The Eyes of Power

by Gerhart, Karen M.

• ISBN13: 9780824821784
• ISBN10: 0824821785
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-08-01
• Publisher: Univ of Hawaii Pr

Summary

In the first half of the seventeenth century both those who commissioned and those who viewed art in Japan were primarily the elite -- the shogun, the court, high-ranking daimyo, government officials, and certain wealthy merchants. Much of the artistic energy engaged by the political center during the early Tokugawa was directed at the creation of monumental structures decorated with symbolic and complex images, mainly of Chinese origin, initiated or approved by the shogunate to legitimate its own power and to give its rule an aura of cultured sophistication.

In this study of the political thrust behind some of the most important officially sponsored art of the early Tokugawa, Karen Gerhart takes as her focus the heyday of the rule of the third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu. She analyzes aspects of painting, architecture, and sculpture created expressly under the patronage of Iemitsu at three major monuments: the castles at Nijo and Nagoya and the sumptuous decoration of the great Tokugawa mausoleum, Nikko Toshogu. In highlighting key examples of artistic producti

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	ix
Pine Trees as Political Iconography at Nijo Castle	1	(34)
Chinese Exemplars and Virtuous Rulers at Nagoya Castle	35	(38)
Nikko's Yomeimon: Sculpture and Sacred Landscape	73	(34)
The Tosho Daigongen engi as Political Propaganda	107	(40)
Epilogue	141	(6)
Notes	147	(40)
Bibliography	187	(12)
Index	199