402–1481), in “Sayo no nezame” (Waking at Night), a work written in about 1473, expressed quite a different opinion about the role of women in government</blockquote> | <blockquote>Ichijō Kaneyoshi (1402–1481), in “Sayo no nezame” (Waking at Night), a work written in about 1473, expressed quite a different opinion about the role of women in government</blockquote> |
| <blockquote>With respect to the culture of his time, however, Yoshimasa displayed extraordinary leadership, and the culture of which he was a great patron lasted long after the battles of the Ōnin War had been forgotten. Yoshimasa would be remembered for his encouragement of aesthetic tastes that, transmitted to the Japanese people, became indispensable to their culture. When one speaks today of Nihon no kokoro—the soul of Japan—one is likely to be referring to elements of Japanese cultural preferences that were encouraged by Yoshimasa.</blockquote> | <blockquote>With respect to the culture of his time, however, Yoshimasa displayed extraordinary leadership, and the culture of which he was a great patron lasted long after the battles of the Ōnin War had been forgotten. Yoshimasa would be remembered for his encouragement of aesthetic tastes that, transmitted to the Japanese people, became indispensable to their culture. When one speaks today of Nihon no kokoro—the soul of Japan—one is likely to be referring to elements of Japanese cultural preferences that were encouraged by Yoshimasa.</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>The culture to which Yoshimasa so greatly contributed is known today as Higashiyama, from the section of Kyoto where he built the retreat where he lived from 1483 to 1490. Yoshimasa obviously did not create the new culture single-handedly. Unlike Hui-tsung, he is not known today as a master of painting, calligraphy, and poetry, though he was highly competent in the latter two arts.19 Rather, Yoshimasa’s greatest gift was his exceptional ability to detect talent in other people</blockquote> | <blockquote>The culture to which Yoshimasa so greatly contributed is known today as Higashiyama, from the section of Kyoto where he built the retreat where he lived from 1483 to 1490. Yoshimasa obviously did not create the new culture single-handedly. Unlike Hui-tsung, he is not known today as a master of painting, calligraphy, and poetry, though he was highly competent in the latter two arts.19 Rather, Yoshimasa’s greatest gift was his exceptional ability to detect talent in other people and his readiness to employ them, regardless of their social station</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>and his readiness to employ them, regardless of their social station</blockquote> | |
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| <blockquote>In creating a new culture after the end of the Ōnin War, Yoshimasa was helped by daimyos from the provinces who had acquired a taste for culture as the result of giving refuge during the war to poets and artists who had fled the capital. Yoshimasa was helped also by learned Zen monks whom he consulted less on religious than on aesthetic matters.</blockquote> | <blockquote>In creating a new culture after the end of the Ōnin War, Yoshimasa was helped by daimyos from the provinces who had acquired a taste for culture as the result of giving refuge during the war to poets and artists who had fled the capital. Yoshimasa was helped also by learned Zen monks whom he consulted less on religious than on aesthetic matters.</blockquote> |
| <blockquote>A difference between the aesthetic ideals of the two countries was indirectly suggested by the priest Kenkō in Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness) when, after describing the flowers that he thought desirable in a gentleman’s garden, he added: “It is hard to feel affection for other plants—those rarely encountered, or which have unpleasant-sounding Chinese names, or which look peculiar. As a rule, oddities and rarities are enjoyed by persons of no breeding. It is best to be without them.”5 Kenkō preferred ordinary flowers to exotic plants and did not share Yoshimasa’s taste for “rare plants and curious rocks,” even though they were essential to Chinese gardens.</blockquote> | <blockquote>A difference between the aesthetic ideals of the two countries was indirectly suggested by the priest Kenkō in Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness) when, after describing the flowers that he thought desirable in a gentleman’s garden, he added: “It is hard to feel affection for other plants—those rarely encountered, or which have unpleasant-sounding Chinese names, or which look peculiar. As a rule, oddities and rarities are enjoyed by persons of no breeding. It is best to be without them.”5 Kenkō preferred ordinary flowers to exotic plants and did not share Yoshimasa’s taste for “rare plants and curious rocks,” even though they were essential to Chinese gardens.</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>Although he devoted the last years of his life to building the Ginkaku-ji, Yoshimasa seems not to have been impelled by the desire to immortalize himself. Palaces he had built were destroyed by fire even in times of peace, and he knew from the experience of the Ōnin War how unlikely it was that any building could long resist destruction. Indeed, he may actually have courted it. For all his admiration of China, it did not occur to Yoshimasa (or anyone else of that time) to build in brick or stone in the manner of Chinese temples. Instead, Yoshimasa chose to follow Japanese tradition</blockquote> | <blockquote>Although he devoted the last years of his life to building the Ginkaku-ji, Yoshimasa seems not to have been impelled by the desire to immortalize himself. Palaces he had built were destroyed by fire even in times of peace, and he knew from the experience of the Ōnin War how unlikely it was that any building could long resist destruction. Indeed, he may actually have courted it. For all his admiration of China, it did not occur to Yoshimasa (or anyone else of that time) to build in brick or stone in the manner of Chinese temples. Instead, Yoshimasa chose to follow Japanese tradition and used only the most perishable materials—wood and paper—as if to demonstrate his awareness of perishability as an essential element in beauty. His testament to the world—the Higashiyama retreat—is indeed a thing of beauty, but he probably did not expect it to defy the ravages of time. Paradoxically, it has lasted longer than many supposedly deathless monuments</blockquote> |
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| <blockquote>and used only the most perishable materials—wood and paper—as if to demonstrate his awareness of perishability as an essential element in beauty. His testament to the world—the Higashiyama retreat—is indeed a thing of beauty, but he probably did not expect it to defy the ravages of time. Paradoxically, it has lasted longer than many supposedly deathless monuments</blockquote> | |
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| <blockquote>The Dōjinsai, four and a half tatami in size, resembles innumerable similar rooms in temples and private houses all over Japan for the simple reason that it was their model. Every Japanese-style building constructed since the sixteenth century owes something to the architecture here. The shōji, the chigaidana (staggered shelves), the layout of the tatami in the tea room, the ceiling, the square interior pillars, the desk, and the space provided for the display of flowers or objects of art all are characteristic of the shoin-zukuri architecture, which reached definitive expression in Yoshimasa’s retreat. Almost any Japanese, even if he lives by choice in a reinforced-concrete apartment house, is likely to feel a sense of “coming home” when he enters the Dōjinsai. This architecture is a part of the living culture of Japan; by contrast, a Heian room is a distant ancestor.</blockquote> | <blockquote>The Dōjinsai, four and a half tatami in size, resembles innumerable similar rooms in temples and private houses all over Japan for the simple reason that it was their model. Every Japanese-style building constructed since the sixteenth century owes something to the architecture here. The shōji, the chigaidana (staggered shelves), the layout of the tatami in the tea room, the ceiling, the square interior pillars, the desk, and the space provided for the display of flowers or objects of art all are characteristic of the shoin-zukuri architecture, which reached definitive expression in Yoshimasa’s retreat. Almost any Japanese, even if he lives by choice in a reinforced-concrete apartment house, is likely to feel a sense of “coming home” when he enters the Dōjinsai. This architecture is a part of the living culture of Japan; by contrast, a Heian room is a distant ancestor.</blockquote> |
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