The politics of aesthetic reclusion: The Seven Sages and Four Graybeards in Momoyama painting

This study analyzes the political and cultural significance of Momoyama and early Edo period (ca.1560-1635) paintings of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove and the Four Graybeards of Mt. Shang. The broad popularity of these pictures among the politically-polarized samurai, aristocrats and priests is attributed to the generally politically ambivalent treatment of these themes. The original Chinese themes carried messages of rejection of political power but also suggested support for good government. In Japan, the Seven Sages and Four Graybeards themes took on wider significance and in painting were strongly linked to aesthetic reclusion--the rejection of society for positive values such as communitas with like-minded men, devotion to scholarly pastimes, appreciation of nature, rehearsal of a venerable past and devotion to elegant rusticity. The coalescence of politically-ambiguous themes and pictorial emphasis on aesthetic reclusion allows for an imaginary escape from subordination to social order while simultaneously facilitating acceptance of that order.The study reconnects the paintings with broader cultural attitudes towards, and political uses of, aesthetic reclusion and its Chinese models. In addition to the (1) introduction and (6) conclusion, chapters are devoted to (2) the evalution of Chinese scholar-recluses in Japanese literature before 1600, (3) the symbolic structure and political ramifications of the ersatz eremitism of the tea ceremony, (4) the visual structure and political function of paintings of the Seven Sages and Four Graybeards, and (5) the role of aesthetic reclusion in the actual lives of some Momoyama period men and in the Neoconfucianism of Fujiwara Seika. The second volume includes an introduction to, and translation of, Kano Ikkei's descriptive catalog of Chinese figure-theme paintings from his Kososhu of 1623. Appendices Two and Three list the contents of Hayashi Razan's Kososetsu and the Chinese figure subjects in Kano school fan paintings.