Different Japanese Arts :

BUDDHIST ART

Like Japanese Buddhism itself, Japanese Buddhist art was a national variant of an international tradition. In Japan, the Buddhist art forms that were periodically introduced from China and Korea were tempered in the crucible of local custom, a usage, to yield a rich tradition of religious art and architecture.

Buddhism came to Japan in the 6th century from China and Korea. The art that first arrived in Japan was chiefly that of the Mahayana tradition, which was a theistic and catholic system of belief that stressed universal salvation and that was to remain the underlying framework of most sects of Buddhist belief and practice in Japan.

Right from the beginning, Buddhism in Japan engaged the concern and the patronage of ruling interests. The first forms of art were found in the temples and the monastic compounds. A tremendous amount of Buddhist art was commissioned for the halls and chapels of these temple complexes. Paintings and sculptures representing various Buddha's, Bodhisattvas and guardian deities were the icons to which worship was directed.

The apex of classical Buddhist art was reached in the construction of Todaji in 747. The temple's honzon, or principal object of worship, is a colossal gilt-bronze image-measuring some 15 meters (49 ft) in height of the cosmic Buddha called Birushana (Skt: Vairocana). A technical feat, this giant sculpture called the Nara Daibutsu ("Great Buddha or Nara") - came to symbolize the power, wealth, and intrusiveness of state-sanctioned Buddhism.

Another important movement in the development of Japanese art was that of Esoteric Buddhism. This form of belief was called 'Mikkyo' or "the secret teachings". The Buddha Dainichi, a cosmic force, became the organizing principle of esoteric Buddism and the focus of worship. Esotericism also involved a vastly enhanced pantheon of deities, many culled from non-Buddhist traditions, and an increased emphasis on elaborate ritual a s a means of harnessing power inherent in this pantheon.

The paintings and sculptures that filled Shingon and Tendai temples, in keeping with their function as iconic representations of esoteric deities, displayed an aesthetic and stylistic tenor appropriate to the mystery of ritual and meditation at a remote temple in a mountain setting. An important example of this tendency is seen in the 9th century set of five statures of the Bodhisattvas of the Void (Go Dai Kokuzo Bosatsu), each in painted wood, at Jingoji.

Also coincidental with the development of esotericism was a trend in sculpture toward the carving of Votive Statues out of single blocks of wood, their surfaces left unadorned with paint or lacquer in deference to the inherent sanctity of the sacred tree (shimboku). The principal examples of this "plain wood" style are the Yakushi figures at Gangoji (early 9th century) and at Jingoji (ca 783).

By the end of the 10th century, esoteric Buddhism gave way to Pure Land faith and practice. In the Pure Land Tradition, worship focussed on the Buddha Amida (Skt: Sukhavati). A celebrated example of Pure Land art and aesthetics is the amidado (Amida Hall), now called Phoenex Hall at Byodoin in Uji. It was constructed in 1053 by Fujiwara no Yormichi (992-1074) who was a great patron of Pure Land Buddhism and art.

Tendai monk Genshin's Ojoyoshu (985, The Essentials ofsacred tree Pure Land Rebirth) was one of the principle treatises of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism. In painting, a key Pure Land genre was the so-called raigozu ("welcoming pictures), in which Amidda and his heavenly entourage are shown arriving to welcome and guide the dying to paradise.

The 13th century saw the Zen sect taking hold among the ruling military elite and introduced new currents in art. Zen was disseminated by Japanese and Chinese monks. Zen monasteries emerged as seats of religious discourse and centres for the secular cultural activities for which the Zen monks became increasingly known. These include literary studies, poetry, painting and calligraphy.

Zen temples were very different from the architectural models used in other sects. They were very continental in flavour, layout, nomenclature, furnishings: and even structural details were derived from the Buddhist architecture of south central China. The typical Zen monastic compound, especially the semiautonomous sub-temple known as tatchu, usually incorporated a carefully composed small garden. In keeping with the austerity of Zen taste, some of these gardens, in a format called "rock and sand garden" (karesansui), were landscaped without the standard pond or stream; the flow of water was evoked through the raking of smooth sand and gravel. The impact of Zen aesthetics and doctrine was by no means limited to the monastic compound. The development of a pure landscape painting genre in Japan, as well as the emergence of a mature suibokuga (ink painting) tradition, owes much to the influence of Zen and Zen monk-painters.

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