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The Making of Modern Japan

rst half of the period, it will be remembered, it was headed by abbots brought from China. The other exception, and far more famous, is the Nikko mausoleum/temple dedicated to Ieyasu after he was deied as the Shining Deity of the East by his grandson Iemitsu. Here the urge for rich sculptured decoration was expressed in dazzling color quite in contrast to the normal Japanese preference for unpainted wood. The Nikko shrine, given imperial honor equal to that accorded the Ise shrine dedicated to the sun goddess Amaterasu, was approached by a special highway lined with cryptomeria trees contributed by daimyo. Along it wound processions of successive shoguns, emissaries from the imperial court, and Korean ambassadors. At Nikko itself the efforts of the architect and the wood-carver to reach maximum richness in a whole group of buildings have been complemented by an equal emphasis on color, inside and out. The key is almost barbarically high, hot red, intense light blue, gold accents, a contrabass of black lacquer; the ultimate visual shock is given by key areas painted a dazzling white. Yet even here the Chinesestyle magnicence was subdued by its setting. In China this striking group of temples would have been left open to the sky and surrounded by marble pavements, but at Nikko a setting of towering cryptomeria provides a depth of shadow into which the tumult of the group of buildings sinks, almost without an echo.3 Ceramics too made great headway. The tea ceremony, an essential accomplishment for the cultured, brought with it opportunity for potters whose ware complemented the rustic simplicity of the artfully simple setting in which the great found respite from the formality of ofcial life and duty. Each of the Sengoku uniers played a part in the immense respect that was paid to water jars and tea bowls of particularly subtle and quite natural beauty; not a few carried names and became objects of desire and intense competition at the very highest ranks of society. Some master potters developed works of quiet and exquisite elegance. The early-seventeenth-century potter Nonomura Ninsei, perhaps the rst to sign his work, indicated an awareness of craftsmanas-artist that marked a new sophistication. His tea jars and incense burners, done in a boldly decorative style, complemented the magnicence of the new ruling class. The surge of urban needs and travel that has been described also brought the opportunity to market nationwide the products of humbler kilns. Many areas developed local glazes and clays that made it possible for commoners to shift from wooden to ceramic bowls, with consequent benets for health and longevity. Porcelain complemented earthenware. In the northern Kyushu province of Hizen the Saga daimyo, Nabeshima, had the advantage of groups of Korean potters his armies had commandeered and brought back to Japan