A Change of Power
The Kamakura period, from the late twelfth century to the early fourteenth, begins when a warrior government was set up in eastern Japan while the imperial court remained in Kyoto. The following Muromachi period, from the fourteenth century into the sixteenth, is named for the Kyoto district where the Ashikaga shoguns kept their headquarters. The Muromachi period ended in a century of civil conflict, yet the arts of these centuries were remarkably productive. Together, the two periods are often called medieval Japan.
The warriors were not simply rough soldiers who displaced a refined court. Many were literate, and they admired court poetry and ritual even as they developed their own values. The result was a mix of aristocratic heritage and warrior taste.
Sculpture with Energy
In the Kamakura period, Buddhist sculptors of the Kei school, associated with Nara, produced figures with powerful muscles, strong expressions and lifelike details. Guardian figures at temple gates are famous examples. Inlaid crystal eyes were used to give statues an intense gaze. This realism is often seen as a response to warrior taste, but it also reflected a return to earlier models and close observation. Compared with the serene figures of the Heian court, this Buddhist sculpture looks more dynamic and individual.
New Forms of Buddhism
Several new Buddhist movements emerged or grew during the Kamakura period. Pure Land teachings stressed reliance on Amida Buddha, and other groups emphasized chanting or meditation. Zen, brought from China by monks, found support among warriors and later became tied to the Ashikaga government. The relationship between Zen and the arts is complex, since Zen monks were also scholars who used Chinese poetry, painting and calligraphy. The links are complex, but a few points matter: Zen Buddhism’s monasteries were centers of learning and trade with the continent, and they became patrons of ink painting, garden design and tea.
Ink Painting
Monochrome painting in black ink, using brushwork and tonal washes, came from China and grew in Zen temples. Painters in Kyoto Zen monasteries produced landscapes, portraits of monks and studies of bamboo and birds. In time, artists developed a Japanese version of the style; the ink wash tradition grew from this base, and its use of empty space became central to the way ink painting is understood. A famed Zen monk-painter of the fifteenth century, Sesshu, is widely regarded as a master of landscape in ink, and his works are among the best-known of the period.
Noh Theatre
The Ashikaga shoguns supported performers who refined older entertainments into noh. Noh theatre combines chanting, stylized movement, music and masks, often telling stories of ghosts, gods and past events. The best-known early figures, a father and son named Kan’ami and Zeami, are credited with shaping the art and writing about its principles. Zeami’s writings discuss ideas of subtle, suggestive beauty, a theme connected to yugen beauty. Comic interludes called kyogen were performed between noh plays and remain part of the tradition.
Architecture and Gardens
The shogunate and Zen temples sponsored architecture that blended elements of the court and the monastery. Two famous pavilions in Kyoto, the Golden Pavilion (covered in gold leaf) and the Silver Pavilion (whose name does not mean it was covered in silver), were built as retreats for shoguns and later became temples. A style of room with tatami flooring, a built-in alcove and shelves took shape in this period, laying groundwork for later Japanese homes. Its parts, such as tatami mats and the tokonoma alcove, became standard features of Japanese rooms.
Gardens also developed new forms. Zen temples created austere landscapes of rock and gravel, a tradition now known as dry gardens, which suggest mountains and water without actual water. Their meaning is open to interpretation and should not be reduced to a single explanation.
Tea, Incense and Arranged Rooms
Drinking tea spread from monasteries to the warrior elite. Gatherings in which participants admired imported Chinese objects became fashionable, and over time a plainer approach appeared that valued quiet and modest utensils. This movement is the background to the later Japanese tea ceremony. Along with tea, the arts of flower arrangement and incense appreciation were refined in the shoguns’ circles, often with advisers who cared for the shogun’s collection of treasures.
Linked Verse and Literature
Poetry also changed. Renga, or linked verse, in which different poets take turns adding verses to a chain, became popular among both aristocrats and warriors. Its habit of shifting from image to image later fed into haiku. Tales of battle, recited by traveling storytellers, formed a kind of literature that reflected the new warrior world and its sense of impermanence.
A Mixed Inheritance
The Muromachi period ended in decades of warfare, which damaged Kyoto and many temples. Yet many of the core ideas of Japanese taste, such as restraint, suggestion, and appreciation of age and simplicity, took recognizable shape in this period. These ideas are close to what later writers call wabi-sabi, although that term should not be treated as an exact description of medieval taste.