contributor
26,977
edits
Changes
no edit summary
==Popular & Elite Culture==
==Popular & Elite Culture==
A number of officially patronized and popular arts developed in the Muromachi period, particularly in Kyoto, and particularly in conjunction with samurai patronage or simply with the shogunate's presence amplifying Kyoto's position as a cultural center. It was also at this time that attitudes towards the arts, particularly performing arts such as ''[[dengaku]]'' and ''[[sarugaku]]'', began to shift in a significant way away from their dangerous associations with magical effectiveness, towards an appreciation of them in a more refined, cultural category, albeit while retaining (as [[Noh]] in particular does) associations with the spiritual and otherworldly.
A number of officially patronized and popular arts developed in the Muromachi period, particularly in Kyoto, and particularly in conjunction with samurai patronage or simply with the shogunate's presence amplifying Kyoto's position as a cultural center.
Kyoto was a city of meeting places (''kaisho'') - Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, and samurai and court nobles' mansions, among other locations, contained meeting rooms where arts such as poetry gatherings, ''[[ikebana]]'', and music, dance, and theater, could be engaged in. Though these spaces were certainly not open to everyone, it is easy to imagine a city filled on any given day with elites of various sorts, engaging in various arts, in each of dozens of different meeting rooms, all at the same time, and then on another day, each samurai or court noble in a different meeting space, engaging in a different art, with different companions, intermingling and moving about, and thus forming a citywide network of cultural activity.
It was also at this time that attitudes towards the arts, particularly performing arts such as ''[[dengaku]]'' and ''[[sarugaku]]'', began to shift in a significant way away from their dangerous associations with magical effectiveness, towards an appreciation of them in a more refined, cultural category, albeit while retaining (as [[Noh]] in particular does) associations with the spiritual and otherworldly. The magical or otherworldly association caused performers of these arts to be considered marginal peoples, ''[[muen]]'' or ''kugai mono''; though this was a negative and dangerous thing, conceptually, socially, or spiritually in certain respects, in the end it contributed to the further development of the idea of engagement in the refined arts as something separated from formal hierarchies, in a good way. This set the stage for further developments in the Tokugawa period in which artistic circles could come to function as egalitarian spaces outside of one's normal identity & status, and as constituting a Japanese "public sphere."
In addition to official samurai patronage of Noh, [[tea ceremony]], various forms of poetry, calligraphy, and painting, and martial arts, Kyoto began to see the expansion of popular spectatorship of certain arts, as performance troupes organized into ''za'', and took part in paid performances (''kanjin'') held in the riverbanks or other marginal areas, made less marginal by these officially authorized events. Though officially sanctioned, however, these performances, and the marginal spaces where they were held, continued to be associated with spiritual pollution and marginality. When, in a famous incident in [[1349]], the stands collapsed under an excited crowd, killing over one hundred people at a ''dengaku'' performance attended by the shogun & ''[[kanpaku]]'', there was much criticism that the shogun was perhaps too infatuated with such petty entertainments.<ref>Ikegami, 107-108.</ref>
In addition to official samurai patronage of Noh, [[tea ceremony]], various forms of poetry, calligraphy, and painting, and martial arts, Kyoto began to see the expansion of popular spectatorship of certain arts, as performance troupes organized into ''za'', and took part in paid performances (''kanjin'') held in the riverbanks or other marginal areas, made less marginal by these officially authorized events. Though officially sanctioned, however, these performances, and the marginal spaces where they were held, continued to be associated with spiritual pollution and marginality. When, in a famous incident in [[1349]], the stands collapsed under an excited crowd, killing over one hundred people at a ''dengaku'' performance attended by the shogun & ''[[kanpaku]]'', there was much criticism that the shogun was perhaps too infatuated with such petty entertainments.<ref>Ikegami, 107-108.</ref>
Zen, tea ceremony, and other factors also influenced architecture dramatically in this period, with a number of forms, such as the tearoom itself and ''[[shoin-zukuri]]'' architecture, along with specific developments such as the ''[[chigaidana]]'' shelf and ''[[tokonoma]]'' alcove, developing into standard "traditional" forms.
Zen, tea ceremony, and other factors also influenced architecture dramatically in this period, with a number of forms, such as the tearoom itself and ''[[shoin-zukuri]]'' architecture, along with specific developments such as the ''[[chigaidana]]'' shelf and ''[[tokonoma]]'' alcove, developing into standard "traditional" forms.
The destruction of Kyoto in the Ônin War caused many artists, performers, and poets, as well as patrons/enthusiasts to leave the city for elsewhere. Though this represented the decline of Kyoto as a cultural center, it also led to the dissemination of its arts to the provinces, and in the late 15th to early 16th centuries, much of the elite arts developed and refined over the course of the Muromachi period within Kyoto social circles were more fully adopted by ''daimyô'' and other prominent patrons across the realm.<ref>Ikegami, 112.</ref>
==Society==
==Society==