|
SHOGUNThese dynastic changes in island kingdoms occurred in the same year, 1603; otherwise, there is no connection between them, for neither country was much concerned with the other. Moreover, Japan, which had seen its first European visitor only sixty years earlier, was on the verge of shutting out all foreigners. Under the Tokugawa shogunate, two and one-half centuries in duration, Japan was to become a closed society, remote, exotic, and mysterious. Ruling over this society was the Sei-i-tai-shogun, the “Barbarian-subduing Generalissimo.” Although Japan had, and still has, an Emperor in Kyoto, he was essentially the ceremonial head of state. Real power lay in the hands of the shogun, as befitted the military tradition of the nation. Japanese society was rigidly structured into a hierarchy of samurai, or warrior, farmer, artisan, and merchant—the lowest class. The leading figures in society were feudal aristocrats (daimyo), each with his own clan of highly trained soldiers, the samurai. Time and time again, as the daimyo competed for power, they plunged Japan into chaos. It was the shogun’s function as chief warlord to impose order and unity on the land. The first supreme shogun of Japan was Minamoto Yoritomo, who was so recognized by Emperor Go-Toba in A.D. 1192. By the time the Tokugawa family came to prominence, the shogunate had collapsed and the nation had endured a century of warring states. Building upon the work of two predecessors, Oda Nobunaga and Toyatomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa leyasu gained control of the nation and was named shogun in 1603. He established his military capital at Edo—modern Tokyo. To consolidate his power, leyasu isolated the Emperor by building a wall around the royal court in Kyoto and forbidding the courtiers to leave without his permission. Next he led his armies against the son of Toyatomi Hideyoshi, who, by right, should have succeeded his father as shogun. Once he had quelled these threats to his position, leyasu turned his attention to preserving the purity of Japanese culture. He closed Japan to all foreigners except Chinese and Dutch traders, and he banned the Christian religion. By 1637, when a revolt of Christians was smashed by a later Tokugawa shogun, Christianity was virtually eradicated from Japan, less than a century after it was introduced by Jesuit missionaries. The earliest religion in Japan was Shinto, or “The Way of the Spirits,” which holds that almost everything in nature possesses a spirit and that man is to live in harmony with nature. In the 6th century A.D., Buddhism was introduced into Japan from China. At first a religion of the aristocracy, Buddhism blended easily with Shinto and gained acceptance throughout the nation, for it stressed the ideals of peace, harmony, charity, and freedom from desire. Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Zen sect of Buddhism, with its emphasis upon meditation as opposed to logical analysis, gained great popularity. The samurai trained themselves in religious as well as military discipline, and the intense concentration required by Zen was especially beneficial to the warrior, who could overcome his enemy without apparent effort. Art was especially important to Zen, for it could provide a path to enlightenment. Many artists were also Zen priests, and they produced extremely simple styles of art and architecture which would promote meditation. But art was not confined merely to objects that were created. It also included such social events as the tea ceremony, a deliberately simple and rustic ritual that was designed to draw the participants into an intimate, meditative relationship. The host made and served tea to his guests with appropriate gestures of humility, and the tea itself was drunk from a bowl that passed from hand to hand to represent the sharing aspect of the occasion. As an event that led to an appreciation of the ties between man and nature, the tea ceremony required objects that suggest natural elements: clay, stone, wood, reeds, and bamboo. Long before the Tokugawa family ruled, the tea ceremony was established as the official form of social interaction for the warrior class. Just as there was an official ritual, so too was there an official form among the performing arts: the No play, which was decreed by leyasu in 1604 to be the official theatre of Japan. Brief, intense, and highly stylized, the No play is a dance/drama performed to musical accompaniment by actors who wear carved wooden masks and richly embroidered or brocaded robes. This drama was greatly admired at the Tokugawa court, and family members over generations accumulated a splendid collection of No masks and robes. While No was the drama of the elite, Kabuki was the popular drama of the nation. Highly spirited, melodramatic, and sumptuously costumed, Kabuki, like No, depended heavily upon visual appeal. Because the age of shoguns began officially in 1192, not too long after chivalry was accepted as the noble ideal for secular culture in Europe, it can be instructive to look for parallels that make Japan seem less remote and mysterious. Both cultures venerated the warrior; both were feudal societies, whose basic unit was the clan. Both the samurai and the knight came from the noble class, and both spent their life in training for warfare. Moreover, both were required by their profession to violate a basic religious tenet: taking the life of another. But chivalry died out in Europe as feudal lords came under the domination of a strong central monarch. In Japan the Tokugawa shoguns were able to preserve the Warrior Cult, at least as an idealized form, by sealing the nation off from the world. For more than 250 years the Japan of the Tokugawa shoguns existed in an isolation that became more and more splendid, more and more rigidly formalized. The world, however, would not bypass Japan forever. In 1854 the first Americans arrived to trade with the Japanese, and by 1868 they had played a major role in restoring the Emperor to authority above the shogun, for the first time in seven centuries. Tokugawa leyasu had been right, perhaps, to fear the influence of foreigners, for they helped bring the Age of Shoguns to an end. The Shogun Age was a major exhibition from the Tokugawa Art Museum, Japan, the first traveling exhibition to be displayed in the new Dallas Museum of Art. In collaboration with the Dallas Museum of Art, the Texas Humanities Resource Center organized a collection of resources for use in public humanities programs relating to the culture of Japan under the shoguns. These resources may be used at any time by any group or organization that wishes to learn more about Japanese history and culture and the relation of the Japanese past to present day international relations. Recommended Readings Bowie, Henry P. On the Laws of Japanese Painting: An Introduction to the Study of the Art of Japan. San Francisco: Paul Elder & Co., 1911. Castile, Rand. The Way of Tea. New York: Weatherhill, 1971. Kidder, J.E., Jr. Japan Before Buddhism. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966. Murasaki Shikubu. The Tale of Genji. Trans. Edward G. Seidensticker. 2 vols. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977. Ryukyu Saito. Japanese Ink-Painting: Lessons in Suiboku Technique. Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1959. The Shogun Age Exhibition (Exhibition Catalog). Japan: The Shogun Age Exhibition Executive Committee, 1983. Storry, Richard. The Way of the Samurai. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1978. Warner, Langdon. The Enduring Arts of Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1958. Wiencek, Henry. Lords of Japan. Chicago: Stonehenge Press, Inc., 1982. |