109 Kenzan Ceramics & 151 Bronze Mirror

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TRADITIONSOF JAPANESE ART

SELECTIONSFROM THE KIMIKO AND JOHN POWERS

COLLECTION

JOHN M. ROSENFIELD

SHUJIRO SHIMADA

FOGG ART MUSEUMHARVARD UNIVERSITY

r97a

CONTENTS

page g Japanese Buddhist ArtsThe Ancient Epoch (5oo-tzoo A.D.)

89 Japanese Buddhist ArtsThe Middle Ages (tzoo-t6oo A.D.)

r 57 Arts Related to the Zen SectI nk P ai nti n g (suiboku- g a)

2tS Arts Related to the Zen SectCeramics of the Tea Ceremony

237 Arts Related to the Zen SectZenga

26r K6etsu, S6tatsu and Their Tradition

279 Bunjin-ga?aintings d the Literary Men

329 Genre Themes in Painting and the Decorative Arts

373 Archaeological Material

38r A Comparative Time Chart

383 GLOSSARY

PREFACE

The collectior"r of Kimiko and John Porvers reflects most major aspects of Japanese art from prehis-

toric times to the recent past. In building their collection, tl.re Pou,ers have been adventuresome and

creative, guided bv strong personal prcfcrences; their outlook, moreover) has been influenced bv de-

velopments in contempor.rry An-rerican art, for which they are equally enthusiastic. At the same timethev have follon'ed very much the pattern of private collectors in Japan, rvith strong holdings in cal-

ligraphr', archaeological nraterial, and Buddhist ritual inrplements-in addition to the familiar areas

of painting and sculpture. Such specialized n-raterial is often overlooked in the West, but it offers

unique insights into the origins and character of Japanese taste. Because of the Porvers' encyclopedic

interests, theirs is as broad and inclusive as any private collection outside o[ Japan, vet by no means

does it convev all areas of connoisseurship. No attempt has been n'rade to collect as though compul-

sivelr. filling every page of a stamp album.

The Por,r'ers have generously made their collection available to the faculty and students of Harvard

and Princeton for prolonged study and exhibition. In this rvay they are hoping to encourage the

serious connoisseurship of Japanese art in the West, which, with some notable exceptions, has notkept pace rvith the brilliant beginnings in the days of Fenollosa, the de Goncourts, and Charles Freer.

It is true that Japanese art is becoming as much a part of world culture as German Romantic music.

Most educated Westerners have experienced, in one way or another, lvorks of print masters like Hoku-sai and Utamaro; the brilliantly ornate, gilded screens of the Momoyama period; the landscapes ofSessh[; the frolicking animals of "Toba 561o" ; Zen monasteries and their gardens; ceramics of the

tea cerenlonl; the grave icons of early Buddhist sculpture and painting. But the aestl'retic resources of

Japan are far richer and far nrore pertinent to the universal issues in the study of art than Westerners

generallv rcalize.

From the extensive Powers collection we have selected over r 5o objects for catalogue study. They

will be exhibited to the general public at Harvard and Princeton and at the Seattle Museum. Among

them are a number of masterlvorks, but we have not attempted to deal only with masterworks. Rather,

our goal has been to arrange this material into contexts that will evoke the richly detailed fabric of

Japanese civilization. We hope to account for the creation of masterworks by exploring the religious,social, intellectual, and purely aesthetic values that helped bring them about. We have tapped the

enormous body of research in connoisseurship that has been done in Japan, and attempted to demon-

strate that some aspects o[Japanese art can be docrlmented in the same kind of detail that is found, fbrexample, in studies of Dutch seventeenth-century painting and the Florentine Renaissance.

The rvriting of this catalogue has taken nearly a year and a halF-not nearly long enough to exhaust

our curiositv and interest in the works-and literally dozens of people have contributed to it. Listed

be]orv by catcgories are those to whom we are ruost deeply inrlctrted, but it is inrpt-rs"iblc to ineludc('\('r'\'n,un('. .\1r,,,.'.rl], lr,,.r('\('r', \\('ilr'. qr-.1t('[u] to Kinriko;rnd j.,hn Pou'ers lorsharinqtheircollectionso qe rrcrorrslr ; lirr thcir rn.rte rial assist;rnr,'c; lbr ttrcir [).rticnc(', qootl iruntr-rr', artrl t,rltr.rtrc,.'.

From Japan:

Tanaka Ichimatsu, member of the National Commission lbr the Protection of Cultural Properties,

Cultural Aftairs Agency, Tokyo, and one of Japan's most distinguished connoisseurs. Tanaka-san

consulted lvith us in Cambridge in April, r 969, and graciously contributed to the rvriting of entries

49,8t, and r34.Shimada Shiiji16, Professor of Japanese Art, Princeton Universit|, n,ho participated in manl' stages

ofselectionandcataloguing,andcontributedentries S_-9,25,26,32,34,35,46,47,66,67,and98 on calligraphv. No aspect of this project has been more rewarding than the insights gained fromProfessor Shimada and the personal contact rvith this man who embodies so much that is luminousand meaningful in Japanese clrlturc. Professor Shinrada has been assisted in valuable rvays byShimizu Yoshiaki, a graduate student at Princeton.Kurata Bunsaku, Suzuki Susumu, and Hayashiya Seizo fron-r Tokyo-all scholars of the highestattainments in their freld-u'ho have generously assisted in judgments on individual rvorks.Nobuki Saburo and the staff of K6dansha International, Limited, and Mrs. Maecla Mana, clesigner,rvho have given sympathetic and skilled assistance in producing the catalogue.

Princeton University:

Wen Fong, Professor o[ Chinese Art, who has generously encouraged this project.Patrick J. Kelleher, Director of the Art Museum of Princeton University, who, in addition toProfessor Shimada and his students, collaborated unstintingly.

Harvard University:

Agnes Mongan, Director' <lf the Fogg Art Museurn, and John Coolidge, former Director, who haveoffered constant encouragement and assistance.

Max Loehr, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Prof'essor of Oriental Art, rvho has been at all times helpfuland sympathetic.

C. Adrian Rtibel, long a supporter of the Oriental Department of the Fogg Museum, rvho has

generously provided much of the research material used.

Usher P. Coolidge, Consultant, Oriental Department of the Fogg Museum, who assisted in thestudy of the ceramics and decorative arts.Fumiko Cranston, chief research associate on this project. She, together with her husband, trans-lated materials in entries 77, ro3, to7, tt2, r2o, r23, r3z, and r4z. She has worked with themanuscript and been indispensable to the project in a great many rvays. Our debt to Mrs. Cranstoncannot be adequately expressed.

Edwin Cranston, Associate Professor of Japanese Literature, who helped in translations,cspccially in entry ro7, antl aiscl assisted in other ways.Matstrhara Naoko, r,r'ho undertook the delicate task of printinq fronr rn ancitnt u-ood-block forrntr\'6o.N'iildred Frost, rvho l<-ryaliy preparctl the manuscript tbr publication.EIIen Farrorv, tvho patientll' editcd thc manuscript.Louise Cort, Assistant Curator, Oriental Department of the Fogg Museum, who skillfully rvroteentries 90-94, r38-r4r, rfo, r5z, and r53, and assisted in the exhibition proper.

Other mernbers of the statt of the Fogg and the Department of Fine Arts to u'hotn we .1rc indcl-rrctl

for hours of assistance: Suzannah Doeringer, Elena Drake, Ann Landreth, Ellen Thunnan, Chang

Cheng-mei, Aoki Michiko, Margaret Sevcenko, Mabel Regan, Monica Bethe ('ivho helped on

entrl'13), Catherine Cot6, Elizabeth Jones, Arthur Beale, Marjorie Cohn, Laurence Dohertv and

his staff.

lVlernbers of the Departruent of Far Eastern Languages and the Harvard-Yenching h"rstitute rvho

har.e assisted: Donald Shively, Itas.'rka Gen, Glen Baxter, Eugene Wu, George Potter and his staff.

The follorving graduate students assisted in preparing individual entries:

Ahn Hwi-jur-t,64; Albert Breu,ster, r45; Gina Lee Barnes, I09, r5r; Phvllis Granoff, 3r,4riHorst Huber, 951 Laura Marin, tr, +2,43; Oyu.rruMidori, gg, ro8, r26, t+9; Tan-raki Ryoko,

78,95, t43, 146; R. Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, 36, 37; Stephen Wilkinson, rI5

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:

Jan Fontein; Money Hickman; Horioka Chimyo; Iguchi Yasuhiro

Freer Gallery, Washington, D.C.:

John A. Pope; Harold Stern; Thomas Larvtotr

Seattle Art Museum:

Richard E. Fuller; Ilenrl'Trubncr

We have also shamelessly enlisted the help of travelers and visitors to the Fogg Museum, picking their

brains without hesitation. Included among them are Steve Addiss, Mr. and Mrs. Joe D. Price, Peter

Drucker, and Sylvan Barnett.

As a matter of record, all manuscripts have passed through nty hands for initial editing; all entries

\Mere prepared by myself except those that are signed at the end by the initials of the writer. All

errors in the catalogue are my responsibility.

JouN RosrNunoC,l:;rhri,[7c, I /,rrsrrclt tt srtt.s

June, lPJo

1O9. En.rurelcd cups vvith white plun'r blossonrs

llid-Edo pcriodOqata Kcnzan (t66 j-r71j)Stonen,are; tvhite and black oru oreen enantcl glazc

I{. z 5ls x i i/8 in. (6.5 x 8.5 cn.)

Blossonring plurn branches, an ancietrt moti[' irr

Chinese and Japanese ink painting (sce No. 77), have

bccn uscd to dccorate these fivc deep cups. The

placement of the branches is random; the p.rinting is

relaxcd and gcncralizecl, rvith a minimunt of detail ;

the tips of the brarrches are drawn bending over the

sides, dorvn into tl're cups themselves. l'he spirit ofthe design is very close to that of the school o[ Koetsu

and Sdtatsu, rvhich recognized no distinction betrveen

6ne and applied arts and delighted in making un-

expected combinations of aesthetic elements. Itr a

sense, Kenzan combined the techniques of Ninsei,who taught him ceramics, with those o[ the Koetsu

school with which he had strong family ties. Throughthis combination, he made a major contribution tothe development in Kyoto of the highly decorated

ceramics that came to be known as Ky6-yaki (capital

ware).Sets of enameled dishes were produced in great

numbers by Kenzan and his assistants. Usually the sets

of dishcs are made up o[ fivc mcmbcrs. In scts o[triangular deep cups, however, there are six, and

when the cups are arranged tip to tip, they form a

large hexagon. In this set, however, one cuP has been

lost. Among the large quantity of material of this kindbearing the Kenzan signature are many later imita-tions. However, these cups have long been considered

authentic.

Formerly in the Yura collection, Osaka

Published: Mitsuoka Tadanari, I(enzan. T6ki Zenshi,vol. 7. Tokyo, 1965. Pl. 7; Aimi K6u in Kobijutsu,

no. r6 (January I967).

272

1 51, Bronze mirror

KoJun period (Jburth century ^.D.)

Cast bronze, w'ith bluc-green patinaDiam.6 t5f t6 in. (17.7 cm.)

Tl'ris c.rst bronzc mirror t.as ruadc iu Japan, but thedcsign of its back is a combirration of u'ell-kr.ro.rvnChir-rese nrirror tvpcs oI tl're Han period. The' Japanesesinrplified the original ornanrental dtcor and probablydid not rccognizr: its synrbolic signific.rr.rce, but theyconsitlered bronze mirrors to bc objccts ol the high-cst value. Indccd, a bronzc mirror is one o[ the threesacrcd insignia of thc Japancse Imperial Tlrronc; a

symbol of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu-d-mikami, it iskept in the Inner Sluine at Ise (see No. Gz).

IVlirrors tvere also included among the funeralequipment of Japanese nobles during the Tumulus(Kolun) period. They were treasured because of thehigh value of the bronze metal, rvhich was still rare,and because of the semimagical properties of mirrorsin Chinese cosmology, rvhich rvere enlanced by theperfect symmetry and roundness of the silvered faceand their ability to reflect and concentrate light. Inthe Kinai region (Nara-Osaka-Kyoto) from which thisexample must have come, mirrors were often placedin a container next to the corpse, togctl-rer rvit]r stonebrace]ets and jewels called magatama, s.words, daggers,and other weapons. As many as thirty mirrors havebeen found in a single tomb. Because mirrors wereoften kept for generations by a family before burial,mirrors from dre same tomb are often of varying ages.

Mirror backs of this tJpe are distinguished for theflatness of their ornamented surface, the design beinga highly unified essay in pattern witl-r no ulteriorsymbolic significance. The unity of the design is tmlyextraordinary. Responding, for example, to the fourcorners of the square around the central knob are theeight gracelul arcs. T]rese in turn are coordinated withthe eiqht small circles in tl-re outer band, each circlejoined by a pair ofparallel lines. The design is an inter-Il.tr r,l' 1'r;i1.'111f it .ull t't t r.ntl-it: t''lr.nrt,nts, ,rfc()uLi\r..ilt(l con\cx, ol r.rrli.rl lirrccs.rnrl thost: u.irichcnclosc, ol tlulicatc lincar elcmcnts and llat or volu-metric or.rt's. T]-ris ac]ticventent reflects the decplyrooted talent of the Japanese people lbr exploringpurely lbrmal relationships. The most original ex-pressions of this trait are the mirror designs calledchokko-mon (straight and bo.rv-shaped pattenr), which

break tionl thc symmetrv sho.*-n herc into a randorr,puzzling asymmetry and orve lar less to the Chinesethan this mirror does.

The Cl-rinese mirrors rvhich exertcd tl-re strongestinflucnce here belong to the t1'pe called cfiang-i-rzu-sun (may vou fbrcvt-r h:rve dutitul sons and gr.rndsons)taken from an inscription commonly found on thebacks. This type was producecl in China lrom the firstcentury B.c. until the end of the Han dynasty, thethird century a.o. The latest mirrors of this sequenceare considerably more coarse and simplified than theearlier ones, and they differ from this Japanese typeonly in having deeper relief on the surface. Largenumbers of chang-i-tzu-sun mirrors have been lound inthe Kinai region, and Chinese annals such as the Hou-Han Shu and the San-kuo Chih tell of Japanese envoysreturning to their homeland with gifts of Chinesemirrors. The Japanese imitations, however, wererarely slavish; here, for example, elements were addedfrom the Chinese TLV-type mirror, which has beenshon,n to possess slrong astrological signifrcance.From these came the square frame around the centerboss and the simplified tendril patterns, but the astro-logical meanings must have been lost.

Formerly in the Nonoguchi collection, Kyoto. (Re-corded in r878.)Reference: LLnehara Sueji (translated by Money L.Hickman). "Ancient Mirrors and their Relationship toEarly Japanese Culture," Acta Orientalia, vol. 4. (r963),pP. 70-79i Umehara Sueji. I(an$'o no Ken!r[. Tokyo,rgzg; Schuyler Camman. "The 'TLV' Pattern onCosnic Mirrors of the Han Dynasty," Journal oJ the

American Oriental Society, vol. 68. (, s+S), pp. r g9-r67;S. Sugiharu. iciJo-/rr. Nihurr dcrrsiri tsi;utsu, lul. 4.Tokyo, r964.

375

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