9.2.3 Cultural legacies Many examples of Japanese craftmanship survive today and provide a great deal of evidence of life in Japan over the centuries. Paintings often provide detail of the way of life for all classes of people, as well as the clothing they wore and the buildings in which they lived. Many famous events in Japanese history have also been depicted at the time in works of art. Crafts such as origami , printmaking and pottery can also give us insights into Japanese life in past centuries. Japanese artists adopted woodblock printing as early as the eighth century, but woodblock art really flourished from the sixteenth century onwards. The different styles and schools of woodblock art over the next three hundred years provide a great deal of insight into the Japanese way of life. Traditional Japanese sculpture evolved from the production of small clay figures in early eras, to the casting of huge bronze statues from the Classical period onwards. Sculptures were often religious in nature, depicting the different gods that were worshipped at different times. Large bronze sculptures of Buddha indicate the importance of Buddhism in different eras in Japanese history.
SkillBuilder discussion Using historical sources 1. Identify the material and size of the Buddha statue. 2. Discuss what the statue’s scale suggests about Buddhism’s influence during its construction. 3. How does this statue reflect Japanese
SOURCE2 This statue of Buddha is made of bronze and was constructed in the thirteenth century. It is 13.35 metres high and weighs approximately 94 tonnes.
craftsmanship of the thirteenth century?
Did you know? The Japanese language is written with three different sets of characters. These include Chinese characters known as kanji , aswell as two sets of characters that represent different sounds or syllables. These two sets of characters are known as hiragana and katakana. Hiragana primarily represents Japanese words and katakana is used for foreign words. The use of katakana immediately lets the reader know that the word is borrowed from another language.
TOPIC9 Japan under the sh̄oguns 211
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