Kamakura Period (1185-1333)

While the Kamakura period has been defined variously, here we refer to the period of approximately 150 years between the fall from power of the Heike clan in 1185 (and the establishment of a shogunate or military government by the Minamoto family in Kamakura) to Ashikaga Takauji's establishment of the Muromachi Shogunate after destroying the Kamakura Shogunate in 1333. If the Heian period was one of courtier culture focused largely on the imperial family, in the Kamakura period it was warrior (samurai) families who were at the center of society. This new culture took on a markedly "masculine" tone that was evident even in Buddhism, where an introverted, cloistered nature of much of early Buddhism was replaced by a tendency among the various sects of a revived Buddhist movement - for example, Pure Land, Zen, and Nichiren sects - to take a more active role in society. In painting, the influence of Chinese Song-dynasty art, brought to Japan by Japanese Buddhist monks who had visited China and by Chinese monks traveling to Japan, becomes more evident. The growth of the Jodo (Pure Land) faith gave Amida raigozu paintings, which depict the arrival of Amida Buddha to welcome departing souls to paradise, an ever greater popularity. Influenced, no doubt, by numerous unsettling realities which seemed to forebode a period of historical discontinuity, as well as by concepts of reincarnation which continued to be spread by the monk Genshin's popular book Ojo yoshu (The Essentials of Salvation, written in 985), new genres of pictorial art appeared, known by such names of jigoku-zoshi (hell sketches), gaki-zoshi (hungry ghost sketches), and yamai-zoshi (illness sketches). These were often done in a quasi-realistic way, depicting unpleasant futures which might be in store for the unwary.

Buddhist painting showed significant influences from Chinese Song-dynasty artists, and there also appeared a number of so-called honji suijaku ("manifestations of eternal prototypes") paintings which were meant to express the theory that in Japan the Buddha and bodhisattvas manifested themselves in the form of Shinto deities and even in the mysterious powers of the natural world. The awe-inspiring Nachi waterfall (in present-day Wakayama Prefecture) became a favorite subject for this genre.
An important feature of the Kamakura period was the development of realistic character portraits. Some of these, known as nise-e (likeness pictures), were sketch-like portraits, especially of persons of the court nobility. Introduced from China was the custom whereby a Zen priest would often bestow a portrait of himself, known as a chinzo, on an accomplished pupil as a certification of the latter's attainments. These chinzo were often very realistic, conveying a sense of the subject's character and spirit. Portraits were also drawn of such contemporary or former political figures as Minamoto no Yoritomo and Taira no Shigemori in full costume. Their manly forms and facial expressions were epochal additions to the inventory of Japanese pictorial art. Narrative handscrolls (emaki), too, showed a versatile development and included scenes taken from military romances and other literature as well as scenes from the lives of such well-known monks as Honen, Ippen, and Ganjin.

(1)Ippen Shonin Eden (Illustrated Biography of the Monk Ippen)

This is the seventh of twelve consecutive handscrolls depicting the biography of the Kamakura period monk Ippen (1239-1289), founder of the Ji sect of Buddhism. These narrative handscrolls together depict the whole life of Ippen, who traveled throughout Japan advocating the practice of nembutsu (reciting the name of the Buddha) to everyone, rich or poor, he met along the way up until the time of his death in present-day Hyogo Prefecture. These scrolls faithfully depict temples and other places of note which Ippen visited, and their depictions of landscapes are said to show the influence of Chinese Song-dynasty landscape paintings. The written text included in these scrolls was composed, it is thought, by Ippen's disciple Shokai while the painting was done by En'i. This seventh scroll of the series depicts Ippen's travels in Kyoto and neighboring areas.

(2)Portrait of Minamoto no Yoritomo

This Kamakura period work, which has traditionally been thought to be a portrait of Japan's first shogun, Minamoto no Yoritomo, is a masterpiece of Japanese portrait painting and is kept at Jingoji Temple together with similar portraits which have traditionally been thought to depict Taira no Shigemori and Fujiwara no Mitsuyoshi. The subject is in formal dress, with a sword attached to his belt and with a staff in his right hand. The composition has a certain geometric simplicity and balance. The distinctly individual facial features and the overall form of the body, depicted to suggest dignity and authority, successfully express the youthful vigor and ambition of the subject. The artist is thought to be Fujiwara Takanobu (1142-1205), often called the founder of the portrait painting genre.

Page Top

• Scroll Painting(Emaki)
• Screen and Partition Painting(Shoheiga)
• Buddhist Painting(Butsuga)
• Ink Painting(Suibokuga)
• Litearati Painting(Bunjiga)
• History of Painting