Department of Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
October 2003
In the harshly controlled feudal society governed for over 250 years by the descendants of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616), creativity came not from its leaders, a conservative military class, but from the two lower classes in the Confucian social hierarchy, the artisans and merchants. Although officially denigrated, they were free to reap the economic and social benefits of this prosperous age. The tea ceremony, which had been adopted by every class during the Momoyama period, provided the medium in which literary and artistic traditions of the past were assimilated and transformed by highly cultivated men of both the bourgeoisie and the court. By the late 1630s, contact with the outside world was cut off through official prohibition of foreigners. In Japan’s self-imposed isolation, traditions of the past were revived and refined, and ultimately parodied and transformed in the flourishing urban societies of Kyoto and Edo. Restricted trade with Chinese and Dutch merchants was permitted in Nagasaki, and it spurred development of Japanese porcelain and provided an opening for Ming literati culture to filter into artistic circles of Kyoto and, later, Edo.
By the end of the seventeenth century, three distinct modes of creative expression flourished. The renaissance of Heian culture accomplished by aristocrats and cultivated Kyoto townsmen was perpetuated in the painting and crafts of the school that later came to be called Rinpa. In urban Edo, which assumed a distinctive character with its revival after a devastating fire in 1657, a witty, irreverent expression surfaced in the literary and visual arts, giving rise to the Kabuki theater and the well-known woodblock prints of the “floating world,” or ukiyo-e. In the eighteenth century, a Japanese response to the few threads of Chinese literati culture, introduced by Ming Chinese monks at Manpukuji south of Kyoto, resulted in a new style known as bunjinga (“literati painting”), or nanga (“painting of the Southern School”) after the Ming term for literati painting. Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, these various styles were embraced by Japanese artists and artisans as distinct but nonexclusive and complementary modes of expression.
Citation
Department of Asian Art. “Art of the Edo Period (1615–1868).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/edop/hd_edop.htm (October 2003)
Further Reading
Guth, Christine. Japanese Art of the Edo Period. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995.
Mason, Penelope. History of Japanese Art. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004.
Singer, Robert T., ed. Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868. Washington: D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1998.
Additional Essays by Department of Asian Art
- Department of Asian Art. “Mauryan Empire (ca. 323–185 B.C.).” (October 2000)
- Department of Asian Art. “Zen Buddhism.” (October 2002)
- Department of Asian Art. “Chinese Cloisonné.” (October 2004)
- Department of Asian Art. “Chinese Gardens and Collectors’ Rocks.” (October 2004)
- Department of Asian Art. “Landscape Painting in Chinese Art.” (October 2004)
- Department of Asian Art. “Nature in Chinese Culture.” (October 2004)
- Department of Asian Art. “Han Dynasty (206 B.C.–220 A.D.).” (October 2000)
- Department of Asian Art. “Kushan Empire (ca. Second Century B.C.–Third Century A.D.).” (October 2000)
- Department of Asian Art. “Qin Dynasty (221–206 B.C.).” (October 2000)
- Department of Asian Art. “Rinpa Painting Style.” (October 2003)
- Department of Asian Art. “Jōmon Culture (ca. 10,500–ca. 300 B.C.).” (October 2002)
- Department of Asian Art. “The Kano School of Painting.” (October 2003)
- Department of Asian Art. “Woodblock Prints in the Ukiyo-e Style.” (October 2003)
- Department of Asian Art. “Traditional Chinese Painting in the Twentieth Century.” (October 2004)
- Department of Asian Art. “Ming Dynasty (1368–1644).” (October 2002)
- Department of Asian Art. “Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127).” (October 2001)
- Department of Asian Art. “Period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties (386–581).” (October 2002)
- Department of Asian Art. “Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279).” (October 2001)
- Department of Asian Art. “Tang Dynasty (618–907).” (October 2001)
- Department of Asian Art. “Yayoi Culture (ca. 300 B.C.–300 A.D.).” (October 2002)
- Department of Asian Art. “Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368).” (October 2001)
- Department of Asian Art. “Art of the Pleasure Quarters and the Ukiyo-e Style.” (October 2004)
- Department of Asian Art. “Scholar-Officials of China.” (October 2004)
- Department of Asian Art. “Kofun Period (ca. 300–710).” (October 2002)
- Department of Asian Art. “Shunga Dynasty (ca. Second–First Century B.C.).” (October 2000)
- Department of Asian Art. “Lacquerware of East Asia.” (October 2004)
- Department of Asian Art. “Painting Formats in East Asian Art.” (October 2004)
- Department of Asian Art. “Asuka and Nara Periods (538–794).” (October 2002)
- Department of Asian Art. “Heian Period (794–1185).” (October 2002)
- Department of Asian Art. “Kamakura and Nanbokucho Periods (1185–1392).” (October 2002)
- Department of Asian Art. “Momoyama Period (1573–1615).” (October 2002)
- Department of Asian Art. “Neolithic Period in China.” (October 2004)
- Department of Asian Art. “Muromachi Period (1392–1573).” (October 2002)
- Department of Asian Art. “Samurai.” (October 2002)
- Department of Asian Art. “Shinto.” (October 2002)
- Department of Asian Art. “Seasonal Imagery in Japanese Art.” (October 2004)
- Department of Asian Art. “Shang and Zhou Dynasties: The Bronze Age of China.” (October 2004)
- Department of Asian Art. “Shōguns and Art.” (October 2004)
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Chronology
Keywords
- 17th Century A.D.
- 18th Century A.D.
- 19th Century A.D.
- Asia
- Calligraphy
- China
- Chinese Literature / Poetry
- Clothing
- Coat
- East Asia
- Edo Period
- Embroidery
- Heian Period
- Ink
- Japan
- Japanese Literature / Poetry
- Kano School
- Kyoto
- Lacquer
- Landscape
- Literature / Poetry
- Ming Dynasty
- Momoyama Period
- Monasticism
- Painting
- Paper
- Porcelain
- Printmaking
- Rinpa Style
- Screen
- Seasons
- Silk
- Spring
- Tea / Coffee
- Textile
- Theater
- Tortoiseshell
- Trade
- Ukiyo-e Style
- Vessel
- Woodcut