Japanese art of looking into the distance. CraftsGirl

Himeji is one of the oldest castles in Japan.

Japanese Art of the Ancient Period
Japanese culture took shape and developed in special natural and historical conditions. Japan is located on four large and many small islands washed by the seas. Being on the very edge of the east, she experienced the periodically increasing, then again fading influence of such mainland cultures as China and Korea. Periods of interaction with the outside world were replaced in Japanese history by long centuries of cultural isolation (periods from the 10th to the 14th and from the 17th to the middle of the 19th centuries). The latter circumstance contributed to the development and consolidation of many unique features Japanese culture in general and art in particular. Acquaintance with the culture of the West took place in the 16th century, when the main features of the original Japanese civilization had already been formed. Until 1854, Japan traded with China and Holland through only one port.

From the ancient inhabitants of the Japanese islands - hunters and fishermen - came Stone axes, harpoons, arrowheads and hand-sculpted ceramic vessels discovered as a result of archaeological excavations, which received the name because of the “Jomon” pattern imprinted on them, which means “trace of the rope”. Therefore, the Neolithic culture in Japan is also called Jomon. Settlers arriving from Siberia, Polynesia, and later from Korea and China stood at different levels cultural development. This explains the fact that monuments of both the Neolithic era and the Bronze Age are found in some cultural layers. The Japanese language is close to the languages ​​of the Altaic group. When as a result of contacts with Chinese cultures oh, the Japanese got acquainted with Chinese hieroglyphic writing, it turned out to be very difficult to adapt Chinese hieroglyphics to convey oral Japanese speech.

The initial period of Japanese culture, about which reliable data have been preserved, is called the era of kofuns (mounds) - burials, the ground part of which was an earthen mound of a characteristic shape - a combination of a circle and a trapezoid, resembling a keyhole, which symbolized the union of earth and water. They were of considerable size, they were surrounded by a double ditch with water, grass grew over the mound, and along the inner perimeter of the mound there were hollow clay figures of people, animals, models of boats and houses from 30 cm to one and a half meters high. They were called "haniwa". Inside the burial chamber there were coffins with dead representatives of the nobility, where ritual objects were placed: a mirror, a dotaku bell, whose sound was supposed to scare away evil spirits and attract the gods - the patrons of the tillers. The burials of the Yamato kings always contained such ritual symbols of power as jade pendants and swords. To exalt the kings of the Yamato clan, the beginning of history was established, the hierarchy of the gods was determined, the deity Amaterasu (“Shining from heaven”) was singled out, which transferred power over Japanese islands kings of the Yamato clan. The name "Nippon" or "Nihon", meaning "land of the rising sun", appeared in the 7th century. In 608, trips to study in China began, which continued for more than two centuries.

Dotaku - ritual bronze bells - cylinders narrowed to the top, topped with wide loops with curly ledges, the walls of which are divided into squares filled with graphic images

The heterogeneous beliefs of the Japanese, which have many features of primitive animism and fetishism, are reflected in Shinto. Shinto ("the way of the gods") in its essence reflects the Japanese ideas about the universal spirituality of nature. A countless number of so-called "kami" (spirits) exist both in miraculous landscape objects, such as Lake Biwa and Mount Fuji, and in objects created by people - swords, mirrors, endowed by virtue of this magical properties. The Shinto shrine was distinguished by the simplicity of its wooden structure: a single-hall room was placed on stilts, surrounded on all sides by a veranda. The inside of the Shinto shrine was dim and empty. Believers did not enter the temple.

Para period (645-794 AD)

Nara is the name of the first capital and the only city of Japan at that time. This was the time of the establishment of Japanese statehood, the introduction of Buddhism and the creation of monuments of Buddhist art - temples, pagodas, various statues of Buddhist deities. Buddhism during this period was not so much the faith of the people as a continuation of the policy of the court. Various sects of Buddhism played a very significant role at the court, the land holdings of Buddhist monasteries grew, the monks had great influence at the court. Buddhist monasteries appear, which are groups of wooden buildings located on a rectangular walled area. Of particular importance was the wide alley leading to the front gate, the square in front of the temple, and the multi-tiered pagoda visible from afar. Wooden temples were painted with red lacquer, raised on stone foundations, and had wide curved double roofs - irimoya.

Among the early Buddhist temples are Asukadera, Horyuji, the construction of the latter was started in 607 at the behest of the then ruling Crown Prince Shotoku Taishi. The monastery consisted of 53 buildings located on an area of ​​90 thousand square meters. The facade of the temple faces south, the main buildings are located on the north-south axis, the sacred zone is north, there was a hall for sermons - kodo, kondo and a five-tiered pagoda. In Horyuji there were 265 statues, the main sculptural image was the trinity of Shakyamuni, represented by a sculpture of the founder of the creed, accompanied by two bodhisattvas. In the 8th century at large monasteries there were already workshops of sculptors. The cult of the bodhisattva Kannon spread, whose name was a translation of the Sanskrit name Avalokiteshvara (Attention to the sounds of the world). Filled with compassion for living beings, a bodhisattva is able to listen to the sounds of those who suffer, wherever they are. The cult of Avalokiteshvara originated in northwestern India and spread to China. In the Lotus Sutra, it was said that the bodhisattva took on the form of those beings that call to him. In Japan, the spread of the cult of Kannon led to the appearance of a large number of her images - the saint Kannon helping in hell, Kannon with the head of a horse spreads mercy on cattle, evil spirits - asuras are saved by the thousand-armed Kannon, Kannon with a fishing forest saves people.

Heian period (794-1185)

In 794 the capital of the state was moved to the city of Heian (now Kyoto). During the Heian period, a sophisticated court culture flourished. A Japanese syllabary was created - kana (jap. - a borrowed hieroglyph). At first, only women used this script, while the official script continued to be Chinese. During the X century. women's writing began to be used in private practice. In the XI century. the heyday of Japanese classical literature began, a brilliant example of it is the novel "Genji Monogatari", created by the court lady Murasaki Shikibu.

In the art of Heian, the main place is occupied by Buddhist images of the esoteric sects Tendai and Shingon who came from China at that time, who taught that all living beings have the essence of the Buddha. By training the spirit and body, by fulfilling the vows, anyone is able to acquire the essence of the Buddha in the process of several rebirths. The temples of these sects were built on the tops of mountains and rocky ledges, the chapels in them were divided into two parts. Inside, where the sacred image was located, ordinary believers were not allowed.

The Heian era is a time of luxury for the ruling circles. At this time, the type of dwellings shinden was formed. The walls and the conditions of a warm climate were not capital and did not have a reference value. They could very easily be moved apart, replaced by more durable ones for cold weather, or removed altogether in warm weather. There were also no windows. Instead of glass, white paper was stretched over the lattice frame, letting in a dim diffused light into the room. The wide cornice of the roof protected the walls from dampness and sunlight. interior, devoid of permanent furniture, had sliding partition walls, thanks to which it was possible to create, at will, either a hall or several small isolated rooms, the floor was covered with straw mats - tatami, of the same size (180 by 90 cm).

Confucian and Buddhist texts were brought from China during the Heian period. Often they were decorated with images. Initially, Japanese artists copied Chinese "famous places", but starting from the 10th century. turn to the image of landscapes and customs home country. “Yamato-e” painting is designed, which differed from Chinese painting by using themes from Japanese poetry, short stories, novels, or from folk legends. The painting got its name from the name of the Yamato region - the southwestern part of the island of Honshu, where the statehood of Japan was formed.
The image often represented a scroll of illustrations with the corresponding text, which was taken by hand and spun from right to left, while reading the corresponding section, the illustration following it was considered.

Yamato-e painting peaked in the late Heian period. At this time, professional artists appeared who painted pictures on secular subjects on screens, sliding partitions (shoji) and scrolls - emakimono. The oldest of the scrolls is the Genji Monogatari. Emakimano scrolls were pictures-tales. The scroll of "Genji-monogatari-emaki", the famous novel by Murasaki Shikibu, has survived to this day, depicting the idle life of the aristocracy in vivid colors, it is a synthesis of calligraphy, literature and painting. In the surviving 19 of the 54 chapters of the novel, there is no single plot and through action in the illustrations. Most of the depicted scenes take place in interiors, everything visible is shown from above, there is no single vanishing point of lines, large-scale correspondence of figures and architecture, the faces of all characters are the same, only hairstyles and clothes are different. The main subject of the artist's attention is the transfer of the emotional content of the events taking place in the novel, which were well known to everyone. The main techniques are the construction of space and the use of color possibilities. To convey the inner state of the characters and the atmosphere of each scene, it is important for the artist at what angle in relation to the lower edge of the scroll the diagonal lines are directed, denoting either the beams of the structures, or the cornices of the curtains, or the edge of the veranda. Depending on the degree of emotional tension, this angle varies from 30 to 54 degrees.

Bodhisattva - Kannon appears in China, Korea and Japan mainly in female form, in hands with a jug, a willow branch and a lasso

In the houses of aristocrats there were no partitions, on screens and curtains best artists painted pictures of yamato-e. Yamato-e paintings were unity with literary works, which were also placed on screens and curtains. In anthologies of poetry of the X-XIII centuries. verses written on screens of the 9th-10th centuries are not uncommon. The largest number of such poems is contained in the anthology "Sui-shu". Just as poetry was about the four seasons, so was painting for screens. In line with folk songs, a certain system of poetic formulas developed, and then became the basis of Japanese classical poetics. So, the sign of spring was a misty haze, a willow tree, a sign of summer - a cuckoo, cicadas, autumn - scarlet maple leaves, a deer, a moon, winters - snow and plum flowers.

Kyoto is an ancient gem of Japan.

The abundance of homonyms in the language made it possible to give the verses many meanings. Themes and plots made it possible, through a detail or a hint, in an extremely concise poetic form (31 syllables per tanka), to express the diversity of all shades of emotional states. There was a gradual transition from screens with texts to screens without text. This is how the actual pictorial genre subdivisions developed - shiki-e (“pictures of the four seasons”) and mei-se-e(“pictures of famous places”).
The composition of such paintings did not correspond to any of the categories of Chinese painting. The greatest fusion of nature and man will become characteristic of various genres of Japanese art.

Kamakura period (1185-1333) and Muromachi period (1333-1568)

At the end of the 12th century, the capital was moved again, power in the country as a result of a bloody civil strife was seized by the Minamoto clan, whose head moved the capital to his settlement of Kamakura, whose name became the name of the next stage in the history of Japan. The military class of the samurai came to power in the country, from among which came the shoguns - the actual military rulers of Japan, the emperor, who remained in Nara, retained only nominal attributes of power. The sophistication of the court culture of the samurai preferred simplicity. The monasteries of the Zen sect no longer included pagodas, the temples resembled rural huts. From the end of the XIII century. under the influence of the pantheistic ideas of the Zen sect, the landscape began to embody the idea of ​​the presence of Buddhist deities in any landscape objects. In the monasteries of Kamakura, the iconography of portraits of the Minsk Patriarch has developed: a seated and calm pose with an emphasized characteristic of the face, the hypnotic power of the gaze. Under the influence of the Zen sect, sculpture is relegated to the background, painting, especially landscape painting, expresses the attitude of the people of this era.

The Muromachi period begins with the events of 1333, when the feudal lords of the southeastern regions of the island of Honshu captured and burned Kamakura, returning the capital to Heian. It was a time of internal strife and wars of feudal clans. Leading for the time of troubles was the teaching of the adherents of the Zen sect that, having achieved unity with nature, one can come to terms with the hardships of life and achieve unity with the world. First place in Japanese art under the influence of the Zen teaching that the “body” of the Buddha is nature, landscape painting comes to the fore. In the second half of the XII century. painting with black ink penetrated into Japan from China. The Japanese who predominantly practiced such painting were members of the Zen sect. They created a new style that explained the new creed (shigaku - a combination of painting and poetry). 15th and 16th centuries - the time of the maximum flourishing of ink painting, the leading master of which was Sesshu Toyo (1420-1506). In parallel with this style, the yamato-e style also existed.

Changes in socio-political relations, which brought the military class to the fore, also led to the appearance in the 16th century. architectural style"sein". The previously single volume of the house is now divided with the help of sliding doors (shoji), sliding partitions (fusuma). A special place for classes appeared in the rooms - a shelf for books and a window with a wide window sill and a niche (tokonoma) where a bouquet or a stone of a whimsical shape was placed and a vertical scroll was hung.

In the XVI century. In the history of Japanese architecture, tea pavilions appear in connection with the need for the correct conduct of the tea ceremony. Tea was brought to Japan during the Kamakura period by Buddhist monks as a potion. The tea ritual (cha-no-yu) was introduced at the initiative of the Zen monk Murata Shuko and required a special method for its implementation. So it happened new type architectural structure - chashitsu (pavilion for the tea ceremony), in its constructive basis it was close to a residential building, and in its function - to a Buddhist temple. The supports of the tea pavilion were wooden, the ceiling was finished with bamboo or reed. Inside a hut lined with mats, 1.5 or 2 tatami with adobe walls, small windows of different levels, a tokonoma niche with a hanging monochrome landscape and a flower in a vase, there was a hearth, a shelf for utensils.

During the Muromachi period, the art of gardening flourished. Japanese gardens are different. Small gardens are most often located at temples or associated with a traditional home, they are designed to be viewed. Large landscaped gardens are designed to be perceived from the inside.

Kondo - (jap. golden hall) - main temple Buddhist complex containing icons, statues, wall paintings

The Zen temple garden was built according to the principle of a monochrome landscape scroll. Instead of a sheet of paper, the artist used the expanse of a lake or a platform covered with pebbles, instead of stains and washouts of the thick - stones, mosses, foliage of trees and shrubs. Gradually, flowers disappeared from the garden, they were replaced by mosses and shrubs, stones began to be used instead of bridges. Some gardens were landscape, hilly (tsukiyama). Tsukiyama gardens were a combination of natural elements such as rocks, mosses, trees, ponds, with an obligatory pavilion on the shore. The oldest landscape garden is located in Kyoto and belongs to the Sohoji Monastery. Dry gardens were called "hiraniva", i.e. flat. Hiraniva is a "philosophical" garden, as he demanded a developed imagination from the viewer. The hiraniwa garden “was left of stones, sand, pebbles. Closed on three sides by a wall that surrounded it, the garden was intended only for contemplation. At the end of the XV century. created one of the most famous dry gardens in the Ryoanji monastery. It includes 15 stones located on a rectangular gravel area. In the hiraniwa garden of Daitokuji Monastery, created in 1509, nature is represented by compositions of stones and pebbles. One of the parts of the garden was called the "ocean of the void" and consists of two low pebble hills in the middle of a rectangular area. Gardens could complement each other.

At the end of the XV century. the court school of decorative painting Kano was formed. The founder of the school Kano Masanobu (1434-1530) came from a military class, becoming a recognized court professional artist. His landscapes had only the foreground, everything else was covered with a foggy haze. The emphasis on one particular subject of the image would become characteristic of the Kano school. The main place in the work of the artists of the Kano school was occupied by decorative wall paintings and screens with genre painting. Wall paintings have become the main component of the synthesis with the architectural form and a means of influencing the figurative meaning of the architectural space. In turn, the features of the architectural form required certain stylistic qualities of the paintings, which is why a new stylistic canon was gradually formed, which was preserved in Japanese painting until the 19th century.

Shinden is a type of residential building. Rectangular in plan, the single-hall main building, facing the square with its southern facade, and framed by galleries from the east and west

Momoyama period (1X73-1614)

And this time the era of feudal wars came to an end, power in the country passed to successive military dictators - Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Iyaesu Tokugawa. It was a time of urban growth, the secularization and democratization of culture, the penetration of new value orientations. Cult architecture has lost its former significance. The new rulers of Japan declared their power by building grandiose castles, the construction of which was caused by the appearance of firearms in Japan and a corresponding change in combat and defense tactics. The castle has become a fundamentally new type of Japanese architecture. The asymmetrically located territory of the castle, surrounded by a moat and guard and corner towers, included a central square and many courtyards and rooms, underground shelters and passages. The living quarters were located in a wooden building located on the territory of the castle with a strict hierarchy of the internal space, reflecting the social hierarchy. The interiors of the castles, immersed in twilight, were best suited for decorative wall paintings, grandiose in size, filled with bright colors on a golden background.

Kano Eitoku (1543-1590). The creator of a new style of murals, designed to glorify military dictators. He first developed the principle of a single composition on large horizontal surfaces, enlarging the forms, abandoning small parts to convey not only silhouettes, but also the dynamics of their forms. Eitoku is characterized by the desire to increase the flatness of the picture, to enhance its decorative qualities. So, in places symbolizing empty space, there are spots with an admixture of gold powder. The space of the composition unfolded not in depth, but along the gaze.
In 1576, on the shores of Lake Biwa, a hitherto unknown castle was erected with a colossal seven-story tower, which was supposed to demonstrate the power of the dictator Oda Nobunaga. A feature of the castle was the presence of not only official, but also private chambers. The main decorations of the rooms were wall paintings, which were commissioned to be carried out by Kano Eitoku, who worked on them for three years with a large group of assistants. Kano Eitoku, who was hurried by the dictator with the execution of the order, began to enlarge the forms, using a thick brush made of rice straw, resorting to a laconic artistic language. The main place was occupied by the image of trees, flowers, birds and animals. The color scheme was bright, there was no color nuance.

The change in the social situation in the country after the Tokugawa shoguns came to power led to a ban on the construction of castles.
In the work of artists of the first third of the XVII century. new traits begin to take over. In painting, the desire for balanced, calm compositions, the growth of ornamental forms, the interest in the culture of the Heian era and the works of yamato-e became more noticeable. A distinctive feature of the Kano school of this time is ornamentality and increased decorativeness. When in the second quarter of the XVII century. the construction of castles was forbidden, the screen became the main form of decorative painting. The monumentality of Kano Eitoku left decorative painting. Art acquired a personal coloring that influenced its stylistic qualities. Decorative painting XVII V. most often inspired by the heroes and themes of classical literature, reflecting the range of interests of the tribal aristocracy, and the dachshund of the emerging bourgeois elite. Decorative painting developed in the old capital - Kyoto.

Ogata Korin became the spokesman for the taste of new consumers of art - city dwellers, merchants and artisans. new representative Kano schools.

Emakimano is a horizontal scroll made of paper or silk pasted on a base framed with a brocade border with a wooden roller at the end.

Ogata Korin (1658-1716) lived like a rich rake, constantly visiting the "fun districts". Only after the ruin, faced with the severe need to earn a living, he began to paint fabrics and painting. Ogata Korin dealt with both ceramics and lacquerware, painted kimonos and fans. How
master, he began by getting to know traditional painting and her methods. Korin always strived for compactness, balance of forms, salient feature creative manner - focus on the development of several plot motifs, their repeated repetition and variation. In the work of Ogata Korin, for the first time, work from life appeared. In the painting of the screen “Red and White Plum Tree”, the plot motif taken by Korin goes back to classical poetry with its images of early spring and awakening nature. On both sides of the stream, on a golden background, flowering trees are written: a stocky, with a thick curved trunk and almost vertically rising branches, a red plum tree and another, indicated only by the foot of the trunk and sharply curved, as if falling to the water, and therefore suddenly shot up a branch, strewn with white flowers.

Kano Eitoku hawk on a pine tree. Screen. Detail from the end of the 16th century.

Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743), unlike his elder brother Ogata Korin, gravitated toward spiritual values ​​from his youth, was a follower of Zen Buddhism, knew Chinese and Japanese classic literature, theater Noh, tea ritual. On the territory belonging to the Ninnaji temple, Kenzan received permission to build his own ceramic kiln, which produced products for 13 years until 1712. He did not strive for profitability, he was guided by the idea of ​​​​creating highly artistic products. For the first time, he used traditional ink painting techniques in volumetric painting. Kenzan began to use color, he wrote on a damp shard, the porous clay absorbed the paint, like paper in ink painting. Like his great contemporary poet Basho, who turned the popular low genre of haiku into a revelation, Ogata Kenzan showed that ordinary ceramic plates, cups, vases can be both utilitarian objects and at the same time poetic masterpieces of art.

Edo period (1614-1868)

In 1615, samurai were resettled from Kyoto to Edo. The importance of the class of merchants, merchants and usurers, concentrated in Mara, Kyoto and Osaka, increased. For representatives of these social groups was characterized by a secular perception of life, the desire to free themselves from the influence of feudal morality. For the first time, art addresses the themes of everyday life, including the life of the so-called. fun neighborhoods - the world of tea houses, Kabuki theater, sumo wrestlers. The appearance of woodcuts was associated with the democratization of culture, since engravings are characterized by circulation, cheapness and accessibility. After household painting engraving became known as ukiyo-e (literally - the mortal changeable world).

The production of engravings has gained a wide scope. The early period in the development of ukiyo-e graphics is associated with the name of Hasikawa Moronobu (1618-1694), who depicted uncomplicated scenes from the life of the inhabitants of tea houses, artisans, combining events at different times, unrelated to each other, on one engraving. The background of the engravings remained white, the lines were clear. Gradually, the range of topics of engravings expanded, the interest not only in the external, but also in the inner world of the characters became deeper. Japanese engraving in 1780-1790. enters its heyday. Suzuki Haranobu (1725-1770) first began to reveal inner world heroes in such engravings as “Beauties plucking a plum branch”, “Lovers in a snow-covered garden”. He was the first to use the rolling technique, which creates a transition from dark to light tone, varied the thickness and texture of the lines. He never cared about real colors, the sea in his engravings is pink, the sky is sandy, the grass is blue, everything depends on the general emotional mood scenes. One of his best works, “Lovers Playing the Same Shamisen,” was inspired by the Japanese proverb “If music promotes love, play.”

Tokonoma - a niche in the interior of a tea house

Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) - an outstanding ukiyo-e master. His work began with the albums "The Book of Insects", "Songs of Shells". In his half-length, bust-length portraits of women, Utamaro for the first time uses mica powder, which creates a shimmering background. Perfect beauty Utamaro with a graceful shape and fit of the head,
thin neck, small mouth, short black eyebrows. In the series "Ten female characters"and" Days and hours of women "he sought to identify different types of appearance and character of women. In the late 90s. in Utamaro addresses the theme of motherhood in such engravings as "Mother with Child" and "Ball Game", at the same time he creates triptychs and polyptychs on historical themes, resorting to indirect designation (the heroes of the country are depicted as beauties). Teshusai Shyaraku created a series of portraits of kabuki theater actors and sumo wrestlers. He abandoned the generally accepted traditions, making the grotesque his main technique. The third period in the development of ukiyo-e prints falls on 1800-1868. At this time, the influence of Dutch and German etchings on Japanese art increased. For the creativity of the artistic dynasty Utagawa, the rejection of the search for individuality, the desire for formal elegance became the characters. The heyday of the landscape genre in engraving is associated with the name of Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Hokusai studied ancient and modern Japanese art, knew the art of China and got acquainted with European engraving. Until almost 50 years old, Hokusai worked in the traditional manner of ukiyo-e artists. Only in the Manga albums (a book of sketches), the first volume of which was published in 1812, did Hokusai find his field of art. Now he painted everyday scenes, landscapes, crowds.

japan landscape gardens

At the age of 70, Hokusai created his series "36 Views of Mount Fuji", on each of the engravings the artist depicts Mount Fuji. The combination of the genre theme with the landscape is a feature of Hokusai. Unlike the ancient landscape painters, Hokusai shows the earth from below. At the same time, he creates the series "Journey through the waterfalls of the country", "Bridges", "Big Flowers", "100 Views of Fuji". Hokusai could convey things from an unexpected angle. In the 100 Views of Fuji engravings, the mountains either emerge from the darkness of the night, like a vision, or are visible behind the bamboo stalks, or are reflected in the lake. Hokusai's follower Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858) painted nature much more realistically. A river agent by profession, he traveled a lot around the country, creating his series "53 Tokaido Stations", "8 Views of Lake Omi", "69 Views of Kishikaido". The art of Hiroshige approaches European painting, completing the two-hundred-year heyday of ukiyo-e engraving.

Artelino

The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) is one of the most famous prints and the first sheet of the Thirty-six Views of Fuji series. In the early 1830s, Katsushika Hokusai, commissioned by the Eijudo publishing house, began to create a series of 46 sheets (36 main and 10 additional), and The Great Wave off Kanagawa was an engraving that opens the whole series.

Such collections of engravings served as a kind of "virtual travel" for the townspeople of that time, a convenient and inexpensive way to satisfy curiosity. Fuji-like prints cost about 20 mon - about the same as a double portion of noodles in a Japanese eatery of the time. However, the success was so great that by 1838 the cost of Hokusai's sheets had grown to almost 50 mon, and after the death of the master, the Wave alone was reprinted from new boards more than 1000 times.

Surprisingly, despite the stated theme of the entire series, Fuji in The Wave seems to play a secondary role. The main "character" in this engraving is a wave, and in the foreground a dramatic scene of a man's struggle with the elements unfolds. The edges of the foam crest look like the twisted fingers of a fantastic angry demon, and the facelessness and inactivity of the human figures in the boats leave no doubt who will be the winner in this fight. However, it is not this confrontation that is the conflict that creates the plot of the engraving.
By stopping the moment after which the boats crash, Hokusai allows the viewer to see Fuji for a moment against the gray sky, darkening towards the horizon. Although Japanese engravers were already familiar with the principles of European linear and aerial perspective, they did not feel the need for this reception. The dark background, as well as the long journey of the eye from the foreground with boats through the movement of the wave to Fuji, convince the eye that the sacred mountain is separated from us by the expanse of the sea.

Fuji rises far from the shore as a symbol of stability and constancy, as opposed to the stormy elements. The unity and interdependence of opposites underlay the idea of ​​cosmic order and absolute harmony in the worldview of the Far East, and it was they that became the main theme of the engraving "The Great Wave off Kanagawa", which opened the series by Katsushika Hokusai.

"Beauty Nanivaya Okita" by Kitagawa Utamaro, 1795-1796

Art Institute of Chicago

Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) can rightly be called the singer of female beauty in Japanese prints. ukiyo-e: he created a number of canonical images of Japanese beauties ( bijinga) - the inhabitants of tea houses and the famous entertainment quarter Yoshiwara in the capital of Japan, Edo edo — the name of Tokyo until 1868..

In bijinga engraving, everything is not quite what it seems to the modern viewer. Richly dressed noble ladies were, as a rule, engaged in a shameful craft and belonged to the lower class, and engravings with portraits of beauties had an openly advertising function. At the same time, the engraving did not give an idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe appearance of the girl, and although Okita from the Nanivaya tea house near the Asakusa temple was considered the first beauty of Edo, her face in the engraving is completely devoid of individuality.

Since the 10th century, female images in Japanese art have been subject to the canon of minimalism. "Line-eye, hook-nose" - technique hikime-kagihana allowed the artist only to indicate that a certain woman was depicted: in Japanese traditional culture, the issue of physical beauty was often omitted. In women of noble birth, the “beauty of the heart” and education were much more valued, and the inhabitants of the cheerful quarters strove to imitate the highest examples in everything. According to Utamaro, Okita was truly beautiful.

The sheet “Beauty Nanivaya Okita” was printed in 1795-1796 in the series “Famous Beauties Likened to Six Immortal Poets”, in which one of the writers of the 9th century corresponded to each beauty. On the sheet with a portrait of Okita in the upper left corner there is an image of Arivara no Narihira (825-880), one of the most revered poets in Japan, to whom the novel Ise Monogatari is traditionally attributed. This noble nobleman and brilliant poet also became famous for his love affairs, some of which formed the basis of the novel.

This sheet is a peculiar use of the technique mitate(comparisons) in Japanese engraving. The qualities of an authoritative “prototype” are transferred to the depicted beauty, and the elegant courtesan, with a serene face serving the guest a cup of tea, is already read by the viewer as a lady skilled in poetry and deeds of love. The comparison with Arivara no Narihira was truly a recognition of her superiority among the Edo beauties.

At the same time, Utamaro creates a surprisingly lyrical image. Balancing dark and light spots on the leaf and outlining the form with melodious, elegant lines, he creates a truly perfect image of grace and harmony. "Advertising" recedes, and the beauty captured by Utamaro remains timeless.

Screen "Irises" by Ogata Korin, 1710s

Wikimedia Commons / Nezu Museum, Tokyo

A pair of six-panel iris screens - now a national treasure of Japan - were created by Ogata Korin (1658-1716) around 1710 for the Nishi Hongan-ji temple in Kyoto.

Since the 16th century, painting on wall panels and paper screens has become one of the leading genres of decorative art in Japan, and Ogata Korin, the founder of the Rinpa art school, was one of its greatest masters.

Screens in the Japanese interior played an important role. The spacious palace premises were structurally no different from the dwellings of a simple Japanese: they had almost no internal walls, and the space was zoned with folding screens. Just a little over one and a half meters high, the screens were designed for the common Japanese tradition of all classes to live on the floor. In Japan, high chairs and tables were not used until the 19th century, and the height of the screen, as well as the composition of its painting, is designed for the view of a person sitting on his knees. It is with this point of view that an amazing effect arises: the irises seem to surround the seated person - and a person can feel himself on the banks of the river, surrounded by flowers.

Irises are painted in a non-contour manner - almost impressionistic, wide strokes of dark blue, lilac and purple tempera convey the lush magnificence of this flower. The picturesque effect is enhanced by the dull shimmer of gold, against which irises are depicted. The screens depict nothing but flowers, but their angular line of growth suggests that the flowers bend around the winding course of the river or the zigzags of wooden bridges. It would be natural for the Japanese to see a bridge missing from the screen, a special "bridge of eight planks" ( yatsuhashi listen)), associated with irises in classical Japanese literature. The novel Ise Monogatari (9th century) describes the sad journey of a hero expelled from the capital. Having settled down with his retinue to rest on the river bank near the Yatsuhashi bridge, the hero, seeing irises, remembers his beloved and composes poems:

my beloved in clothes
Graceful there, in the capital,
Love left...
And I think with longing how much
I'm far from her... Translation by N.I. Konrad.

“So he folded, and everyone shed tears on their dried rice, so that it swelled with moisture,” adds the author and lyric hero of the story, Arivara no Narihira.

For an educated Japanese, the connection between irises by the bridge and Ise monogatari, irises and the theme of parted love was clear, and Ogata Korin avoids verbosity and illustrativeness. With the help of decorative painting, he only creates an ideal space filled with light, color and literary connotations.

Kinkakuji Golden Pavilion, Kyoto, 1397

Yevgen Pogoryelov / flickr.com, 2006

The Golden Temple is one of the symbols of Japan, which, ironically, was glorified more by its destruction than by its construction. In 1950, a mentally unstable monk of the Rokuonji Monastery, to which this building belongs, set fire to a pond standing on the surface of the
pavilion During a fire in 1950, the temple was almost destroyed. Restoration work in Kinkaku-ji began in 1955, by 1987 the reconstruction as a whole was completed, but the restoration of the completely lost interior decoration continued until 2003.. The true motives of his act remained unclear, but in the interpretation of the writer Yukio Mishima, the unattainable, almost mystical beauty of this temple was to blame. Indeed, for several centuries, Kinkakuji was considered the epitome of Japanese beauty.

In 1394, Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), who subjugated almost all of Japan to his will, formally retired and settled in a purpose-built villa in northern Kyoto. The three-tiered building on the artificial lake Kyokoti ("lake-mirror") played the role of a kind of hermitage, a secluded pavilion for relaxation, reading and prayer. It contained a collection of paintings by the shogun, a library and a collection of Buddhist relics. Located on the water near the shore, Kinkakuji had only boat communication with the shore and was the same island as the artificial islands with stones and pine trees scattered around Kyokoti. The idea of ​​the "island of the celestials" was borrowed from Chinese mythology, in which the island of Penglai, the island of the immortals, served as the image of the heavenly abode. The reflection of the pavilion in the water already evokes Buddhist associations with ideas about the illusory nature of the mortal world, which is only a pale reflection of the splendor of the world of Buddhist truth.

Although all these mythological overtones are speculative, the location of the pavilion gives it an amazing harmony and harmony. Reflection hides the squatness of the building, making it taller and slimmer; at the same time, it is the height of the pavilion that makes it possible to see it from any bank of the pond, always against a dark background of greenery.

It remains, however, not entirely clear how golden this pavilion was in original form. Probably, under Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, it really was covered with gold leaf and protective layer varnish. But if you believe the photographs of the 19th - early 20th century and Yukio Mishima, then by the middle of the 20th century the gilding had almost peeled off and its remains were visible only on the upper tier of the building. At this time, he rather touched the soul with the charm of desolation, the traces of time, inexorable even to the most beautiful things. This melancholy charm corresponded to the aesthetic principle sabi highly revered in Japanese culture.

One way or another, the splendor of this building was not at all in gold. The exquisite severity of Kinkakuji's forms and its impeccable harmony with the landscape make it one of the masterpieces of Japanese architecture.

Bowl "Iris" in the style of karatsu, XVI-XVII centuries

Diane Martineau /pinterest.com/The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The word meibutsu- a thing with a name. Only the name of this cup really survived, since neither the exact time and place of its creation, nor the name of the master have been preserved. Nevertheless, it is listed among the national treasures of Japan and is one of the brightest examples of ceramics in the national style.

At the end of the 16th century, the tea ceremony cha-no-yu abandoned the sophisticated Chinese porcelain and ceramics with glazes reminiscent of precious materials. Their spectacular beauty seemed too artificial and frank to the tea masters. Perfect and expensive items - bowls, water vessels and tea caddies - did not correspond to the almost ascetic spiritual canons of Zen Buddhism, in the spirit of which the tea ceremony developed. A real revolution in tea action was the appeal to Japanese ceramics, much simpler and artless at a time when the workshops of Japan had just begun to master the technologies of continental pottery.

The shape of the Iris bowl is simple and irregular. The slight curvature of the walls, the potter's dents visible all over the body give the bowl an almost naive ease. The clay shard is covered with light glaze with a network of cracks - craquelure. On the front side, which addresses the guest during the tea ceremony, an image of an iris is applied under the glaze: the drawing is naive, but executed with an energetic brush, exactly, as if in one movement, in the spirit of Zen calligraphy. It seems that both the form and the decor could have been made spontaneously and without the application of special forces.

This spontaneity reflects the ideal wabi- simplicity and artlessness, giving rise to a sense of spiritual freedom and harmony. Any person or even an inanimate object in the views of Japanese followers of Zen Buddhism has the enlightened nature of the Buddha, and the adept's efforts are aimed at discovering this nature in himself and the world around him. The things used in the tea ceremony, for all their clumsiness, should have evoked a deep experience of the truth, the relevance of every moment, forced to peer into the most ordinary forms and see true beauty in them.

The contrast to the rough texture of the bowl and its simplicity is the restoration with a small chipped gold lacquer (this technique is called kintsugi). The restoration was carried out in the 18th century and demonstrates the reverence with which Japanese tea masters treated utensils for the tea ceremony. So the tea ceremony provides the participants with a "way" to discover the true beauty of things, such as the Iris bowl. Implicity, secrecy has become the basis of the aesthetic concept of wabi and an important part of the Japanese worldview.

Portrait of Monk Gandzin, Nara, 763

Toshodaiji, 2015

In the VIII century, sculpture became the main form of artistic expression of the era, the Nara era (710-794), associated with the formation of Japanese statehood and the strengthening of Buddhism. Japanese masters have already passed the stage of apprenticeship and blind imitation of continental techniques and images and began to freely and vividly express the spirit of their time in sculpture. The spread and growth of the authority of Buddhism caused the appearance of a Buddhist sculptural portrait.

One of the masterpieces of this genre is the portrait of Gandzin, created in 763. Made in the technique of dry lacquer (by building up layers of lacquer on a wooden frame covered with fabric), the almost life-size sculpture was realistically painted, and in the twilight of the temple, Ganjin sat in a pose of meditation “as if alive”. This lifelikeness was the main cult function of such portraits: the teacher had to always be within the walls of the Todaiji monastery in the city of Nara and be present at the most important divine services.

Later, in the 11th-13th centuries, sculptural portraits reached an almost merciless illusionism, depicting the senile infirmity of venerable teachers, their sunken mouths, sagging cheeks and deep wrinkles. These portraits look at the adherents of Buddhism with living eyes, inlaid with rock crystal and wood. But Gandzin's face seems blurry, there are no clear contours and clear forms in it. Eyelids of half-closed and unencrusted eyes appear swollen; the tense mouth and deep nasolabial folds express habitual caution rather than the concentration of meditation.

All these features reveal the dramatic biography of this monk, the story of amazing asceticism and tragedies. Ganjin, a Chinese Buddhist monk, was invited to Japan for the consecration ceremony of Nara's largest monastery, Todaiji. The ship was captured by pirates, priceless scrolls and Buddhist sculptures that were intended for a distant Japanese temple were lost in the fire, Ganjin burned his face and lost his sight. But he did not leave the desire to preach on the far outskirts of civilization - namely, how Japan was perceived by the continent at that time.

Several more attempts to cross the sea ended in the same unsuccessful way, and only on the fifth attempt, the already middle-aged, blind and sickly Ganjin reaches the Japanese capital of Nara.

In Japan, Ganjin did not teach Buddhist law for long: the dramatic events of his life undermined his health. But his authority was so high that, probably, even before his death, it was decided to create his sculpture. Undoubtedly, the artist-monks sought to give the sculpture as much resemblance to the model as possible. But this was not done to save appearance of a person, but to capture his individual spiritual experience, that difficult path that Ganjin went through and to which the Buddhist teaching called.

Daibutsu - Big Buddha of Todaiji Temple, Nara, mid-8th century

Todd/flickr.com

In the middle of the 8th century, Japan suffered from natural disasters and epidemics, and the intrigues of the influential Fujiwara family and the rebellion they raised forced Emperor Shomu to flee the capital, the city of Nara. In exile, he vowed to follow the path of Buddhist teachings and in 743 ordered the construction of the main temple of the country to begin and the casting of a colossal bronze statue Buddha Vairochana (Buddha Great Sun or All Illuminating Light). This deity was considered the universal incarnation of Buddha Shakyamuni, the founder of Buddhist teachings, and was supposed to become the guarantor of the protection of the emperor and the whole country during the period of unrest and rebellion.

Work began in 745 and was modeled on the giant Buddha statue in the Longmen cave temples near the Chinese capital Luoyang. The statue in Nara, like any image of the Buddha, was supposed to show "great and small signs of the Buddha." This iconographic canon included elongated earlobes, reminiscent of the fact that Buddha Shakyamuni came from a princely family and from childhood wore heavy earrings, an elevation on the top of his head (ushnisha), a dot on his forehead (urn).

The height of the statue was 16 meters, the width of the face was 5 meters, the length of the outstretched palm was 3.7 meters, and the urn was larger than a human head. The construction took 444 tons of copper, 82 tons of tin and a huge amount of gold, the search for which was specially undertaken in the north of the country. A hall, the Daibutsuden, was erected around the statue to protect the shrine. In its small space, a slightly bowed seated Buddha figure fills the entire space, illustrating one of the main postulates of Buddhism - the idea that the deity is omnipresent and all-pervading, it embraces and fills everything. The transcendental calmness of the face and the gesture of the deity's hand (mudra, the gesture of granting protection) complement the feeling of the calm grandeur and power of the Buddha.

However, only a few fragments of the original statue remain today: fires and wars caused enormous damage to the statue in the 12th and 16th centuries, and the modern statue is mainly an 18th-century casting. During the restoration of the 18th century, the bronze figure was no longer covered with gold. The Buddhist zeal of Emperor Shomu in the 8th century practically emptied the treasury and bled the already shocked country, and the later rulers could no longer afford such immoderate spending.

Nevertheless, the significance of Daibutsu lies not in gold and not even in reliable authenticity - the very idea of ​​\u200b\u200bsuch a grandiose embodiment of Buddhist teachings is a monument to an era when Japanese monumental art experienced a genuine flowering, freed itself from blind copying of continental models and achieved integrity and expressiveness, which were later lost.

Japan? How did it develop? We will answer these and other questions in the article. Japanese culture was formed as a result of a historical movement that began when the Japanese moved from the mainland to the archipelago and the civilization of the Jomon period was born.

The current enlightenment of this people was strongly influenced by Europe, Asia (especially Korea and China) and North America. One of the signs of Japanese culture is its long development in the era of complete isolation of the state (sakoku policy) from all other countries during the reign of the Tokugawa Shogunate, which lasted until the middle of the 19th century - the beginning of the Meiji era.

Influence

How did the artistic culture of Japan develop? Civilization was significantly influenced by the isolated regional location of the country, climatic and geographical features, as well as natural phenomena (typhoons and frequent earthquakes). This was expressed in the extraordinary attitude of the population towards nature as a living being. feature national character Japanese is the ability to admire the current beauty of the universe, which is expressed in many types of art in a small country.

The artistic culture of Japan was created under the influence of Buddhism, Shintoism and Confucianism. These same trends influenced its further development.

ancient times

Agree, the artistic culture of Japan is magnificent. Shintoism has its roots in ancient times. Buddhism, although it appeared before our era, began to spread only from the fifth century. The Heian period (8th-12th centuries) is considered the golden era of Japan's statehood. In the same period, the picturesque culture of this country reached its highest point.

Confucianism appeared in the 13th century. At this stage, there was a separation of the philosophy of Confucius and Buddhism.

Hieroglyphs

The image of the artistic culture of Japan is embodied in a unique versification, which is called In this country, the art of calligraphy is also highly developed, which, according to legend, arose from heavenly divine images. It was they who breathed life into writing, so the population is kind to every sign in spelling.

Rumor has it that it was hieroglyphs that gave Japanese culture, since images surrounding the inscribed appeared from them. A little later, a strong combination of elements of painting and poetry in one work began to be observed.

If you study a Japanese scroll, you will find that the work contains two kinds of symbols. These are signs of writing - seals, poems, kolofen, as well as picturesque. At the same time, Kabuki theater gained great popularity. A different type of theater - But - is preferred mainly by military personnel. their severity and cruelty had a strong influence on No.

Painting

Artistic culture has been studied by many specialists. A huge role in its formation was played by kaiga painting, which in Japanese means drawing or painting. This art is regarded as the oldest type of painting of the state, which is determined by a huge number of solutions and forms.

In it, a special place is occupied by nature, which determines the sacred principle. The division of painting into sumi-e and yamato-e has existed since the tenth century. The first style developed closer to the fourteenth century. It is a kind of monochrome watercolor. Yamato-e are horizontally folded scrolls that are commonly used in the decoration of works of literature.

A little later, in the 17th century, printing on tablets appeared in the country - ukiyo-e. Masters depicted landscapes, geisha, famous actors of the Kabuki theater. This type of painting in the 18th century had a strong influence on the art of Europe. The emerging trend was called "Japanism". In the Middle Ages, the culture of Japan went beyond the borders of the country - it began to be used in the design of stylish and fashionable interiors around the world.

Calligraphy

Oh, how beautiful the artistic culture of Japan is! Comprehension of harmony with nature can be seen in each of its segments. What is modern Japanese calligraphy? It is called shodo ("way of notifications"). Calligraphy, like writing, is a compulsory discipline. Scientists have found that this art came there simultaneously with Chinese writing.

By the way, in ancient times, a person's culture was judged by his level of calligraphy. Today, there are a large number of writing styles, and Buddhist monks develop them.

Sculpture

How did Japanese culture come about? We will study the development and types of this area of ​​human life in as much detail as possible. Sculpture is the oldest type of art in Japan. In ancient times, the people of this country made figurines of idols and dishes from ceramics. Then people began to install statues of khaniv, created from baked clay, on the graves.

The development of sculptural craft in modern Japanese culture is associated with the spread of Buddhism in the state. One of the most ancient representatives of Japanese monuments is considered to be the statue of the Buddha Amitabha, made of wood, placed in the Zenko-ji temple.

Sculptures were very often made of beams, but they looked very rich: the craftsmen covered them with varnish, gold and bright colors.

Origami

Do you like the artistic culture of Japan? Comprehension of harmony with nature will bring an unforgettable experience. characteristic feature Japanese culture has become amazing products of origami (“folded paper”). This skill owes its origin to China, where, in fact, parchment was invented.

At first, "folded paper" was used in religious ceremonies. This art could be studied only by the upper class. But after the Second World War, origami left the homes of the nobles and found its admirers all over the Earth.

Ikebana

Everyone should know what the artistic culture of the countries of the East is. Japan has invested a lot of work in its development. Another component of this culture wonderful country is ikebana (“living flowers”, “new life of flowers”). The Japanese are fans of aesthetics and simplicity. It is precisely these two qualities that are invested in the works. The sophistication of images is achieved through the beneficial use of the natural beauty of vegetation. Ikebana, like origami, also served as part of a religious ceremony.

Miniatures

Probably, many have already understood that the artistic culture of Ancient China and Japan is closely intertwined. And what is a bonsai? It is a Japanese unique skill to cultivate an almost exact miniature replica of a real tree.

In Japan, it is also common to make netsuke - small sculptures that are a kind of keychain. Often such figurines in this capacity were attached to the clothes of the Japanese, which had no pockets. They not only decorated it, but also served as an original counterweight. Key rings were made in the form of a key, a pouch, a wicker basket.

History of painting

The artistic culture of ancient Japan is of interest to many people. Painting in this country originated during the Japanese Paleolithic period and developed in this way:

• Yamato period. During the time of Asuka and Kofun (4th-7th centuries), along with the introduction of hieroglyphs, the creation of a Chinese-style state regime and the popularization of Buddhism, many works of art were brought to Japan from China. After that, Chinese-style paintings began to be reproduced in the Land of the Rising Sun.
• Nara time. In the VI and VII centuries. Buddhism continued to develop in Japan. In this regard, religious painting began to flourish, used to decorate the numerous temples built by the aristocracy. In general, during the Nara era, the contribution to the development of sculpture and art was greater than in painting. Early paintings in this cycle include murals on the interior walls of Horyu-ji Temple in Nara Prefecture, depicting the life of Shakyamuni Buddha.
• Heian era. In Japanese painting, starting from the 10th century, the trend of yamato-e is distinguished, as we wrote about above. Such paintings are the horizontal scrolls used to illustrate books.
• The era of Muromachi. In the XIV century, the Supi-e style (monochrome watercolor) appeared, and in the first half of the XVII century. artists began to print engravings on boards - ukiyo-e.
• The painting of the Azuchi-Momoyama era stands in sharp contrast to the painting of the Muromachi period. She has a polychrome style with extensive use of silver and. During this period, great prestige and fame enjoyed educational institution Kano. Its founder was Kano Eitoku, who painted ceilings and sliding doors to separate rooms. Such drawings adorned the castles and palaces of the military nobility.
• Maiji era. From the second half of XIX century, art split into competing traditional and European styles. During the Maiji era, Japan underwent great social and political changes through the process of modernization and Europeanization organized by the authorities. Young promising artists were sent abroad to study, and overseas artists came to Japan to create school art programs. Be that as it may, after the initial surge of curiosity about Western art style, the pendulum swung back and Japanese traditional style was reborn. In 1880, Western art practices were banned from official exhibitions and heavily criticized.

Poetry

The artistic culture of ancient Japan is still being studied. Its feature is versatility, some synthetics, as it was formed under the influence of different religions. It is known that Japanese classical poetry emerged from everyday life, acted within it, and this earthiness of it was preserved to some extent in the traditional forms of today's poetry - three-line haiku and five-line tanka, which are distinguished by a pronounced mass character. By the way, it is precisely this quality that distinguishes them from the "free verse" gravitating toward elitism, which appeared in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century under the influence of European poetry.

Have you noticed that the stages of development of the artistic culture of Japan are multifaceted? Poetry in the society of this country played a special role. One of the most famous genres is haiku, you can understand it only by familiarizing yourself with its history.

It first appeared in the Heian era, was similar to the renga style, which was a kind of outlet for poets who wanted to take a break from the thoughtful verses of wah. Haikai developed into a genre in its own right in the 16th century as renga became too serious and haiku relied on colloquial and was still humorous.

Of course, the artistic culture of Japan is briefly described in many works, but we will try to talk about it in more detail. It is known that in the Middle Ages one of the most famous literary Japanese genres was tanka (“laconic song”). In most cases, this is a five-line, consisting of a pair of stanzas with a fixed number of syllables: 5-7-5 syllables in three lines of the first stanza, and 7-7 in two lines of the second. As for the content, the tanka uses the following scheme: the first stanza represents a specific natural image, and the second reflects a person’s feeling that echoes this image:

• In the distant mountains
  Long-tailed pheasant dozing -
  This long, long night
  Can I sleep alone? ( Kakinomoto no Hitovaro, early 8th century, translated by Sanovich.)

Japanese dramaturgy

Many argue that the artistic culture of China and Japan is mesmerizing. Do you like performing arts? The traditional dramaturgy of the Land of the Rising Sun is divided into joruri (puppet theatre), dramaturgy of the Noh theater (kyogen and yokyoku), kabuki theater and shingeki. The customs of this art include five basic theatrical genres: kyogen no, bugaku, kabuki and bunraku. All of these five traditions are still present today. Despite the colossal differences, they are connected by common aesthetic principles that underpin Japanese art. By the way, the dramaturgy of Japan originated on the stage of No.

Kabuki theater appeared in the 17th century and reached its apogee towards the end of the 18th. The form of performances that developed over the specified period is preserved on the modern stage of Kabuki. The productions of this theatre, in contrast to the stages of No, focused on a narrow circle of admirers of ancient art, are designed for the mass audience. The roots of Kabuki skills originate from the performances of comedians - performers of small farces, scenes that consisted of dancing and singing. The theatrical skill of Kabuki absorbed the elements of joruri and no.

The appearance of the Kabuki theater is associated with the name of the worker of the Buddhist sanctuary O-Kuni in Kyoto (1603). O-Kuni performed on the stage with religious dances, which included the movements of the folk dances of the Nembutsu-odori. Her performances were interspersed with comic plays. At this stage, the productions were called yujo-kabuki (kabuki of courtesans), o-kuni-kabuki or onna-kabuki (ladies' kabuki).

Engravings

In the last century, Europeans, and then Russians, encountered the phenomenon of Japanese art through engraving. Meanwhile, in the Land of the Rising Sun, drawing on a tree was not at first considered a skill at all, although it had all the properties of mass culture - cheapness, availability, circulation. Ukiyo-e connoisseurs were able to achieve the highest intelligibility and simplicity both in the embodiment of plots and in their choice.

Ukiyo-e was a special art school, so she was able to put forward a number of outstanding masters. Thus, the name of Hisikawa Moronobu (1618-1694) is associated with the initial phase of the development of plot engraving. In the middle of the 18th century, Suzuki Harunobu, the first connoisseur of multi-color engraving, created. The main motives of his work were lyrical scenes, in which attention was paid not to action, but to the transmission of moods and feelings: love, tenderness, sadness. Like the exquisite ancient art of the Heian era, ukiyo-e virtuosos revived the extraordinary cult of the exquisite beauty of women in a renovated urban environment.

The only difference was that instead of the proud Heian aristocrats, the prints depicted graceful geisha from the entertainment districts of Edo. The artist Utamaro (1753-1806) is, perhaps, a unique example of a professional in the history of painting, who completely devoted his creation to depicting ladies in various poses and dresses, in various life circumstances. One of his best works is the engraving "Geisha Osama", which is kept in Moscow, in the Pushkin Museum of Painting. The artist unusually subtly conveyed the unity of gesture and mood, facial expressions.

Manga and anime

Many artists try to study the painting of Japan. What is anime (Japanese animation)? It differs from other animation genres by being more attuned to an adult viewer. Here there is a duplicative division into styles for an unambiguous target audience. The measure of crushing is the gender, age or psychological portrait of the moviegoer. Very often, anime is a film adaptation of Japanese manga comics, which also received great fame.

The basic part of the manga is designed for an adult viewer. According to 2002 data, about 20% of the entire Japanese book market was occupied by manga comics.

Japan is close to us geographically, but, despite this, for a long time remained incomprehensible and inaccessible to the whole world. Today we know a lot about this country. A long voluntary isolation has led to the fact that its culture is completely different from the cultures of other states.

Has a very rich history; its tradition is extensive, with Japan's unique position in the world largely influencing the dominant styles and techniques of Japanese artists. Known fact That Japan has been quite isolated for centuries is due not only to geography, but also to the dominant Japanese cultural proclivity for isolation that has marked the country's history. During the centuries of what we might call "Japanese civilization", culture and art developed separately from those in the rest of the world. And this is even noticeable in the practice of Japanese painting. For example, the Nihonga paintings are among the staples of Japanese painting practice. It is based on over a thousand years of tradition, and the paintings are usually created with brushes on your (Japanese paper) or egina (silk).

However, Japanese art and painting have been influenced by foreign artistic practices. First, it was Chinese art in the 16th century and Chinese painting and the Chinese art tradition that was particularly influential in several ways. As of the 17th century, Japanese painting was also influenced by Western traditions. In particular, during the pre-war period, which lasted from 1868 to 1945, Japanese painting was influenced by Impressionism and European Romanticism. At the same time, new European art movements were also significantly influenced by Japanese artistic techniques. In art history, this influence is referred to as "Japanism", and it is especially significant for the Impressionists, Cubists and artists associated with modernism.

The long history of Japanese painting can be seen as a synthesis of several traditions that create parts of a recognized Japanese aesthetic. First of all, Buddhist art and painting methods, as well as religious painting, have left a significant mark on the aesthetics of Japanese paintings; water-ink painting of landscapes in the tradition of Chinese literary painting is another important element recognized in many famous Japanese paintings; painting of animals and plants, especially birds and flowers, is what is commonly associated with Japanese compositions, as are landscapes and scenes from Everyday life. Finally, ancient ideas about beauty from the philosophy and culture of ancient Japan had a great influence on Japanese painting. Wabi, which means transient and harsh beauty, sabi (the beauty of natural patina and aging) and yugen (deep grace and subtlety) still influence the ideals in the practice of Japanese painting.

Finally, if we focus on choosing the ten most famous Japanese masterpieces, we must mention ukiyo-e, which is one of the most popular genres of art in Japan, even though it belongs to printmaking. It dominated Japanese art from the 17th to 19th century, with artists belonging to this genre producing woodcuts and paintings of such subjects as beautiful girls, kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers, as well as scenes from history and folk tales, travel scenes and landscapes, flora and fauna and even erotica.

It's always hard to make a list the best pictures from artistic traditions. Many amazing works will be excluded; however, this list features ten of the most recognizable Japanese paintings in the world. This article will present only paintings created from the 19th century to the present day.

Japanese painting has an extremely rich history. Over the centuries, Japanese artists have developed a large number of unique techniques and styles that are Japan's most valuable contribution to the art world. One of these techniques is sumi-e. Sumi-e literally means "ink drawing", combining calligraphy and ink painting to create a rare beauty of brush-painted compositions. This beauty is paradoxical - ancient yet modern, simple yet complex, bold yet subdued, undoubtedly reflecting the spiritual basis of art in Zen Buddhism. Buddhist priests brought the hard ink block and the bamboo brush to Japan from China in the sixth century, and over the past 14 centuries, Japan has developed a rich heritage of ink painting.

Scroll down and see 10 Japanese Painting Masterpieces

1. Katsushika Hokusai "Dream of the Fisherman's Wife"

One of the most recognizable Japanese paintings is The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife. It was painted in 1814 by the famous artist Hokusai. By strict definitions, this amazing work by Hokusai cannot be considered a painting, as it is an ukiyo-e woodcut from Young Pines (Kinoe no Komatsu), which is a three-volume shunga book. The composition depicts a young ama diver sexually entwined with a pair of octopuses. This image was highly influential in the 19th and 20th centuries. The work influenced later artists such as Felicien Rops, Auguste Rodin, Louis Ocock, Fernand Khnopf and Pablo Picasso.

2. Tessai Tomioka "Abe no Nakamaro writes a nostalgic poem while watching the moon"

Tessai Tomioka is the pseudonym of a famous Japanese artist and calligrapher. He is considered the last major artist in the Bunjing tradition and one of the first major artists of the Nihonga style. Bunjinga was a school of Japanese painting that flourished during the late Edo period among artists who considered themselves literati or intellectuals. Each of these artists, including Tessaia, developed their own style and technique, but they were all big fans of Chinese art and culture.

3. Fujishima Takeji "Sunrise over the East Sea"

Fujishima Takeji was a Japanese artist known for his work in developing Romanticism and Impressionism in the Yoga (Western style) art movement of the late 19th and early 20th century. In 1905 he traveled to France, where he was influenced by the French movements of the time, particularly Impressionism, as can be seen in his 1932 painting Sunrise over the East Sea.

4. Kitagawa Utamaro "Ten types of female faces, a collection of dominating beauties"

Kitagawa Utamaro was a prominent Japanese artist who was born in 1753 and died in 1806. He is by far best known for a series called Ten Types of Women's Faces. Collection of ruling beauties, themes Great love Classical Poetry" (sometimes called "Women in Love", containing separate engravings "Naked Love" and "Pensive Love"). He is one of the most significant artists belonging to the ukiyo-e woodcut genre.

5. Kawanabe Kyosai "Tiger"

Kawanabe Kyosai was one of the most famous Japanese artists of the Edo period. His art was influenced by Tohaku, a 16th-century Kano painter who was the only painter of his day to paint screens entirely in ink against a delicate background of powdered gold. Although Kyosai is known as a cartoonist, he has written some of the most famous paintings in Japanese history Art XIX century. "Tiger" is one of those paintings that Kyosai used watercolor and ink to create.

6. Hiroshi Yoshida Fuji from Lake Kawaguchi

Hiroshi Yoshida is known as one of the major figures of the Shin-Hanga style (Shin-Hanga is an art movement in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century, during the Taisho and Showa periods, which revived traditional art ukiyo-e, which took root in the Edo and Meiji period (XVII - XIX centuries)). He was trained in the tradition of Western oil painting, which was adopted in Japan during the Meiji period.

7. Takashi Murakami "727"

Takashi Murakami is probably the most popular Japanese artist of our time. His work sells for astronomical prices at major auctions, and his work is already inspiring new generations of artists not only in Japan but also beyond. Murakami's art includes a range of mediums and is usually described as super-flat. His work is known for his use of color, incorporating motifs from Japanese traditional and popular culture. The content of his paintings is often described as "cute", "psychedelic", or "satirical".

8. Yayoi Kusama "Pumpkin"

Yaoi Kusama is also one of the most famous Japanese artists. She works in a variety of mediums, including painting, collage, scat sculpture, performance art, environmental art, and installation, most of which demonstrate her thematic interest in psychedelic colors, repetition, and pattern. One of the most famous series of this great artist is the Pumpkin series. A polka-dotted regular gourd in bright yellow is shown against a net. Together, all such elements form a visual language that is unmistakable to the artist's style, and has been developed and refined over decades of painstaking crafting and reproduction.

9. Tenmyoya Hisashi "Japanese Spirit #14"

Tenmyoya Hisashi is a contemporary Japanese artist who is known for his neo-nihonga paintings. He participated in the revival of the old tradition of Japanese painting, which is the exact opposite of modern Japanese painting. In 2000, he also created his new style, butouha, which demonstrates a steadfast attitude towards an authoritative art system through his paintings. "Japanese Spirit No. 14" was created as part of the "BASARA" artistic scheme, interpreted in Japanese culture as the rebellious behavior of the lower aristocracy during the Warring States period, in order to deprive the authorities of the ability to achieve an ideal lifestyle by dressing in lush and luxurious clothes and acting freely. will that did not correspond to their social class.

10. Katsushika Hokusai "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa"

Finally, The Great Wave off Kanagawa is probably the most recognizable japanese painting ever written. It's really the most famous work art made in Japan. It depicts huge waves threatening boats off the coast of Kanagawa Prefecture. Although sometimes mistaken for a tsunami, the wave, as the name of the painting suggests, most likely simply has an anomalously high height. The painting is made in the ukiyo-e tradition.

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Japan is the smallest country in the Far East - 372 thousand square kilometers. But the contribution that Japan has made to the history of world culture is no less than the contribution of the great ancient states.

The origins of the art of this ancient country date back to the 8th millennium BC. But the most significant stage in all areas of her artistic life was the period that began in the 6th-7th centuries AD. and continued until the middle of the 19th century. The development of Japanese art proceeded unevenly, but it did not know too sharp changes or sharp declines.

Japanese art developed in special natural and historical conditions. Japan is located on four large islands (Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shioku) and many smaller ones. For a long time it was impregnable and did not know external wars. The proximity of Japan to the mainland affected the establishment of contacts with China and Korea in ancient times. This accelerated the development of Japanese art.

Japanese medieval art grew under the influence of Korean and Chinese cultures. Japan adopted the Chinese script and features of the Chinese worldview. Buddhism became the state religion of Japan. But the Japanese refracted Chinese ideas in their own way and adapted them to their way of life.

Japanese house, Japanese interior
The Japanese house is as clear and simple on the inside as it is on the outside. It was kept constantly clean. The floor, polished to a shine, was covered with light straw mats - tatami, dividing the room into even rectangles. Shoes were removed at the doorstep, things were kept in closets, the kitchen was separate from the living quarters. In the rooms, as a rule, there were no permanent things. They were brought in and taken away as needed. But every thing in an empty room, be it a flower in a vase, a picture or a lacquer table, attracted attention and acquired a special expressiveness.

All types of art are associated with the design of the space of a house, temple, palace or castle in medieval Japan. Each served as a complement to the other. For example, a skillfully selected bouquet complemented and set off the mood conveyed in the landscape painting.

The same impeccable precision, the same sense of material, as in the decoration of a Japanese house, was felt in the products of decorative art. Not without reason at tea ceremonies, as the greatest jewel, the utensils fashioned by hands were used. Its soft and uneven crock kept the trace of fingers sculpting wet clay. Pink-pearl, turquoise-lilac or gray-blue glazes were not catchy, but they felt the radiance of nature itself, with the life of which every object of Japanese art is associated.

Japanese pottery
Unglazed, hand-molded and fired at a low temperature, clay vessels resembled the ceramics of other ancient peoples. But they already had features that are unique to Japanese culture. The patterns of jugs and dishes of various shapes reflected ideas about the elements of hurricanes, seas and fire-breathing mountains. The fantasy of these products seemed to have been prompted by nature itself.

Massive, reaching almost a meter high jugs with a stuck-on pattern of convex clay bundles resemble either winding shells, or branched coral reefs, or tangles of algae, or jagged edges of volcanoes. These majestic and monumental vases and bowls served not only domestic, but also ritual purposes. But in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. bronze items came into use and ceramic utensils lost their ritual purpose.

Next to ceramics, new products of artistic crafts appeared - weapons, jewelry, bronze bells and mirrors.

Japanese household items
In the 9th to 12th centuries AD, the tastes of the Japanese aristocracy were revealed in the decorative arts. Smooth, moisture-resistant lacquer items, sprinkled with gold and silver powder, light and elegant, as if illuminating the twilight of Japanese rooms, and made up a huge range of everyday items. Lacquer was used to create bowls and caskets, chests and tables, musical instruments. Every little thing of the temple and everyday life - silver cutlery for food, vases for flowers, patterned paper for letters, embroidered belts - revealed the poetic and emotional attitude of the Japanese to the world.

Japan painting
With the development of monumental palace architecture, the activity of painters of the court school became much more active. Artists had to paint large surfaces not only of walls, but also of multi-fold paper folding screens, which played the role of both paintings and portable partitions in the room. A feature of the creative manner of talented craftsmen was the selection of a large, multi-colored detail of the landscape on the vast plane of a wall panel or screen.

The compositions of flowers, herbs, trees and birds, performed by Kano Eitoku on golden shining backgrounds with thick and juicy spots, generalized ideas about the power and magnificence of the universe. Representatives of the Kano school, along with natural motifs, included in the paintings and new subjects reflecting the life and life of the Japanese city of the 16th century.

There were also monochrome landscapes on the palace screens. But they have a great decorative effect. Such is the screen painted by Sesshu's follower, Hasegawa Tohaku (1539-1610). Its white matte surface is interpreted by the painter as a thick veil of fog, from which, like visions, the silhouettes of old pines suddenly break out. With just a few bold blobs of ink, Tohaku creates a poetic picture of an autumn forest.

The monochrome landscape scrolls, with their soft beauty, could not match the style of the palace chambers. But they retained their significance as an indispensable part of the chashitsu tea pavilion, designed for spiritual concentration and peace.

Works of art by Japanese masters not only remain faithful to ancient styles, but also always have something new in them that no other work of art has. In Japanese art there is no place for clichés and templates. In it, as in nature, there are no two completely identical creations. And even now, works of art by Japanese masters cannot be confused with works of art from other countries. In Japanese art, time has slowed down, but it has not stopped. In Japanese art, the traditions of ancient times have survived to this day.