Higashiyama period

The Higashiyama Culture (Japanese东山 文化, Higashiyama bunka, literally, " Ostberg culture" ) refers to a cultural heyday in the Muromachi period of the 15th century under the Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa. The Higashiyama culture was decisive for the development of many traditional Japanese arts. Their influence is still felt today.

From 1483 Yoshimasa devoted himself, far from the policy, fully his life as an esthete. Under his patronage to a new artistic culture developed according to his aesthetic ideas. Particularly influential were the Zen concepts of wabi (侘び) and Yugen (幽 玄). The center of the culture was Yoshimasa's retirement home of Higashiyama palace, today Jishō -ji. The name goes back to the location of the palace on the eastern mountains of Kyoto. The importance of the new arts is reflected in the fact that they all have survived to the present day. They have strongly influenced the Japanese culture and are now often for " the Japanese ".

An overview of the arts that developed:

• New forms of poetry: renga (连 歌, dt ' chain poems " ) and Kanshi (汉诗, dt " Chinese poems " )
• Art of flower arranging, called Ikebana (生け花) or Kado (华 道, German " way of flowers" )
• Sado tea ceremony called (茶道, German " way of tea " ) or Cha no yu (茶の湯, dt " water of Tea" )
• Suibokuga pictures (水墨画)
• New forms of theater: Noh (能) and Kyōgen (狂言)
• Karesansui Gardens (枯 山水)
• Shoin architecture (書院造り, shoin - zukuri )