Japanese Food Offerings

Food offerings are one of the most interesting aspects of Shinto rituals. Some involve an enormous variety of foodstuff and constitute extraordinary examples of food preparation and presentation. Many of these offerings are based on ancient sources and are prepared according to protocols established at the imperial court in the Muromachi period, if not earlier. This article explores some features of Shinto food offerings, with special focus on the Upper and Lower Kamo Shrines, Iwashimizu Hachimangū shrine, and the Grand Shrines of Ise, and proposes some theoretical perspectives on how to study them from the perspectives of gift giving, sacrifice, and taboo.

Veiled Zen Journeys through Early Muromachi Flower-and-Bird Paintings

This essay largely explores early Muromachi flower-and-bird painting in Zen monastic context and examines how these works convey symbolic connotations related to Zen (Chan) Buddhism. The development of Zen Buddhism in 13th century Japan not only paved the way for the flourishing of Gozan culture, but also contributed to vigorous cultural exchange between Japan and China in the Muromachi period. The author analyzes the spiritual insights of the Zen priest-painters and their productions, which are a combination of art and poetry. The religious meanings of the flower-and-bird motifs are investigated according to the artistic and literary traditions of that time. The influence of Zen on other Japanese art forms are just as salient and the author concludes that the later development of 2-D art and contemporary 3-D installations of Buddhist art shows the continual development of the Zen spiritual journey.

The Look and Logos of Zen Art

What makes art “Zen” and Zen art “Art”? From where and when does it arise: Southern Song dynasty China (1127-1279), Muromachi period Japan (1333-1573), London in the 1920s, Manhattan or Japan in the 1950s and 1960s? How do we describe Zen art—including heirloom works such as Muqi Fachang’s Six Persimmons or the contemporary artist Murakami Takashi’s Daruma works—and why do we build description around particular religious terms, such as mushin, and seemingly timeless aesthetic qualities such as simplicity, spontaneity, abbreviation, monochromatic, abstraction, nothingness, and so forth? How do terms and sensibilities come to be normalized, and what sorts of Zen art might they exclude or repress, and why? What should we make of Hisamatsu Shin’ichi’s “Seven Characteristics of Zen art”? Why are the arts of Japan so often described as inherently or entirely informed by Zen? Beginning with writings from Zen campaigners and art historians in the 1920s, this chapter follows the lexical journey of Zen and Zen art, aesthetics to the present and suggests the discursive and ideological energies that propelled them toward the status of global “givens.”