of the bloody Ônin War (1467–1477), he devoted himself to promotion
and patronage of the arts more than Yoshimitsu had before him, thus
bringing the arts to higher levels of achievement than ever before. He first
constructed the Silver Pavilion at the outskirts of Kyoto in Higashiyama,
from which the name Higashiyama epoch is derived. Cultural achievements
during the Higashiyama epoch exceeded those of the Kitayama epoch, as it
further brought together court and warrior cultures. Rigid rules in waka
(court poetry adopted from China in the seventh and eighth centuries,
which included long and short forms; the preferred short form was made
of thirty-one syllables consisting of five lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables) were
softened by a new approach, according to which one person was to link
verses to those first expressed by another, resulting in a new form of poetry
called renga.The increased popularity of renga, together with the Nô, Kyô-
gen, Sarugaku, and Dengaku (“field music,” performance based on the
style developed by peasants singing and performing in the fields), con-
tributed to increased interaction not only among warriors, as well as
among peasants and townsmen, but also between warriors and other social
groups. In contrast, other forms of arts and culture, such as the tea cere-
mony, painting, and landscape gardening, remained elitist, reaching a
larger audience only later in the Tokugawa period.
In the late medieval period, with the construction of Oda Nobunaga’s
Azuchi Castle and Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s Momoyama Castle, there began a
new era of cultural flourishing. The Azuchi and Momoyama Castles, from
which the epoch’s name (Momoyama) comes, marked the beginning of a
new age of architectural design, which not only saw grandiose castles but
also a greater number of warriors, namely the daimyo, involved in patron-
age and collection of art; the emerging castles and castle towns were the
most suitable grounds for such cultural activity. Nobunaga’s interest in for-
eign culture as presented to him by the Jesuits led to Japanese specializa-
tion in Western painting and production of nanban(southern barbarians)
screens depicting foreigners in Japan. However, it was Toyotomi’s personal
preference for court culture and his lavish display of wealth that gave a new
boost to Japanese art forms and theater. His golden tea room is perhaps the
best example of his combined taste for the tea ceremony and grandeur, but
his great tea ceremony in Kitano Shrine in 1587 also brought this culture
of the elite to people of lower social status. For this grand tea ceremony
Toyotomi invited courtiers, daimyo, warriors, townsmen, and peasants,
and he displayed his collection of tea utensils for everybody to see. With
Toyotomi setting such an example, daimyo all over the country became pa-
trons and collectors of art as a way of presenting themselves as cultured
men in addition to being powerful warriors. In fact, patronage and collec-
tion of art had become symbols of a daimyo’s wealth and power.
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