Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion: The Creation of the Soul of Japan (Asia Perspectives: History, Society, and Culture) by Donald Keene

Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion: The Creation of the Soul of Japan (Asia Perspectives: History, Society, and Culture)



Download Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion: The Creation of the Soul of Japan (Asia Perspectives: History, Society, and Culture)




Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion: The Creation of the Soul of Japan (Asia Perspectives: History, Society, and Culture) Donald Keene
Language: English
Page: 208
Format: pdf
ISBN: 0231130562, 9780231130561
Publisher: Columbia University Press

From

This enterprising account by the doyen of Japan studies demonstrates that the quintessential Japanese aesthetic—which characterizes Noh drama, sand gardens, monochrome ink painting, shoji panels, tatami floors, and the tea ceremony—was the creation of a staggeringly incompetent fifteenth-century shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimasa. His military record was dismal and his domestic life a shambles: his domineering wife abandoned him, his nanny (who probably doubled as his mistress) may have intrigued against him, and a favorite concubine took up with his dissolute son. While warfare destroyed Kyoto and the corpses of famine victims clogged the Kamo River, Yoshimasa squandered his treasury, bringing obsessive perfectionism to such matters as perfume blending. He ultimately abdicated to become a Buddhist priest, devoting himself to the development of the restrained, Zen-influenced style exemplified in his famous Silver Pavilion. Keene's multifarious learning and engaging manner illuminate the improbable story of the fastidious aesthete whose taste has been so important in forming the look of the modern world.
Copyright © 2005

From

Medieval Japan was a brutal, violent epoch in which local lords strived to carve out their own power niches. The best hope for stability was a strong, ruthless shogun, a type of military dictator who supposedly ruled on behalf of the emperor. Based on that necessity, the fifteenth-century shogun Yoshimasa was particularly ill suited for the job. He seems to have been repelled by the military arts, and he had little taste for the political manipulations required to control the ambitious feudal barons. He presided over the virtual destruction of the power of the shogunate. Yet Keene (Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 2002) is not writing a hatchet job. Rather, he shows how this monkish aesthete sponsored a great flowering and diffusion of Japanese culture, including theater, poetry, and architecture, and the influence of that flowering is still felt in modern Japan. This is a book that requires patience and at least a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese history. But for those who wish to fully appreciate the roots of Japanese culture, it has value. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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