P6+Samurai+Arts

Samurai Arts By Alex K, Will S, and Hutch W

Samurai are often viewed as strong, ferocious warriors. But they are actually good people and are great at everything that they do. Samurai were great warriors, but they were also trained as scholars and artists. The samurai did many forms of art, including painting, ikebana, gardening, and writing. Poem writing was important to the samurai because it is an important skill to have good handwriting and to be able to write good poems. Zen gardens were artistically important because they had to make a person feel peaceful. Ikebana was a way of unique flower arranging, that each person had their own style of doing. Painting was a way to express one’s self through images. Whether its landscape or kanga, the samurai paintings are amazing.

Painting Painting was a very important art for a samurai. Paintings were done on scrolls, doors, and walls. There is a school, The Kano School that is a school only about painting. It teaches students numerous styles of formats of painting. The most famous are the kanga and ink style paintings. Ink painting was introduced from China to Japan. The ink painting quickly became a hit, and eventually, it became an important part of Zen Buddhism and a key element to the culture. Ink painting is what usually is hung on scrolls. Landscape painting is another type of painting that came from China. Japanese artists were highly influenced by this type of art, and many of them did landscape paintings of things like forests, mountains, and battle scenes. Some even painted their own gardens into their art.

Zen Gardens Another big aspect of the samurai culture was Zen Gardens and landscaping. A huge part of both of these is to calm the mind, and help unlock the unconscious mind. Just a few years ago in 2002, a team sent from Kyoto University believed they have found the perfect way to make a Zen Garden from studying the Ryoanji Gardens. In the Ryoanji Temple Gardens specifically, it was recently been found that in-between n the midway point between the rocks makes the image of tree branches. "We believe that the unconscious perception of this pattern contributes to the enigmatic appeal of the garden," said the team of Gert Van Tonder, Michael Lyons and Yoshimichi Ejima. In the Ryoanji Temple Gardens, thousands of tourists come every year, and all of them leave calmly. These rocks can also be seen as symbols, such as a tigress crossing an ocean with her cubs, or Chinese characters. Zen Gardens hold importance to samurai to help them meditate, but there are other arts that helps them meditate and concentrate, such as Ikebana.

Ikebana

Ikebana is a traditional art of Japan that has been practiced for over 600 years, and is one of the Samurais forms of art. Ikebana is the art of arranging flowers. The Japanese flower arrangements are not usually that complicated. It is always meant to represent three things, Heaven, People, and Earth. It originated from a Buddhist ritual of offering of flowers to the dead. This offering consisted of placing flowers on an altar and offering to them in the dead. These way the priest put the flowers were originally very informal. Around the 15th century, Ikebana became its own art form in Japan, and other places around the world, independent of the Buddhist Religion. However it still had its ties to the old religion. The first people to use this art form were the priest, then nobility started to use it, and soon it spread to all levels of society. Ikebana is has great importance to the samurai culture, yet so do some of the other arts, such as Haiku.

Haiku A Haiku is one of the most important Samurai arts. A haiku is a poem that is originally known for the 17 syllable formatting. This is often written in the form of 5-7-5. This is the most common type of Haiku. There are also other formats of haiku such as Tanka lyrics. These are 31 syllable versions. These are often written in the form of 5-7-5-7-7. An example of a haiku would be one of the haiku written by Harold G. Henderson. “My hut, in spring: True there is nothing in it- There is everything!” That is an example of the 17 syllable haiku. If you count the syllables it is 4-7-6. This is not 5-7-5 but it is still a 17 syllable haiku. There are also other types of haiku such as the 11 syllable haiku which is commonly written in 3-5-3 form. Haiku are very often about nature and even everyday life things. Many times it takes thinking to understand the value of the poem. Haiku have been around since the Tokugawa time period. These are very important to the Samurai arts. Not only was honor important to the samurai, but so were many of these great arts.

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CITATIONS

Deal, William E. __Handbook to Life In Medieval and Early Modern Japan.__ New York: Facts on File, Inc. 2006. Kalman, Bobbie. "Japan the Culture" New York : Crab Tree Publishing Company 1989. Print. Kyoto University. “ Zen garden secrets revealed .” BBC UK. BBC, 6.9.02. Web. 2.20.12  Morton, W. Scott. __Japan: Its history and culture.__ United States: 1994. print O'Neill, Tom. "Japans Samurai: Way of the Warrior." __Nation Geographic__. Dec 2003: 96-131