The most important period in Japanese history
Introduction
The Tokugawa period also called Edo period (because this is the name of the capital of the shogunate, the current Tokyo) is one of the most important stages within the history of Japan, this being a stage of great internal changes that prepared the country forenter the modern era as a great power. It is a key period not by itself but for what happened before and after this period. Before Japan was a medieval state formed by small kingdoms that fought with each other until in the mid -16It was Meiji at the end of the 19th century.
Developing
It is a period clearly marked by the Samurai, a warrior elite who occupied the highest positions of the government and served as a means to maintain order in the state. His code of conduct and philosophy, served as inspiration for innumerable literary and pictorial works as we will see later. This period is also very influenced by the country’s closure against Western powers, which isolated it from Europe to the last quarter of the nineteenth century and allowed the native culture to bloom to levels never before known before. Japan map during the S. XVI, after the unification of the Tokugawa period.
The official sources of the Japanese State and its commercial partners. During the Tokugawa period, Japan suffered a great series of changes in its form of government and division. Throughout the sixteenth century there were a set of wars that ended up unifying the country under a single shogun or lord. This century is called "the time of unification" and marks the passage of a medieval feudal society to a unitary and centralized government, which meant a great development during the more than 250 years of Tokugawa government in areas such as culture oreducation. This centralization allows us to have a great repertoire of laws and edicts of the time that affected the history of the island.
For example: the laws of military households which regulated the behavior of lords and warriors. These laws had their bases in the samurai code and sought a balance between the warrior side and the chivalrous side and worship being the honor and tradition key pieces. Japan closing order that closed the country to foreigners and prohibited with death penalty to leave the islands or trade with people from abroad. Because of this, the historical sources outside the Japanese territory are scarce since the only western ones that were allowed to dock on Japanese soil were the Dutch on an island ceded in Nagasaki’s bay expressly for them.
This order also prohibited Christianity throughout the territory with death sentences for fear of a westernization and subsequent colonization by Portuguese mainly. From this expulsion of Christians from Japan we have testimonies in the first person in the form of letters such as those of Father Juan Bautista de Baeza which report the treatment of the Japanese authorities regarding Christians and the punishments to whom they were subjected. In his own words they made many more investigations was our series that were no more than a father of the company called Joan Baptista and another friar of San Francisco.
They put in Cáçel and where they were dexed by Mass with what everyone understood that they would not kill them but would throw them out of Japan. One of the most extensive and reliable western historical sources are the notes of Isaac Titsingh in which the functioning of the Japanese court as well as the lineage of the shoguns is widely detailed. He did not write any book in life, but at his death his notes were collected and three books of different themes were published: one of anecdotes of the reigning of Shoguns, another about illustrations and memories of his stay in Japan and another about mythologyJapanese and its traditions.
Juan Bautista de Baeza (Ubeda, Nagasaki) was a Spanish missionary who did his work mainly in Macao and Japan where he baptized more than 75.000 people. After the expulsion of Christian missionaries he was arrested by the Japanese authorities and died in jail in 1626. Isaac Titsingh, was a Dutch ambassador and merchant who occupied the position of commercial director with Japan from 1779 to 1784 time during which he made visits to the capital and the shogun and maintained contact with high positions of the Japanese government. He was also director of Commerce in India, Batavia and China.
Another great source is Titia Blomhoff but neither for its writings but because of its image that caused great impression on the painters and sculptors of the time and became a very popular figure in the nineteenth century in Japan. At present we can still see remains of the Dutch presence in Japan in the celebration of an annual party in Nagasaki that commemorates the change of director of the Dutch expedition or in different streets or avenues of both Tokyo or Nagasaki and An-Jin Cho (PilotStreet currently). From the settlement of this era there are no material remains since its extension was just over 9000 m2 and the policies of the beginning of the 20th century completely destroyed it.
Today we only find a reconstruction of 2017 trying to represent the era of greatest splendor. Art as a historical source. The Tokugawa period is characterized by the centralization of power and to achieve this, the State was based on the adoption of a kind of neo-confucianism similar to the present in China in the same period. China was the main model that Japan looked by adopting its intellectual concerns and beauty canons. In the field of painting we observe the appearance of new themes that are mixed with the classics without replacing them. Urban life took great importance in painting.
What indicates the progressive appearance of large cities such as Osaka or Tokyo that in the mid -eighteenth century came to have about 400.000 inhabitants. In this period it was also experienced with realism in painting due to the influence of European art that, although scarce managed to reach these lands normally in the form of book impressions. Another of the favorite themes of this period are the values of confucianism such as value and justice normally represented in military gestures paintings. Example of urban art, "One Hundred Children" Kano Einō, S.XVII, paper and wood paint. Titia Blomhoff was the woman of one of the Dutch commercial directors in Japan.
And the first western woman to step on Japanese soil at a time when she was prohibited. His stay lasted just over three months until he was expelled by the Japanese authority. Later the so -called Kanō School appeared that was erected as the Official School of the Japanese State. At the beginning of the school his goal was to simulate the Chinese art of the time, but later developed his own style around issues such as nature and Buddhism. This paint was embodied on wooden and screen planks and were used to decorate most castles of the time. A great painter of this period was Kanō Tanyū.
Which stands out not only as a painter but as a great theoretical and student of the painting of his time since his notebooks full of explanations about his own and others are a great source of knowledge. Example of the Kanō School "Fénix and Paulownia" Kanō Tan’yū, S.XVII Paper and wood paint. As for architecture, during the Tokugawa period the wood was the favorite material due to the ease of obtaining in the area and the philosophy of being in union with nature. This form of construction left cities at the mercy of fire on numerous occasions as a great Tokyo fire in 1657 where 70% of the city burned.
And where more than 100 died.000 people. This fact served to restructure the plan of the city by accommodating it to the times with wider avenues and streets. During this period, great strengths and royal palaces were also built with large stone walls. One of the best examples of this type of constructions is Nagoya Castle built between 1610 and 1612. Kanō Tan’yū was one of the most important painters at Kanō School. During his life he decorated the walls of the main castles of the kingdom as that of Tokyo or Osaka. In this period the sculpture was basically reduced to the religious sphere being the images of Buddha the most present element in this period.
The government of this period in its eagerness to expel rest of religions from the territory as the Christian from the middle of the S.XVII promoted the creation of these images of Buddha in wood in a massive way to replace the images of other creeds. These wooden images could be lacquered or polychrome to adapt them to temples or palaces. Sitting Buddha, Tokugawa period, lacquered wood with glass eyes. As for literature, this era saw native art flourish due to the policy of closing the country to foreign influences. The proliferation of cities caused new popular dramatic genres such as Bunraku to emerge.
The Bunraku is a type of puppet theater accompanied with music and by a narrator that tell both original stories and parts of the country’s own history such as the legend of the forty -seven rōnin. Image of a representation of the National Theater of Bunraku located in Osaka. These works represent the values of the time as honor and respect for traditions, as well as the samurai code also called Bushido. The bushido was very important at the time since the samurai population of Japan of the Tokugawa period was very abundant. One of the most important bushy treaties is the Book of the Five Rings of Miyamoto Musashi.
A treaty on the path that all samurai should travel both in physical training and spiritually. Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645) is one of the best duelists in the entire history of Japan. Duelist, writer and philosopher, holds the title of Kensei (Holy of the Sword) due to his only combat style with two sabers and his record of 61 undefeated duels. He created several combat styles with saber and cane and founded a combat school. Another literary branch that suffered a great development was poetry with the appearance of haikus. The haikus were normally short poems of two or three verses that dealt with everyday life and the way of seeing the life of the time.
Matsuo Bashō is known as the most famous author of this period recognized and studied even today. His haikus speak from the simplest things such as cleaning a house until the passage of stations or philosophical dilemmas of the time. An example of this are the following haikus: Kareeda or Susuhaki wa karasu do not take mysto tana tsuru aki no kur daiku kana. On a bare branch of the house clean. A carpenter. Another of the most popular prose forms of the time was Renku, a collaborative poetry style in which several poets wrote the same poem alternating in their writing. They were characterized by their description of everyday life mixed with humor.
conclusion
The Tokugawa period is a great source of knowledge to understand the development of contemporary Japan and its culture that is strongly influenced by the philosophy of this era as can be seen in its pronounced sense of honor from the samurai code, as well as the great respect forThe tradition promoted at this time by the country’s enclosure policies. The historical sources of this period are very extensive due to the centralization of the State and to the increasing use of the printing press as a means of dissemination of culture. Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694) was a poet of the Tokugawa period known above all for his haikus and his rekus. His poems were very influenced by the countryside and his own experiences since he traveled throughout Japan while developing his literary career.
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