Why did the Tokugawa permit the 'Floating World' to operate - Essay Example

Why did the Tokugawa permit the 'Floating World' to operate In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Ukiyo-e was produced as an art in Japan and represented the 'floating world' that comprised of Japanese Kabuki theatre, geisha, salons, brothels, social and sexual intercourse. Some of the artistic elements of the floating world were the dolls and doll art, paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries, calligraphy, tattooing and folklore. The representative art of the floating world in Japan was the traditional Japanese form of art and showed Japanese cultural influences merged with Western forms to provide originality in form and presentation of such artistic creations. Ukiyo-e is thus a form of Japanese traditional art that used art as a form of social criticism and represents society in all its aspects. In fact Ukiyo-e represented all cultural forms at the time and issues related to social conflicts and cultural changes, sexual taboos and attitudes towards social norms, war and art life. A man's role in a rapidly changing environment is represented in these art forms and in this discussion I will highlight why the Tokugawa shogunate permit the Floating world to operate within Japan. In this context a novel 'An Artist of the Floating World' has been written by K.Ishiguro which represented WWII Japan and showed how the attitudes and paintings have changed in recent times within the limits of Japanese traditional art. The use of Kimono and geisha themes, the popularity of Japanese samurais and sushi are all features of the Ukiyo-e period and the period represents a unique Japanese culture highlighting traditional Japanese forms, arts, food and everything representative of traditional Japan. Ukiyo-e, the traditional Japanese art form came into existence during the Edo period (1615- 1868) along with the emergence of the unified government of Japan and growth of a large urban population. Edo has now been transformed to modern Tokyo and the pleasure quarters of the modern city was known as Ukiyo or the floating world (Yasutaka et al, 2000). Ukiyo is portrayed negatively in Buddhism as the term means ephemereal or worldly and transitory pleasures and gradually came to be known as a world of sensual pleasures that are valued in the modern world (Kabayashi, 1992). Ukiyo-e literally means pictures or images of the floating world or the world of pleasures and represents an art form in traditional Japan that highlighted these different dimensions of pleasure, and art that recorded the life vein of Edo at that time - the geishas and courtesans, the kabuki actors, samurais, and the art on these themes was based on the traditional ukiyo-e form of woodblock printing. The kabuki theatre highlighted and patronized the merchant class as well as erotic art and landscape of Japan (Hebbitt, 1975). The representations of Mt Fuji, depiction of waves and scenes of landscapes and seascapes show the views of nature and represents classical style and Japanese emphasis on nature, values and tradition. Some of the main Japanese artists who represented the floating world in their art and paintings are Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi, Hokusai, Kunisada, and Utamaro. The Ukiyo-e artists produced erotic prints, paintings and subjects within the Shunga. Ukiyo-e had a focus on sexual and erotic themes and celebrated sensuality and sexuality and many modern paintings are simply representations of the older ones. The Ukiyo-e artists have used their art to expose political corruption, social disorder, as well as violence and chaos along with gestures of emotion and drama as well as varied sexual and erotic themes. However the Ukiyo-e art was allowed to flourish by the Tokugawa shogunate but in 1850 with the fall of the Shogunate, Japan's politics became enmeshed in a civil war and the Ukiyo-e art at this time lost its patronage of the Tokugawa Shogunate and also highlighted the violence and political disruption of the situation as the Tokugawa shogunate collapsed. In the initial stages of the Edo period, the region had a feudal political system with a military government meaning shogunate. The shogunate comprised of feudal lords with their bureaucracies and policies. The shogunate represented loyalty and the Topkugawa maintained loyalty to the Shogun. In fact the Tokugawa shogunate rule in Japan began with Tokugawa leyasu who became an authority in Japan. He attained the position of a shogun and established his government in Edo (Tokyo). The Tokugawa line of shoguns beginning from Tokugawa leyasu was thus established and the rule remained in Edo for 250 years. The Tokugawa shoguns took an active interest in arts, martial arts and foreign trade and in fact foreign trade was monopolized by the shogunate showing the emphasis on an intermix of cultures although maintaining traditional Japanese culture in all its forms. In fact martial arts and other art forms were patronized by the Tokugawa shogunate and this also naturally led to patronizing the arts of the Ukiyo that flourished during the Edo period. The Ukiyo-e as the arts were called were characterized by depiction of these Martian arts, the samurais and the wars and fights as also the chaos and disruption at a later stage and sexuality and sensuality of courtesans, geishas as well as life of the shoguns. The Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines attended to several matters within the bureaucratic system as well as foreign relations and finance. The Tokugawa shogun was thus involved in many areas of responsibility from trade to martial arts, to management of the shogunate and the people. However the shoguns were also keen patrons of arts and for their own self interest also allowed the sensual pleasures despite these being considered ephemeral and lowly by Buddhist philosophy. In fact despite the strong influence of Buddhism, Shintoism was popular and the services of courtesans and geishas became increasingly popular giving considerable popularity to the floating world and its practices primarily based on sexual pleasures (Smith, 1993). The Edo period and the floating world was also characterized by exhibition of the powers of the samurai and as the Tokugawa shogun needed the samurais for their wars and control methods and general pleasure of sports, the samurais also formed part of the Tokugawa shogunate and also the floating world. The geishas and courtesans were appointed for the Tokugawa shoguns because of their ability to dance and entertain people in the royalty. The Tokugawa shoguns in fact needed the services of the geishas and courtesans who formed part of the floating world for their entertainment at the royal courts and that is a main reason for which the geisha arts and the samurai fights remained popular among the Tokugawa shogunate. The Tokugawa shogunate permitted the floating world to operate despite the fact that the Ukiyo went against the very basis of Buddhism because the shoguns maintained the usefulness of the artistic elements of the floating world. The floating world was known for its notoriety although its emphasis on sexual and sensual pleasures may have found popularity in the present world. Charrier (2006) explored the relationship between the nude aesthetic forms and cultural contexts of pictures and photography in Japan and suggested that in certain older art forms, unidealized images of women could characterize rawness and vitality in lower class Japanese women. The more primitivist fantasies of Taishow and Showa traditional Japanese societies have been highlighted which actively encouraged the raw sexual pleasures although the Edo period was more refined and permitted the floating world strictly as an art or entertainment form. Visual style and art forms of Japanese culture as studied by many artists and art critics emphasized on the nude form that existed both in traditional and contemporary Japanese art and the sexual content has been especially emphasized strictly as a pleasure and art form during the Edo period. In the Tokugawa shogunate, the shoguns were taken care of by the semi-autonomous daimyo who had to stay with their wives and children almost as hostages and attended to the needs of the Shoguns. The Japanese city of Tokyo which was known as Edo represented a traditional structure and somehow the floating world also seems to provide a peek to the source or roots of Japanese traditional art and culture. Despite the fact that the floating world was not respected initially being overtly concerned with sensual pleasures, its principles and philosophy gradually gained acceptance within the royal inner circle and pleasure seeking became a new sport within the more conservative Buddhist Japan. The Ukiyo-e as the arts of the floating world is called represented this new pleasure seeking dimension of Japan and this lasted for the entire Tokugawa shogunate which lasted through the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Even when the Tokugawa shogunate declined, the other side of pleasure or corruption, hedonism, and chaos were all represented in the arts of the floating world. In this sense, the arts of the floating world or the Ukiyo-e represent a rich source of culture and history of the Japanese tradition. Erotic art and sex was a major genre of the Edo period from 1615-1898 although some critics have tried to draw up a distinction between erotic art and pornography. In some cases, the Ukiyo-e displayed explicit pictures of flirtation and seduction and also non explicit images and the art critics have suggested that both erotic and non erotic paintings seem to have similar artistic value. The genre of Japanese paintings and prints that flourished during the Edo period is known as shunga and the shunga was mainly based on themes of imagery, sexuality, gender and power. The explicit images are nowadays published irrespective of their context and content and tend to attract criticism as well as praise and the shunga has been valued in the study of aesthetics and the use of these images show how the shunga had established as Japanese traditional art with historical contexts of culture and creativity. Sex and the Floating world by Screech, 2004 shows a strange world of sexual fantasy within the Edo culture of Japan and also highlights the tensions and struggles of gender and class. The Edo culture and the shunga represented the Ukiyo or the floating world and the arts and culture of the Ukiyo were a major influence that defined and shaped the Edo culture. Beauty, desire and the glittering world of the geishas and courtesans formed part of the Ukiyo and Edo culture and sexual pleasures were permitted in the Tokugawa shogunate although certain prohibitions were maintained initially. However geishas and courtesans of the period were not prostitutes but merely private dancers and entertainers and the sex industry represented in traditional Japanese art was more about playing out a fantasy rather than reality (Segawa et al, 1998) as Japanese art depicted that fantasy would be more important than the real sex act. The culture, art and practices or customs of the floating world remained the core influence of Japanese artistic cultural and literary works for many centuries and although the Tokugawa shogunate or royalty at that time was politically repressive, the floating world being a world of dreams seemed to have been an escape from a politically repressive society and a sort of parallel universe in which a man could be indulged. The separation of the different natures and classes of women did not seem to have been too prominent in traditional Japanese society and many older women were appreciated by the connoisseur due to their skills. Even today many geishas are middle aged and their demands increase with experience and skills. Giving a short introduction on the influence of Buddhism in Japan, Jaffe (2006) pointed out that in the 18th and 19th centuries, Japanese Buddhism had more to do with the origins of the religion and reflected in Buddhist art and architecture and even in the late 19th and early 20th century, the Buddhist motifs were part of an effort to create universalized Japanese Buddhism. This is reflected in Ito Chuta and Otani Kozui's works which showed the strond influence of Buddhist themes in Japanese architecture of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Ukiyo and the shunga influences were recorded before the very strong Buddhist influences in Japan and thus the shunga and Ukiyo-e preceded Buddhism or during the Edo period sensuality downplayed the Buddhist values and culture that focused on restraint and control rather than worldly pleasures. The Tokugawa shogunate gave way to the more sovereign Meiji restoration but not after a period of chaos and corruption broke through Japanese society. This was all documented in the art forms of the Ukiyo-e that traced Japan's changing traditions from a pleasure seeking society to a Buddhist one to a more royal society where pleasure was entertainment and permitted in restricted manner as in the Tokugawa shogunate. The raw pleasures were thus replaced, perhaps with Buddhist influences by more refined pleasures which were permitted by the Tokugawa dynasty and the pleasure quarters were common in which geishas and courtesans indulged and entertained royal men with their dance and manners. The refined nature of pleasure thus led to aesthetics and several art forms so sex itself was an art form and celebrated within the Tokugawa shogunate although not in an open way as in contemporary society. The change from Tokugawa to the Meiji restoration period gave way to a more sovereign society and the focus was on business and trade rather than on the arts. With the shifts of focus, the Japanese society became less interested in arts and the Ukiyo-e art forms dwindled and more approaches were taken during the Meiji period. Buddhism also flourished and the geishas and courtesans receded to the background. However the cultural forms of the Tokugawa and Edo period tend to persist through the ages and the three centuries of Japanese art is still celebrated as rich in cultural diversity, history and rooted in tradition. Conclusion: This discussion has been based on the different features of the Tokugawa shogunate and the Edo culture. The different art forms of the Edo period were primarily represented by the shunga and the Ukiyo-e. The floating world or the Ukiyo was the world of sensual pleasures and it was a secret world that was nevertheless celebrated and permitted by the Tokugawa shogunate despite the differences in philosophy with the Buddhist ideals that preached restraint in sensual pleasures. The Buddhist ideals replaced the rawness of the early or primitivist Japan although the Tokugawa and Edo cultures brought back the pleasure seeking philosophy in more refined terms and introduced the art forms of pleasure through geishas, courtesans, and art forms of war through samurais. All art forms of calligraphy, pleasures, sex, war were celebrated at this time and some even patronized by the Tokugawa shogunate although this was further replaced by a chaotic phase and corruption when the Tokugawa dynasty declined. The Ukiyo forms of art continued to flourish through three centuries and recorded all forms of pleasure as also chaos in traditional Japan but failed to survive during the period of the Meiji restoration when the focus became sovereignty and trade and Buddhist, shintoism and an emphasis on religion and values were established in Japan in a strong way. 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