8
Aestheticism in ancient Japan Author(s): Giacinto Auriti Source: East and West, Vol. 3, No. 1 (APRIL 1952), pp. 13-19 Published by: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29757987 . Accessed: 02/05/2014 08:00 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to East and West. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 202.41.10.21 on Fri, 2 May 2014 08:00:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Aestheticism in Ancient Japan

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Aestheticism in Ancient Japan

Aestheticism in ancient JapanAuthor(s): Giacinto AuritiSource: East and West, Vol. 3, No. 1 (APRIL 1952), pp. 13-19Published by: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29757987 .

Accessed: 02/05/2014 08:00

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to East and West.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 202.41.10.21 on Fri, 2 May 2014 08:00:38 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Aestheticism in Ancient Japan

Aesthetici sm

in

Ja ancient I

apan^

f he Fugi-uara period (987-1185) M 1 was the era of the most refined

splendour in the whole history of ancient Japanese culture. It may be

compared to that of T'ang for China from

which it drew its inspiration as did also the

preceding Nara period, (645-790). But during this era, inspiration did not hinder the deve?

lopment of originality. It was late in the ninth

century that its original characteristic came

more markedly to the fore than ever since, at

the time when the official embassies to the Chinese Court were temporarily suspended. In the Fujiwara era the Court became the fountain-head of elegance and good taste and

the source of Japanese cultural development*

representing the country's own traditions, even

through the following centuries, while Chinese trends and modes were undergoing recurrent

changes. It attained the acme of its grandeur in the

time of Fujiwara Michinaga who was Regent (Kwampaku) from 996 to 1027.

?y. 'K v v # rt a ?? ??. *? ii i' *l * ? iS *

Fig. 1

Emperors with their Empresses and minor Consorts were then persons of high c?ltural

accomplishments and showed exquisite taste as

poets, calligraphists and painters, while the nobles and prelates at Court were men and

women of no less worth, frequently renowned

on their own account for their attainments as

artists, writers and scholars.

At the Chinese court also, the Sovereigns themselves were poets, calligraphists, and

painters, being more celebrated even than their

Japanese counterparts. Particularly under

the T'angs. the Court of China, a model to the

Japanese, was a great centre of culture.

Indeed the practice of those three sister arts

was not in the Far East evidence of special apti?

tudes, but only the refined education expected of all persons of high rank.

Women occupied a position of great impor? tance during the Fujiwar a period. Not only did they write some of the finest poetry and the best prose of Japanese literature, but they also nourished and aroused feelings of which

13

This content downloaded from 202.41.10.21 on Fri, 2 May 2014 08:00:38 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 3: Aestheticism in Ancient Japan

vi ? m ?v a

Fig. 2

the poetry of that period affords us proof. Its amorous character, even if diminishing, con?

tinued during the Kaimakura (1185-1932), and in the following ages, although it was then the fashion to pretend to hold woman in much less account.

It was more especially in the Fujwara pe? riod that woman was most courted, loved and

admired in Palace circles; but though we hear much of her jealous pangs and of the sufferings she supported in silence, it would not seem, to judge by the literature of the period, that the passions she aroused in male breasts were

very deep and constant.

Although refinement, gracefulness, wit and intellectual brilliancy were expected from women of the highest rank no less than physical

beauty, and although the men wrapped their feelings in delicate imagery and veiled allu? sions, their love affairs were sensuous to a

degree, irrespective of romantic flourishes. Men in Japan or China never conceived of wo? man as a means to spiritual uplift. The ideali? sation of the eternal feminine, promoted in the Western World by Christianity and medi? eval chivalry, never appealed to them. Both Confucianism and Buddhism have always held woman to be inferior to man, as indeed has been the case also with the religions of Brahma and Mahomet. Even the fact that the greatest deity of Shintoism is of the weaker sex has not caused the Japanese to modify their opi? nion of women.

The higher aristocracy lived in the State ca?

pital, and the mere fact of being born outside its precincts lowered social prestige. To leave the capital was a misfortune to be avoided by all means, and to dwell long away from it im? plied the danger of losing the required social refinement. Ladies from the provinces were

disparaged as awkward, slovenly, of vulgar speech, followers of antiquated fashions and

incapable of moving gracefully without rust?

ling their skirts. Birth was everything at Court. Ladies of fairly high birth and those coming from the provinces for their service at Court, knew they would be mocked rather than respected, and frequently made them? selves very unhappy about it for the rest of their lives.

Hairdressing and apparel were matters of

supreme importance (fig. 1). As did Western ladies in the days of the Renaissance, so the ladies at the Japanese Court used to pluck their eyebrows, when they did not shave them off, to paint darker, longer, and wider ones

higher up on their foreheads. Their ebony black teeth, as decreed by a fashion then beginning and which was to last until the so called Meiji Restoration (1868), shone strik? ingly under their red lips, and their faces were

elaborately made-up so as to heighten the co?

lour effects of their dresses. Ample kimonos, redolent of perfume, were worn, sometimes, it

seems, two dozen at a time, one above the other each showing where the edges crossed over the breast and where they parted at the bottom of the skirt, and at the lower edge of the very wide sleeves. Each kimono had a sleeve shorter than the one below it, so that the sleeves of the one worn on top were the shortest of all.

The patterns varied with the occasion on which

J4

This content downloaded from 202.41.10.21 on Fri, 2 May 2014 08:00:38 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 4: Aestheticism in Ancient Japan

Fig. 3 ? -

?. . '

the dresses were worn and with the season, as

did also the colours; great care being paid to the contrasting effects at the points where the

several kimonos could be seen and to harmonis?

ing the shades at those points where the trans

parency of the gossamer silks allowed one

colour to be seen through the other. Under

their kimonos the ladies wore, as did someti? mes the men, trousers so wide that they looked like skirts, and long enough to hide the feet

Bi?d?in. A hall for worship. Fujiwara era

15

This content downloaded from 202.41.10.21 on Fri, 2 May 2014 08:00:38 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 5: Aestheticism in Ancient Japan

and fold under them. Over the kimonos a

kind of short wide jacket was frequently worn, and a long train, entirely different in colour

and pattern from the rest of the apparel, added

the final striking touch to the picture. The hair, parted in the middle (the thick, straight hair of the Japanese), flowed loose over their

shoulders and their trains. The lower edge of the long hair was out

straight, all at the same level, on days selected

by the astrologers when the conjuncture of the stars was favourable. The hair had to be at least long enough to touch the ground when the

lady was seated on one of the cushions placed, as was the custom, on the floor; but hair long enough to touch the floor when the lady stood

up was held in special esteem. So, when neces?

sary, artificial hair was resorted to, all the more so as the first thinning out of the coiffure was

held to be a sign of incipient age. Combs and flowers were much used, and a gold or silver head-ornament was worn at Court functions, similar to the frontals displayed by Western ladies in the days of the Renaissance. A fan,

whose slats were elaborately painted, from

which hung long ribbons of many colours, was

carried in the hand. Naturally, ladies so atti?

red had little freedom of movement, handicap?

ped as they were by the number and weight of their kimonos.

The gentlemen of the period vied with the ladies (as in Renaissance Europe) in matters

of fashion and personal display. They did not disdain to blacken their teeth, shave their

eyebrows, paint their clean shaven faces, lead?

ing some observers to conclude that a perfect courtier was a blend of male and female cha?

racteristics. In the ensuing period of Japanese

history, however, when military considera?

tions came to prevail over fashionable foppery, blackened teeth were no longer seen, and a

short moustache and small pointed beard were

preferred to the shaven and painted face. This

began to be the case towards the end of the

Fujiwara period at the outset of the feudal wars. Though men wore trains (fig. 2), and multicoloured transparent silks were in general demand, yet the pattern, design, and colouring of their dress were less complicated th?n in the case of the ladies. At official functions, the

robes of the courtiers up to the fourth rank were violet, red costumes being reserved for

officials of the fifth rank, subject however to

changes made to meet various circumstances. Robes worn at the present day by dignitaries

officiating at Shintoist functions are still cut

in the style affected in the Fujiwara period, but uniformly white in color. This dress con?

sists of a kind of under tunic reaching below the knee, with a belt, and of long wide sleeves and baggy trousers, not so long as to hide a

pair of black lacquered wooden shoes. The head-dress was kept on within the pre?

cincts of the Palace; on full dress occasions it consisted of a low black-lacquered cap with a

vertical ornament in front and another hanging down at the back; it was tied under the chin by strings. On ceremonial occasions an ivory slat was held in the right hand or stuck into the belt; those used by lower dignitaries were made

of bone. The use of these slats is uncertain.

A sword was worn whose hilt and sheath were

finely worked in gold and silver; but the sword did not exclude the fan.

The members of the Imperial Family and those of the higher aristocracy, both male and

female, were always accompanied by their at?

tendants, even inside the Palace. Although

they went out in palenkeens (fig. 3) whose use was gradually extended to people of lower

rank, their usual conveyance was a carriage. These were black-and-gold lacquered ones,

square in shape and set on two high wheels.

They were fitted with three windows and a door which opened at the back of the

carriage and all four apertures were screened off by roll-up bamboo blinds. The carriage was drawn by an ox caparisoned in a red-tas

selled harness, led by a groom walking at its

side. On arriving at the Palace the ox was

unharnessed and the vehicle was pushed by hand into the courtyard, where the shafts were placed on stools so that the passenger could easily descend. The ladies stepped out,

modestly hiding their faces behind a fan or

letting their long hair fall over their forehead, as they always did whenever they feared to be seen. It was, indeed, their ordinary practice to spend most of their lives in their secluded homes, secure from the curiosity of the indis?

creet, and never to be gazed upon (theore?

tically at least) by any man except their near

relatives and boys under twelve years of age.

They left their homes mainly to listen to some

sermon, and even then they often did not get out of their carriage, being content with having it drawn up near the temple entrance; or they

might go on pilgrimage to visit some famous

monastery where lodging was provided for both sexes, there being no hostels then in Ja?

pan. It is understood that religious fervor was

16

This content downloaded from 202.41.10.21 on Fri, 2 May 2014 08:00:38 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 6: Aestheticism in Ancient Japan

not always the sole reason for such visits. (1) In the Orvna Daigaku, a canon of social

behaviour written in the Tokugawa period (1615-1867) for the better upbringing of the

daughters of the Samuraj, ladies were urged to abstain from too frequent visits to the tem?

ples until their fortieth year, which, in

Japan as in China, marked the beginning of old age in women. Some other occasions, how?

ever, were seized on to go out in the fresh air, such as excursions in the country to admire the

trees in full blossom, or an outing to view,

from the carriage, ?some religious procession. But inasmuch as such processions were attend

ed by aristocrats, and included many young people, they were really social gatherings.

Ladies used to correspond with friends of their own sex by exchanging letters even though they might both be living within the Imperial Palace walls, but they also called on one another occasionally. Generally speaking, written or spoken messages would be car?

ried by footmen or serving girls who fre?

quently were rewarded with a length of cloth

by the recipient. But messages were often

carried by the gentlemen writers themselves, who handed them to one of the ladies-in-wait?

ing for delivery. These ladies-in-waiting usual?

ly belonged to the lesser nobility, as was the case with the daughters of a minor consort;

27

(1) Quo non prostat foemina templo? Juvenal, IX, 24.

This content downloaded from 202.41.10.21 on Fri, 2 May 2014 08:00:38 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 7: Aestheticism in Ancient Japan

they were not kept in strict confinement al?

though their social position was higher than that of a servant. It was customary for written mes?

sages to be sent, hanging from a branch covered

with blossom. These were handled with such meticulous care that on one occasion we are told a branch was presented from which not even a drop of the dew had yet fallen. A special paper was used, scented and slightly tinted, and embellished with floral designs of the same colour but of a rather deeper shade. The greatest care was paid to the calligraphy, a matter of great importance, for it indicated not only the social position, education and

culture, but even the moral qualities of the

writer, so that sometimes the mere sight of a

letter from an unknown person aroused admi? ration and desire. It was often the calligraphy that conferred the greatest value on the text, as the tone of voice, a matter to which also

great care was paid, gave value to the words said.

Persons admitted to the privilege of holding conversation with a lady of the Court had to

belong to the so-called cc above the clouds ?

people. Relations with the common herd were maintained through intermediaries, and were limited to strictest necessity since

nobody took an interest in low-born in? dividuals. A gentleman who was granted the honour to converse with a Court lady (an ho? nour which was bestowed only if there were no religious or superstitious impediments, such as might be caused by dreams or other fore?

boding signs), was customarily allowed to talk from the veranda-balcony, while sitting on a cushion brought in for the purpose by a wait?

ing woman; but the lady herself remained in?

visible, her voice only being audible through the window curtains. In very special cases, the gentleman was permitted to enter her room, but even then the lady was still invisible be? hind a screen. Letters as well as speeches were made more attractive by the interpolation of tankas (1) of the writer or speaker's own, or

somebody else's composition. These poetical

interpolations were often improvised, and a

suitable tonka was expected in reply. This

presented no formal difficulty, thanks to the

brevity of the composition and the absence of

rhymes.

Owing to the climate, the palace rooms in Heian were very hot in summer and very cold

in winter. In the summer months, large blocks of ice were set down, while braziers were kept

going in the cold weather. But no big fires could be lit, and the constant draughts filter?

ing through into the rooms from the many ill fitting doors and large windows must have made even the daily, near-boiling hot bath, still customary, an inadequate defence against the winter blasts. The only real protection for the ladies was provided by their numerous and

large kimonos, some of them well wadded. What little food, very elegantly served but scarcely sustaining, fashion allowed them to

eat, may have secured them against the menace of plumpness but could put little warmth into them.

In addition to attending official or religious ceremonies, regulated by the strict observance of a cut and dried ritual, their whole lives were

passed in drawing-room receptions among rela? tions and intimate friends, in the course of which singing and dancing (the latter always symbolical in Japan) would be indulged in and

musical compositions would be played on the

biwa (fiddle), the koto (a horizontal harp) and the shakuhachi (clarinet), some of the Im?

perial Princes and the Ministers of State taking

part in the performances. Singing, dancing, and music always went together, and each was

meant to accompany and complete the others.

All three arts were an essential part of the edu?

cation of a noblemen or noblewoman. Other

diversions included decorating fans or the inner

valves of a sea-shell with little poems and

paintings. There were also tests of skill in de?

ciphering intricate Chinese script partially covered over, or in recollecting and reciting well-known poems after hearing the first

words spoken, or in recognising blendings of

incense by their aroma. These gatherings would sometimes be prolonged till daylight, the nights being spent in conversation, in ad?

miring the rays of a late rising moon, or, in its

absence, those shed by torches burning in the

open air, mirrored in the still waters of the

flowered pool or on the snow-covered branches

of the guarled pine-trees. All this afforded opportunities for delicate

threads to be spun into languid love

patterns, and for brief nocturnal encounters in

the course of which the virtue of matrons and

girls could be likened to <c a dewdrop quivering on a grass-blade and ready to fall at the slight? est touch ?, as was said in one of the tankas of the time; a fall which was then believed to

(H) Tanka, or short song. A little classical poem of 31 syllables.

18

This content downloaded from 202.41.10.21 on Fri, 2 May 2014 08:00:38 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 8: Aestheticism in Ancient Japan

occur as a sequel to events lived through in some previous existence.

The ideal social life was one which consisted in the full enjoyment of both spiritual delights and carnal pleasures. The weakness of the flesh was easily gratified under the influence of fashion, example, and easy satisfaction, al?

though its more ostensible excesses were tem?

pered by the sentimental theories propounded by fashionable sects, and by the formal seve?

rities of Confucianism.

Apart from what has been said, the cultural

Standards established by the Imperial Court were also of great value because they set a pat tern of aestheticism which later became an

example (after the earlier austerity of the Shogun period) to the Court of the military dictators of the feudal era, and helped them to create in their turn, by imitation and emula?

tion, a new, though minor, centre of culture.

Giacinto Auriti

(From a text-book on the History of Japanese Culture now under press).

Bi?d?in. The Amida Buddha of Jocho.

Fuji war a era.

19

This content downloaded from 202.41.10.21 on Fri, 2 May 2014 08:00:38 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions