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Studies of Japanese Art by Period
Muromachi or Ashikaga (1392-1573)
Martin Collcutt's excellent essay on the politics, religion, and cultural life of
the period 1450-1550 is to be found in an important exhibition catalogue, Circa
1492: Art in the Age of Exploration, edited by Jay A. Levenson (Washington,
D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1991). In the same catalogue Sherman E. Lee discusses
the art of the period and comments on some 50 paintings, sculptures, masks, metalwork
objects, lacquer, and ceramics.
For further background on the period, including important essays by Teiji Ito with
Paul Novgrad on residential architecture, and John M. Rosenfield on Josetsu's picture
of "The Three Creeds" (Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism), see John W.
Hall and Toyoda Takeshi, eds., Japan in the Muromachi Age (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1977). Two excellent books on Zen Buddhism should
be mentioned, even though the first contains almost nothing about art, and the second
only brief discussions of art: Martin Collcutt, Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen
Monastic Tradition in Medieval Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1981), and (covering a much longer time frame) the second volume of Heinrich Dumoulin,
Zen Buddhism: A History, translated by James W. Heisig and Paul Knitter (New
York: Macmillan, 1990).
Useful surveys of ink painting (the chief art of the period) are Ichimatsu
Tanaka, Japanese Ink Painting: Shubun to Sesshu, translated by Bruce Darling
(New York: Weatherhill, 1972); Hiroshi Kanazawa, Japanese Ink Painting: Early
Zen Masterpieces, translated and adapted by Barbara Ford (New York: Kodansha
International, 1979); and Takaaki Matsushita, Ink Painting, translated and
adapted by Martin Collcutt (New York: Weatherhill, 1974). Akiyoshi Watanabe, Of
Water and Ink (Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1986) is an exhibition catalogue
of 81 works, with an introductory essay discussing the influence of Chinese painting
on Japanese artists of the period, and with some emphasis on Sesshu and his followers.
Several books address the subject of Zen art - though there has been much
questioning as to whether such a thing exists. By far the fullest discussion is in
Helmut Brinker and Hiroshi Kanazawa, Zen: Masters of Meditation in Images and
Writings, translated by Andreas Leisinger (Zurich: Artibus Asiae, 1995). This
book, with 250 plates (58 in color), offers extended discussions of sculptures, paintings,
and calligraphies. For studies of fewer works, see Sylvan Barnet and William Burto,
Zen Ink Paintings (New York: Kodansha International, 1982); Jan Fontein and
Money L. Hickman, Zen Painting and Calligraphy (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts,
1970); and Yoshiaki Shimizu and Carolyn Wheelwright, eds., Japanese Ink Paintings
from American Collections (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976). Helmut
Brinker, Zen in the Art of Painting, translated by George Campbell (London:
Arkana, 1987) offers a brief survey of motifs in ink painting. Shin'ichi Hisamatsu,
Zen and the Fine Arts, translated by Gishin Tokiwa (Tokyo: Kodansha International,
1971) discusses not only paintings but also ceramics and other works of art related
to Zen. For a study of the works attributed to one Ri Shubun, see Elizabeth Lillehoj
in Artibus Asiae 55 (1995): 99-124, where it is argued that this body of work
may actually be by two artists.
More specialized studies: On paintings showing the death of Shakyamuni (the
Historical Buddha), see Carolyn Wheelwright's article in Archives of Asian Art
38 (1985): 67-94. On gold-leaf screens, see two detailed articles by Bettina Klein,
"Japanese Kinbyobu: The Gold-leafed Folding Screens of the Muromachi Period
(1333-1573)," Artibus Asiae 45, no. 1 (1984): 5-34, and 45, no. 2/3 (1984):
101-74. On an important screen painting, see Michele Bambling, "The Kongo-ji
Screens: Illuminating the Tradition of Yamato-e 'Sun and Moon' Screens," Orientations
(September 1996): 70-82, where she argues that the screens may be a syncretic Buddhist-Shinto
mandala showing sacred sites. Donald F. McCallum, Zenkoji and Its Icon: A Study
of Medieval Japanese Religious Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994)
examines the cult of Zenkoji and its Amida triad (Amida and two bodhisattvas, of
unknown date), but since these images are secret images - never seen even by the
priests - the images discussed are chiefly Muromachi images (of varying style and
varying quality) that are said to be based on the secret images. The book is more
about the history of the cult than the images.
For a catalogue of an exhibition of late Muromachi art - chiefly screens,
but also hanging scrolls, lacquerware, textiles, and ceramics - with an introduction
and useful comments on each of the 93 objects, see Michael Cunningham, The Triumph
of Japanese Style: 16th Century Art in Japan (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of
Art, 1991).
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