Week 7
Discussion
About Tenkei, Buildings, and Landscapes
Tenkei in Landscapes
Today's lesson combines a number of Japanese painting themes. Tenkei are small elements in paintings that are not themselves subjects but which help to enrich paintings such as landscapes. This painting by Sesshū Tōyō (1420 - 1506) is an example. Look for the buildings in the far right of this near abstract sumi-e landscape.
Tenkei may be buildings, bridges, boats--any small item--and people, too.
In the early days of ukiyo-e, Japanese woodblock prints during the Edo period (1603 - 1868), people were almost always the primary subjects as illustrated by the following bijinga (beautiful people) print by Sudafusa Utagawa (active 1825 - 1850) depicting a courtesan, possibly carrying a letter to a lover while not wanting to be seen, wearing the latest in clothing fashions. Note the tenkei building in the background.
The ukiyo-e prints not featuring people were almost always birds and flowers (i.e. nature) pictures.
The landscapes of Katsushita Hokusai (1760 - 1849) and Ando Hiroshige (1797 - 1858) reversed the practice. People were still often featured in their prints, but they became relatively minor elements--tenkei--themselves. Hokusai's travelers on the Hokaido, the road connecting Edo with Kyoto from his series 36 Views of Mt. Fuji, are mere elements in the composition along with trees and Mt. Fuji itself.
Hiroshige's bridge landscape reduces people to the size of ants.
Buildings: Pagodas and Castles
There are many kinds of buildings, but the painting subjects of this week's buildings are temple pagodas and castles.
Buddhist facilities are temples (tera) and Shinto facilities are shrines (jinja). On rare occasions, the two are combined. Each jinja honors a Shinto deity, called an ujigami. It may be an ancestral deity of a certain clan (uji). There is typically a torii gate at its entrance like this one at the entrance to the Meiji Shrine in Tōkyō.
The gate leads to a hall of worship (haiden) which stands before the main sanctuary (honden). Near the haiden stands a pair of stone lions (komainu) to guard against evil.
Buddhist temples were first built in Japan in the sixth century when Buddhism was imported from China. As the numbers increased, they began to specialize, some becoming public and some private, some monasteries and some nunneries. In the Edo period, some Temples were accorded special status by the Imperial Court until that system was abolished in the late nineteenth century.
Large temple complexes contain gates, a pagoda, main hall, lecture hall, bell tower, and the priests' living quarters as well as other special structures. Smaller temples may consist of only the main hall and living quarters.
One of the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan is the Shitennōji temple in Osaka. It, too, has a torii gate.
Here is the pagoda at Shitennōji.
It is a five-storied wooden pagoda (gojū-no-tō) with a roof at each level. The spire on top is called a sōrin. The interiors of pagodas are generally hollow, though some large ones have stairways to upper levels. Such structures were originally constructed to enshrine some of Buddha's ashes. Their construction techniques are so sound that they are now being used to protect modern skyscrapers in earthquake-prone Japan.
The main hall in Hōryūji Temple in Nara, built over 1,300 years ago, is the world's oldest surviving wooden structure.
One of the most impressive structures at Hōryūji is the Hall of Dreams (yumedono). It was constructed in 739, based on a legend that a golden Buddha once appeared to Japan's Prince Shōtōku Taishi (574 - 622) in a dream. Shōtōku Taishi is a major figure in Japanese history. Among other things, the building houses the Kuse Kannon, a statue built in the likeness of Shōtōku Taishi and considered to be a masterpiece of seventh-century Buddhist art.
The Five-storied Pagoda at Hōryūji Temple is the oldest pagoda of this type in Japan and one of the oldest surviving wooden towers in the world. It was erected during the Asuka period (593–710) to enshrine sacred relics of the Buddha. The reliquary is said to be buried at least three meters beneath the base of the pagoda and contain some of the ashes of Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha.
The finest surviving feudal castle in Japan is Himeji Castle in the city of Himeji, Japan, roughly midway between Kobe and Okayama. It was constructed in phases with the final major additions being added in 1581.
Like all castles of that period, the central structure was surrounded by extensive grounds and defensive features that were designed to confuse anyone not familiar with the layout. Note the pointed objects sticking up from the ends the top roof of the castle. Here is a close-up view of one of them.
A schematic of the Himeji grounds is shown below.
The large modern building enclosing the main tower in the illustration above was a temporary structure to house workers doing refurbishment work. The picture below gives a better idea of the scale of the castle.
The dark object slightly to the right of the base of the lower wall of the castle is three to four feet tall.
Here is one more picture of a pagoda just for the heck of it.
