* Image is for illustrative purposes only.Ashikaga Yoshimasa
足利義政
Higashiyama-dono: The Eighth Muromachi Shogun Who Lived for Tea and Dry Landscape Gardens, a Guardian of Culture Who Found Beauty in the Flames of the Ōnin War
Description
Political Failures and the Flowering of Culture
Ashikaga Yoshimasa was born in Eikyō 8 (1436) as the son of Ashikaga Yoshinori, the sixth shogun of the Muromachi shogunate, and in Bun'an 6 (1449) he became the eighth shogun. Yoshimasa's rule is often judged as "a continuous series of failures." A turmoil over the succession led to the Ōnin War (1467–1477), and a war lasting eleven years burned Kyoto down. Yoshimasa is said to have lacked political leadership as shogun, but as a patron of culture he left unrivaled achievements. Yoshimasa's Higashiyama culture placed the aesthetics of wabi-sabi at the core of Japanese culture, and it can be said to have formed much of the spiritual foundation of present-day Japanese culture.
Higashiyama-dono and Ginkaku-ji
In Bunmei 5 (1473), during the Ōnin War, Yoshimasa handed the shogunate to his son Yoshihisa. From Bunmei 14 (1482), he began in earnest the construction of a villa in the Higashiyama area of Kyoto. This villa is Jishō-ji, later known as Ginkaku-ji (Silver Pavilion). Here Yoshimasa brought together the tea ceremony, Noh, flower arrangement, and karesansui (dry landscape) gardens, a culture later called "Higashiyama culture." The shoin-style architecture, karesansui garden, and Mount Tsukimachi of Ginkaku-ji are known worldwide as symbols of Japanese aesthetic sensibility. Later cultural historians have highly valued Yoshimasa's cultural undertakings as more than making up for his political failures.
Nōami and Exchanges with Artists
Yoshimasa's cultural activities were supported by a group of artists and men of letters called the dōbōshū. Among them, Nōami (1397–1471) received Yoshimasa's absolute trust in painting, flower arrangement (rikka), and the appraisal of karamono (Chinese imported objects), and played a central role in the formation of Higashiyama culture.