Amidism spread from India to China in the 4th century and from there to Japan by the 9th century. Like many Buddhist sects, it is a devotional cult that gained immense popularity. Amida Buddha presided over the Western Paradise, or Pure Land, and his benevolence is detailed in several important sutras. Devotion to Amida (Amitabha) began in Japan within the mikkyō sects, and in the 10th century Amida worship began to gain momentum as a distinct form of Japanese Buddhist belief. Amida’s compassion in welcoming the dying and securing a place for them in his paradise was a dimension of the belief that emerged during the Heian period and assumed prominence in the Pure Land (Jōdo) sect under the leadership of the monk Hōnen (1133–1212).
Like Esoteric Buddhism, Amidism encouraged an iconography that formed a total ambience of worship. The focus of faith in Amida was rebirth in the Western Paradise. Therefore, painted and sculpted representations of that celestial realm were produced as objects of consolation. Paintings from the Nara period of the Amida and his Western Paradise are geometrically ordered descriptions of a hierarchical world in which Amida is enthroned as a ruler. In mid-Heian Amidist images, the once-ancillary image of the descending Amida takes on central prominence. This image of the Amida Buddha and attendants descending from the heavens to greet the soul of the dying believer is called a raigōzu (Descent of Amida painting). The theme would later be developed during the Kamakura period as an immensely popular icon, but it saw its first powerful expressions during the Heian period in the late 11th century. As is typical of Amidism, the compassionate attitude of the divinity superseded expressions of awesome might. Amidism differed significantly in emphasis from Esoteric Buddhism in that it did not require a guided initiation into mysteries. An expression of faith in the Amida Buddha through the invocation of his name in the nembutsu prayer was the single requirement for salvation. Iconography served mainly as a reminder of the coming consolations rather than as the tool for a meditative journey to enlightenment.
One of the most elegant monuments to Amidist faith is the Phoenix Hall (Hōōdō) at the Byōdō Temple in Uji, located on the Uji River to the southeast of Kyōto. Originally used as a villa by the Fujiwara family, this summer retreat was converted to a temple by Fujiwara Yorimichi in 1053. The architecture of the building, including the style and configuration of its interior iconography, was intended to suggest a massive expression of raigō imagery, whether viewed by a worshiper within the sanctuary or by a visitor approaching the complex from a distance. Viewed frontally, the hall resembles a large bird with its wings extended as if in landing, recalling the downward flight of the Amida and bodhisattvas who welcome the faithful. Contained in the breast of this great creature is the sanctuary, where a magnificent Amida sculpture by Jōchō, the premier sculptor of the period, rests on a central altar. Positioned on the surrounding walls is an array of smaller wood-sculpted apsaras (heavenly nymphs) playing musical instruments and riding on stylized clouds. Traces of poorly preserved polychrome painting on the interior walls depict not only the expected raigō scene but also the gently rolling topography of central Japan, suggesting that the court-sponsored painting bureau had developed a strong indigenous expression which now supplanted Chinese models in religious iconography.
The Jōchō Amida sculpture, one of the most sublime expressions of Amidist belief, marks the ascendancy of a new style and technique in sculpting. Serene, unadorned, reserved yet powerfully comforting, this image is composed of numerous wood pieces that have been carved and hollowed, then joined together and surfaced with lacquered cloth and gold leaf. This joined-block construction technique (yosegi-zukuri) allowed for a sculpture lighter in feeling and in fact, but it generally precluded the deep and dramatic carving found in single-block construction. Thus, the exaggerated, mannered presentations of Esoteric sculpture of the previous centuries were supplanted by a noble, evenly proportioned figure, and scale and calm mien replaced drama as a means to engage the believer.
In 985 the Tendai monk Genshin produced the 10-part treatise Ōjō Yōshū (“Essentials of Salvation”), a major synthesis of Buddhist theory on the issues of suffering and reward and a pragmatic guide for believers who sought rebirth in the Western Paradise. Genshin described in compelling detail the cosmology of the six realms of existence of the Impure Land (rokudō) in an effort to encourage people to strive to achieve rebirth in the Pure Land of Amida. Genshin’s descriptions of hell and its tortures were particularly influential as a source for artists in meeting a demand for graphic images of hell intended for meditation and instruction of the faithful.
Although Tendai, Shingon, and Amidism can be considered rival beliefs, at the level of popular participation their sectarian distinctions were largely blurred. Furthermore, during the Heian period all Buddhist sects were cognizant of the arrival of the “latter or final days of the law” (mappō). The prevailing Buddhist theory of time posited three distinct periods following the entry of Gautama Buddha into nirvana. The first period was the time of the “true law” (shōbō), the second period was the time of “imitative law” (zōbō), and the third period was that of mappō, which was actually calculated to begin in the year 1052. Mappō, it was believed, was a time marked by social chaos and natural disaster, in which proper living under the law of the Buddha no longer guaranteed salvation. The formulaic prayers of Amidism promising salvation were thus ever more popular. Other methods to ensure salvation included the commissioning of religious objects, such as sutras and icons, and the patronage of temple building. These actions incurred merit which was understood to accumulate in proportion to the number or magnificence of the objects produced. Thus, the second half of the Heian period was marked by production of a multiplicity of religious icons.
Calligraphy and painting
The break in regular communication with China from the mid-9th century commenced a long period of fruitful development in Japanese literature and its expression through the mediums of calligraphy and painting. Calligraphy of the Nara period was known for its transmission and assimilation of the major Chinese writing styles, as well as for some forays into individualized expression and adaptation of technical features of character representation. Modified versions of Chinese characters, known as man’yōgana, were employed to represent Japanese phonetic sounds, and two even more abbreviated phonetic writing systems, hiragana and katakana, were known in nascent form. The former was highly stylized and cursive, while the latter was somewhat more severe and rectilinear in form. Use of hiragana was relegated to women, while men continued to control the learning and use of the traditional Chinese characters. However, during the Heian period hiragana was recognized as an official writing method, and an integrated use of the adapted Chinese characters (kanji) and hiragana became a widely accepted form of written expression.
The Buddhist monk Kūkai was an important calligraphic stylist and was posthumously recognized as the patron of calligraphers. His highly expressive and mannered presentation of characters was seen and admired in official correspondence, but, more significantly, he employed the brush in a spiritual exercise of rendering important sutra texts or single, meaning-laden kanji. These explorations functioned as part of an Esoteric rite that approximated use of a personalized mandala. Kūkai forcefully established the link between word and image embodied in a calligraphy text, and his work served as an important catalyst in the Heian period, when the rendering of a kanji or a phonetic symbol came to be appreciated not as an illustrative gesture but as a form of expression multivalent in its epistemological potential. In ensuing decades and centuries courtiers expanded on his work and explored the potentials suggested not just in a single character but in whole, secular texts, mainly poetry.
The rapid developments in Japanese poetry during the Heian period included a concerted assessment of the national poetic tradition and the establishment of a canon of poetry through the publication of imperially sponsored anthologies. In the early 10th century the courtier poet Ki Tsurayuki and others assembled the profoundly influential Kokinshū (“Collection from Ancient and Modern Times”). As its title indicates, selected poems from pre-Heian times were assembled together with contemporary works. The poems were arranged thematically, with seasonal verse and poems on the topic of love predominant. The format for the poetry was the 31-syllable waka, or tanka, and the anthology was one of the first efforts to establish critical standards for the development of that form.
Contemporary documents discuss the relationship between poetry and painting. Poems were used as the subject of paintings, and calligraphers often wrote poems on paintings or on specially prepared square papers (shikishi) later affixed to a painting. Although virtually no examples of this custom survive from the Heian period, it is known through documentary sources and through revivals of the practice in subsequent centuries. Poetry was also inscribed on elaborately decorated sheets of paper which were preserved as individual units, consolidated in albums, or arranged on horizontal scrolls. The early 12th-century Sanjūrokunin kashū (“Anthologies of Thirty-six Poets”) is perhaps the finest Heian example of verse executed on sumptuously prepared and illustrated papers. The preeminence of the calligraphic word in interpretive union with painting or as a thematic inspiration for painting was a hallmark of the Heian period.
Changes in painting technique evident in the Heian period may well have been the result of the general and rapidly growing development of sophisticated calligraphic skills. The Tang Chinese method of employing the even iron-wire brush line to delineate forms was gradually supplanted in the 11th century by subtle introductions of modulated, calligraphic brushwork, engendering greater liveliness in form, particularly in the renderings of such grand subjects as raigō and the Buddha’s entry into nirvana.
Important secular works from the 11th century, such as Shōtoku taishi eden (“Illustrated Biography of Prince Shōtoku”) and the Senzui folding screens (byōbu), also reveal the development of indigenous painting styles within the original interpretive matrix of Chinese forms. Although the Chinese method of representing narrative in a landscape setting is honoured, with each narrative episode shown in a discrete topographic pocket, the topography and other telling elements take on the appearance of Japanese rather than Chinese surroundings. By the end of the Heian period, a clear distinction could be made between paintings using Chinese themes and styles and those with Japanese subjects and techniques, with the former known as Kara-e and the latter as Yamato-e.
Some of the most celebrated examples of Yamato-e are the horizontal narrative hand scrolls (emaki or emakimono) produced in the 12th century. This format, which had been introduced from China in the 6th or 7th century, had already been used effectively in Japan, most notably for the Nara period Kako genzai inga kyō (“Sutra of Cause and Effect”), but these early scrolls are thought to be imitative of Chinese works. In the Late Heian, however, emaki began to develop a unique Japanese character and proved to be particularly well suited to Japanese expression.
There are few extant narrative scrolls dating from the Heian period. Their quality is extraordinary, however, and probably representative of a larger number of works no longer extant. The Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji), a long court romance composed in the late 10th or early 11th century, has been culled for clues to Heian life and culture. Reference is made to the popularity of a wide thematic range of narrative painting. Typically, the format of presentation was that of alternating bodies of text and painting. The best of these works were not ploddingly literal in their visual interpretations of text. Rather they were carefully selective of their points of illustration, allowing maximum freedom to the viewer’s imagination and demonstrating a complementary rather than repetitive use of text and image.
The range of expressive technique available to artists was considerable, and adaptation of style and composition to suit the tone of a narrative was, judging from available evidence, astute. An illustrated narration of The Tale of Genji, Genji monogatari emaki, was produced in the first half of the 12th century. The tale, which relates the life and loves of Prince Genji, is undergirded with Buddhist metaphysics and is thought to offer an approximate fictional description of court life at the time of its composition. It provides a complex analysis of emotions that are always obliquely expressed because of the constraints of court etiquette. The artists thus convey mood not with facial expression or gesticulation, which would violate the highly refined court aesthetic, but with formally posed figures rendered in opaque pigments and the skillful use of depicted architectural elements. Treatments of interior space subtly suggest the emotion masked by the human figures.
Quite different from The Tale of Genji scroll is the 12th-century Shigisan engi emaki (“Legends of Shigisan Temple”). Drawing on folkloric sources, it is a tale of miracles attributed to the Shingon monk Myōren, who resided on Mount Shigi near Nara in the latter part of the 9th century. The uninhibited depiction of action and movement central to various episodes is rendered by lively and varied brushstrokes. Similarly, the first scrolls of the Chōjū jinbutsu giga (“Scrolls of Frolicking Animals and Humans”), products of the 12th century (later scrolls are dated to the 13th century), satirize human foibles through the depiction of anthropomorphized animals rendered in masterfully vibrant ink monochrome brushwork.
The Ban Dainagon ekotoba (“Story of the Courtier Ban Dainagon”) narrates the incidents surrounding the arson of a gate at the imperial palace in the mid-9th century. This work of the later 12th century is a masterful blend of technical styles. Movements of tension, suspense, thunderous action, and quiet intrigue are variously expressed by a combination of careful pictorial composition, adroit calligraphic technique suggesting action, and the use of opaque pigments to render pauses in the narrative.
The reasons for the appeal and florescence of the emaki genre are speculative. However, as demonstrated by the growing penchant for keeping diaries, writing travel commentaries, and reading a particular type of loosely structured narrative interspersed with verse, narration as a form of literature was increasing in popularity in Heian Japan. The growing ease with which observations were recorded was probably assisted by the development of the syllabic writing systems noted above. In the religious sphere the didactic use of popular tales in facilitating the spread of Buddhism offered an occasion for recording and infusing religious meaning into folktales. Proselytizers for Buddhism employed the format to commemorate or memorialize the origins and history of particular sects and temples and for illustrated biographies of noted religious leaders.
The illustrated, or illuminated, sutra form, a type of emaki, reached its zenith of expression with the completion in 1164 of the Heike nōkyō. This incomparable 34-scroll presentation of the Lotus Sutra with alternating text and painting was an offering of the military leader Taira Kiyomori.
Decorative arts
The kilns at Sanage to the east of present-day Nagoya provided functional ceramic pieces for the court. These were largely forms and glazes that were imitative of Chinese three-colour and celadon potteries, which used lead in their glazes. Lacquerware emerged as an art that provided a means of producing the effect of inlay work popular mainly as an import item during the Nara period.
Kamakura period
From the middle of the 12th century the reality of true imperial court control over Japan was largely a fiction. The Taira (Heike), a provincial warrior family, assumed the role of imperial protector and became the effectual power wielder. From that time they entered into a protracted struggle for hegemony with the Minamoto (Genji), a powerful clan from eastern Japan. The Gempei War between the families raged through much of Japan’s central island from 1180 to 1185, during which such major temples as Tōdai and Kōfuku and their contents were completely destroyed. The Minamoto eventually emerged victorious, and, under the leadership of Minamoto Yoritomo, the culture and structure of national leadership shifted from the civil aristocracy to the hands of a provincial warrior class. In 1192 Yoritomo was named seii taishōgun (“barbarian-quelling generalissimo”) by the court, thus initiating an office of military dictator that would persist until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Yoritomo located his power centre (later termed shogunate, or bakufu, literally “tent government”) in Kamakura, a small seaside village on a peninsula to the south of present-day Tokyo. Control of the shogunate soon passed to the Hōjō family through Yoritomo’s widow, but the government did not return to Kyōto until 1333. The years from 1185 to 1333 are thus known as the Kamakura period.
The military victory and subsequent structural changes not only established the new ruling group in a position of military and economic power but also allowed for the infusion and development of a new cultural ethos—one that paralleled but was determinedly distinct from that developed by the court in Nara and in Kyōto. Warrior values of strength, discipline, austerity, and immediacy found resonance in the practices of Zen Buddhism. This strain of Buddhism had long played a subsidiary role in Japan, but, from the 13th century, strong Japanese adherents were bolstered in number and authoritative leadership by immigrant Chinese monks who had been displaced by the Mongol conquests in China. Zen Buddhism offered the new military leadership a nonthreatening alternative to the Tendai-controlled religious establishment that dominated the Kyōto court. The iconographic needs and the inherent aesthetic predispositions of Zen Buddhism were refined through this initial relationship with the Kamakura elite and over the next several centuries became widely influential throughout Japan.
Populist religious movements, particularly those generated by Amidist beliefs during the Heian period, grew even stronger and more diverse during the Kamakura period, increasing demands for Buddhist iconography. During the 13th century fears of an invasion by the Mongols from the mainland were realized on two occasions (1274 and 1281). Both times the invaders were repulsed, but these episodes and their anticipation contributed to a pervasive anxiety that was more than occasionally exhibited in the mood and theme of religious iconography. It was a time punctuated by prayers of supplication and pleas for divine intervention. Although quite different in their fundamental precepts, the simple and direct means of access to salvation or enlightenment offered by Zen or Amidist practices were exceedingly popular.
Sculpture
Perhaps no single feature of the Kamakura period so exemplifies the unique character of the age as does the emergence of bold new sculptural styles. Indeed, the Kamakura is considered by many to be the last significant period in the history of Japanese sculpture until modern times. Although sculpture continued to be produced in later periods, it consisted largely of uninspired reworkings of old themes and old styles.
As a result of the widespread destruction wrought by the Gempei War, it was necessary to replace the extensive loss of religious sculpture. The most compelling works of the period were created in the 13th century, notably by the Kei family, led by Kōkei and his son Unkei. Inspired both by the exquisite idealism of the Nara period works and by the fashion for realism found in Chinese Song dynasty sculpture, the best of Kamakura period sculpture conveyed intense corporeal presence. The style is frequently referred to as “Kamakura realism” but should not be confused with the notion of “realistic” in the sense of faithful rendering of the natural. While, for example, there is reference to careful anatomic understanding, this understanding is often rendered in extreme statement. The huge guardian figures created by Unkei and other Kei artists to flank the Nandai-mon (“Great South Gate”) at Tōdai Temple are the epitome of this style. With bulging eyes, limbs lined with tributaries of protruding veins, and theatrical poses, these and similar works were direct and accessible to the mass of the Buddhist faithful.
In portraying a range of divine concerns from protection to sympathetic consolation, Kamakura sculpture responded to the spiritual climate of the age. The sculpture by Unkei’s son Kōshō (died 1237) of Kūya, the rugged old mendicant who advocated the unceasing repetition of the nembutsu prayer, is depicted realistically as determined and gnarly but with the fantastic grace note of a string of small Amida figures emerging from his mouth—a literal representation of his teaching. An exquisitely refined evocation of the protective and welcoming presence of the Amida is seen in the sculpture dated to 1269 and a product of the atelier of Kōshun. With its surface completely adorned with gold-leaf pattern cuttings (kirikane), this figure proclaims celestial splendour. The intensity of the deity’s gaze, omniscient and direct, is accomplished by a Kamakura period innovation: inlaid crystal eyes backed by white paper appropriately coloured to effect iris and pupil. For Kōfuku Temple, Unkei sustained the remarkable standards of the temple’s renowned Nara period hollow-lacquer sculpture with his production of figures such as the famous disciples of the Buddha, Muchaku (Asanga) and Seshin (Vasubandhu). The portrait sculpture of Muchaku conveys firm resolve, seasoned realism, and, thanks to subtle handling of fleshiness around the eyes, a hint of humour.
The finest Kamakura period sculpture is a seamless union of meticulously crafted and assembled parts. While wood was the medium of choice, the dominant presence of a single tree, a feature characteristic of early Heian sculpture, is no longer present. The joined-block method was used with much greater frequency than in previous periods. Effects were achieved through the coordination of skills, and specialization within workshops was common. In some cases the face of a sculpture was worked separately, as if a mask, and then affixed to the sculpture. The refinement of this ability to work on individual parts allowed for remarkable detail and expressive effects, enhancing the meticulous realism characteristic of Kamakura sculpture.
Painting
Painting of the Kamakura period, both religious and secular, was marked by a sense of immediacy and vitality. The Amidist sects spawned cults that emphasized devotion to particular intercessory figures who had initially been considered ancillary in the overall Pure Land Buddhist pantheon. For example, the Jizō Bosatsu, the bodhisattva depicted in the guise of a gentle, young monk, was venerated as a protector of women and children and as one dispatched on a special mission of compassion to suffering sentient beings enmeshed in the tribulations of their various life states. The popularity of Amidism also encouraged the creation of elaborately conceived spiritual cosmologies in paintings depicting the six realms of existence. In a variation of that theme, paintings of the Nika Byakudō (“White Path to the Western Paradise Across Two Rivers”) type show both the difficulties encountered by the believer journeying to the Western Paradise and, at the centre, the Jizō benevolently ministering to those in need. Similarly, raigō paintings featuring depictions of the Amida and entourage descending from paradise to greet the souls of the recently deceased faithful enjoyed considerable popularity.
As was the case with sculptural representation, immediacy and accessibility were the most desired attributes of religious iconography. Religious foundations made extensive use of the narrative scroll format to honour sect anniversaries or histories and to document the biographies of founders and other major personalities. Such works as the Hōnen shōnin eden and the Ippen shōnin gyojo eden present biographies of the priests Hōnen, founder of the Pure Land sect, and Ippen, beloved charismatic who founded an Amidist subgroup, the Ji sect. In vitality of defining brushwork, rich palette, and lavish depiction of the sundry details of contemporaneous existence, these and similar works serve as essential records of the material culture of the Kamakura period; but in a more profound religious sense, they are visual evidence of the strong Japanese penchant for grounding the spiritual experience in the easily approachable guise of everyday life.
The use of iconography in Zen Buddhism was not as extensive as in other sects, but mentor and patriarch portraiture played a significant role in the ritual of the transmission of teaching authority. Here too, the penetrating effect of presence was the quality most sought in these visages. Ink monochrome painting was also employed by Zen adepts as a form of participatory spiritual exercise. In addition to representations of personages or historic moments, real or legendary, associated with Zen, Zen painters also depicted subjects not obviously religious in theme. Bird-and-flower paintings were created and queried for insights into spiritual meaning, and gradually the landscape painting offered accretions of symbolic meaning indicative of internal, spiritual journeys.
During the Kamakura period, Buddhism continued and strengthened systematic efforts to incorporate the indigenous religion, Shintō, by identifying local gods and numinous presences as manifestations of Buddhist deities. This system was called honchi-suijaku, and its principles were applied extensively. Religious paintings often depicted the figures of both Buddhist and Shintō manifestation in some mandala-like format. Likewise, Buddhist paintings, especially of the honchi-suijaku type, frequently incorporated Shintō sacred sites into their landscapes. Not precisely of this type but a sublime derivative is the icon of Nachi Falls. There, a sacred site on the Kii Peninsula south of Ise reveals the haunting presence of the great, constantly plunging force which all but overwhelms the small architecture of the Shintō shrine that honours the natural site. Thus, certain Buddhist traditional painting techniques revealed the sacredness of adopted territory.
In the realm of secular painting, as in the religious world noted above, the narrative scroll continued to develop as an essential expressive format. The popularity of war tales, appropriate to the climate inspired by the interests of the new national leadership and by the threat and reality of foreign invasion, is readily apparent in extant paintings commemorating various domestic martial episodes. Few paintings of the period capture the force, confusion, and terror of battle as effectively as does the episode of the burning of the Sanjō Palace in the Heiji monogatari emaki. Here, the artist uses highly animated, modulated strokes of defining ink, judicious, repetitive patterning, and the application of opaque colour to produce a series of carefully joined vignettes that intimately and actively tell the story.
The court, although stripped of political power, continued to be an arbiter of cultural matters. Most especially, it dominated the development of a national literature and the rendering of that literature in relation to painting and calligraphy. The various modes of joining word and image continued to be the specialized purview of aristocratic culture. In the early 13th century important anthologies were assembled of the works of the 36 ancient poets who had been “canonized” in the Heian period, and portraits of these masters were popular painting subjects. Often, the horizontal narrative scroll format was used to present the poets as if they were engaged in poetry competitions, composing linked verse (renga), with representative verse juxtaposed by their images. Thus, even the comparatively subdued ambience of court culture was animated by the format so attuned to the dynamism of the period. The 36-poet genre was thereafter a resilient theme and a standard way of expressing high literary reference in painting.
Secular portraiture saw developments stimulated in part by the central role of patriarch and mentor portraits in the Zen tradition. The schematic or generalized visages of the Heian period indigenous traditions were influenced by these imported developments. Court and military portraits of the period tend to present the subject in the stiff, opaque, and decorative surrounding typical of Heian style, but faces are more realistically and individually rendered.
