According to Kleiner, Muromachi painters were a frequent part of earlier Japanese eras, and were known to consistently follow the Chinese precedents. The style of the Muromachi painters combines the idea of style and subject matter using various methods and approaches. Many of the masters worked in different styles, including the priest-painter, Sesshu Toyo, who is well known for his travel to China to study Ming painting. This was uncommon for the Japanese, and proved to be more contemporary than the Muromachi approach. One of his most known works is the splashed-ink (haboku) landscape crafted using ink on paper. The work currently resides in the Tokyo National Museum, and was crafted during the Muromachi period around 1495. When approaching…show more content… These types of works were more properly used in the Japanese tea ceremony. This ceremony is known for its ritual preparation, which involved the serving and drinking of green tea. Originally the practice started in China, but the Japanese used it more as a tool of sophistication and practice, especially in the Momoyama period. The rituals began in Japan at the base of Zen temples, to represent the idea of separating the mind from the physical world to entertain the practice of enhancing the mind and spirit. As the ceremony began to spread, it became more common among the samurai and wealthy merchants. Before the Muromachi period, the ceremony was used as a more common practice as an opportunity to flaunt wealth and status, especially in the form of collections containing porcelain, lacquers, and paintings. The original ceremony was held in the hosts home, but as they gained popularity, teahouses eventually began to be constructed. Although it might have been used in a common sense, the tea ceremony involves a systematic approach of various rituals involving both the host and the guests. The host is required to serve the guests and provide utensils and decoration in according to season, if the host is well-known for their craft and sensibility to seasonal aesthetic, they may become known as a master tea-ceremony practitioner and have the opportunity to take up students. Many tea masters were…show more content… Among all these outbreaks, Ernest Fenollosa, and American Professor, was one of the people most eager to preserve the Japanese arts. Although American, he was a professor of philosophy and political economy at Tokyo Imperial University. He and Okakura Kakuzo lead a movement which eventually lead to the creation of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, which was purely dedicated to the idea of Japanese arts. The school often encouraged students to incorporate some Western techniques as well as the bright Japanese painting style, and the style eventually became known as nihonga, which means Japanese painting. Kano Hangai was one of the first professors appointed after the death of Okakura. Kano was known to have been studying at the school and was known for his crafting of the Bodhisattva Kannon. The work was crafted on a hanging scroll made of silk using ink, color, and gold. Kano’s piece currently resides in the Freer Gallery of Art of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. The painting depicts Kannon, who is known as an effeminate bodhisattva despite his mustache, pouring wisdom in the form of water droplets whilst standing upon a cloud. He uses a flask to pour the droplets on a newborn suspended within a translucent globe. Kano’s painting was labelled by Fenellosa as The Creation of Man, and is known to
