and propriety of courtiers. By the Heian period, fūryū had become an aesthetic term describing things and events out of the ordinary, such as poetry competitions, unconventional displays of flowers in a garden, opulent decorative arts, lavish banquets, and spectacles associated with court and religious festivals.36
By the late sixteenth century, multiple meanings of fūryū proliferated, depending on the context. For example, the wabi aesthetic of the chanoyu tea ceremony became described as a fūryū activity. In this sense, fūryū implied a conspicuously rusticated elegance closer to shibui. Meanwhile, influenced by the later Chinese evolution of the word among literati of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), fūryū came to be used to describe the aesthetic preferences of Japanese intellectuals and artists who abhorred the repressive policies of the Tokugawa military regime and held great admiration for Chinese literati recluses who in troubled times had secluded themselves in rustic retreats in the mountains to pursue elegant pastimes. Prominent among the pastimes of these intellectuals was participation in a more informal Chinese-style service of steeped green tea (sencha).37 Fūryū became the aesthetic term that defined the sencha tea ceremony, in contrast to wabi, which was closely identified with chanoyu.
Plate 1-26 Section of the Lotus Sutra, Heian period, mid-12th century. Handscroll mounted as a hanging scroll, ink on paper with gold leaf ruled lines, gold leaf and silver leaf decoration, gold and silver dust, and painted decoration in margins, 24.8 x 40.6 cm. Collection of Sylvan Barnet and William Burto. The aesthetic of miyabi permeates this sumptuously decorated sacred text.
Plate 1-27 Kemari scene from the Tale of Genji, 18th century. Six-panel folding screen, ink and color on gold leaf, 159.9 x 378.2 cm. Gift from the Clark Center for Japanese Arts & Culture to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2013.29.12. The Tale of Genji, a novel penned around the year 1000 by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting to the court, dwells on the aesthetic pastimes and romantic entanglements of courtiers. In this idealized scene from the novel, courtiers, dressed in fine Heian period style multilayered silk brocade robes have gathered in a palace courtyard to participate in a traditional New Year’s game of kickball (kemari). The robes, cherry trees, and palace veranda, reflect the spirit of fūryū.
Contemporaneous with the Chinese-influenced meaning of fūryū, the word carried a wholly different connotation among those who frequented the pleasure districts. To them, it continued to evoke the rarified courtly taste of the distant Japanese past, fused with a sense of fashion consciousness.
Plate 1-28 Yamamoto Baiitsu (1783–1856), The Plum Blossom Studio, 1846. Hanging scroll, ink and light color on satin, 133 x 51.4 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: Edith Ehrman Memorial Fund, F79-13. Baiitsu here depicts the idealistic fūryū lifestyle of the Chinese scholar-gentleman. Baiitsu was one of the key participants in the Chinese-style sencha tea ceremony.
Plate 1-29 Eiraku Hozen (1795–1854), Set of five teacups for steeped tea (sencha), mid-19th century. Kinrande-style porcelain with overglaze red enamel, underglaze blue, and gold leaf, height 3.8 cm. Saint Louis Art Museum. Museum Shop Fund, 355: 1991.1-5. Designed for use in the Chinese-style tea ceremony of sencha, Eiraku’s teacups are suffused with an elegant Chinese fūryū taste in vogue among sophisticated admirers of Chinese culture.
Plate 1-30 Kikugawa Eizan (1787–1867), The Jewel River in Ide, Yamashiro Province, from the series Fūryū seirō bijin mutamagawa uchi (Elegant beauties of the green houses matched with the six Jewel Rivers), ca. 1810. Color woodblock print, horizontal oban format, 23.8 x 34.7 cm. Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, 1964-0040. The beauty of geisha was sometimes described as fūryū and many prints that portray them, like this one, feature titles using the word. Here, the allusion to Heian period aesthetics is underscored through the subject of the Jewel (Tama) River, popular among ancient courtly poets.
KAREI
SUMPTUOUS ELEGANCE
Throughout the medieval and early modern periods (roughly the fourteenth through mid-nineteenth centuries) the formal, public life of Japanese aristocrats and élite warriors required the use of luxurious objects and clothing befitting their status. These objects are described with the aesthetic expression karei (literally “flowery beauty”) that connotes a sumptuousness and elegance most evident in styles of clothing and theatrical costumes, residential furnishings, including gold leaf ground folding screens and lacquer objects made for trousseaus and other official gifts, and accoutrements and garments for military display, court pageantry, and Shinto rituals. Befitting the association of karei with pomp and ceremony, the word entered the Japanese vocabulary during the ninth century, a time of great opulence in the performance of court rituals (see Plate 2-49, a screen of an ascension ceremony for a seventeenth-century empress that exudes this aesthetic). The ambiance of karei persists into the present in imperial court and public festivals, especially those celebrated in Kyoto, the old imperial capital, that recreate court life in the ancient Heian era.
Plate 1-31 Motoyoshi (active late 16th–early 17th century), Lacquer saddle with scenes of some the 53 stations of the Tōkaidō Road, Momoyama period, dated 1606. Gold lacquered wood, length 40 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 32-202-13 O. Photo: Tiffany Matson. This saddle features small scenes, each carefully identified, of the individual way-stations along the Tōkaidō, the highway that linked the political capital of Edo (Tokyo) with the imperial capital of Kyoto, in what is possibly the earliest known representation of this subject, made famous later in woodblock prints by Utagawa Hiroshige.
Plate 1-32 Arita ware, Kutani-style dish with design of peonies, late 17th–early 18th century. Porcelain with polychrome overglaze enamels, diameter 32.7 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Gift of Samuel Hammer, 63-33. Photo: Joshua Ferdinand. Bold, brightly colored designs like these against a golden background reflect the same karei taste as gold leaf ground folding screens.
Plate 1-33 Kosode robe with designs of fans, bamboo, plums, and pines, early 18th century. Gold figured satin ground with stencil tie dyeing, silk and metallic thread embroidery, with an orange plain silk lining, 139.7 x 111.8 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 31-142/21. Photo: Tiffany Matson. Many karei designs on women’s robes juxtaposed unlikely motifs. Here, purely decorative folding fans are scattered amongst plants known as the “three friends of winter,” Chinese Confucian symbols of perseverance and integrity.
Plate 1-34 Nuihaku-type Nō robe with paulownia vine design and horizontal stripes, 18th century. Gold leaf covered silk ground with silver foil and silk thread embroidery, 157.5 x 147.3 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 31-142/1. Photo: Jamison Miller. The glittering beauty of this Nō robe contributed to the stately karei atmosphere of the Nō theater.
