Arts of Japan. Hugo Münsterberg
most remarkable achievements of the Jōmon period are the clay figures representing human beings or animals, some of which are as high as one foot, while others are as short as two inches (Plates 2 & S). Human heads are also found on clay pots of the Jōmon type, resembling ones on neolithic Chinese pottery. Although the date of these images is not known, they are usually found at Middle or Late Jōmon sites, so they must come from the latter half of the Jōmon period. Most of them have been found at domestic sites, suggesting that they were idols used for worship rather than burial figures, as some scholars believe. Many of them have small perforations indicating that they might have been suspended, while others are obviously intended to be stood up. Their bodies are often covered with linear designs, commonly spirals; their facial expressions are strange, with staring eyes that suggest the magic associated with eyes in many primitive civilizations. In all these figures the human form is highly abstract, and yet, in spite of its distortions, it is clearly recognizable. Most of the figures are female deities with prominent breasts and swelling hips, and in this way they are similar to prehistoric European fertility idols, such as the famous Venus of Willendorf. Professor Kidder has suggested that these figures, which were sometimes surrounded by stone circles, must be looked upon as material representations of the Ainu mother-goddess who was dedicated to nourishing the infant, protecting the child, and interceding for the adult.
YAYOI POTTERY
The Jōmon-type objects were gradually replaced by Yayoi wares, a process which probably started in the south and gradually spread to the north and the east. Since similar vessels have been found in Korea and Manchuria, it seems probable that these new immigrants came by way of Korea. Just who they were and where their original home was are not known, but since the Yayoi skeletons show Mongoloid characteristics, it would suggest that they were related to the Chinese. With their advent in the second and first centuries before Christ, the Japanese nation as we know it today was established, and the arrival of conquerors recorded in the sacred scriptures no doubt refers to these events. In China this was the period of the Ch'in rule and the establishment of the Han dynasty, and it seems quite likely that they were people who were pushed east during the disturbances in China.
Technically, the Yayoi vessels are far superior to those of the Jōmon period, although they are neither as interesting nor as expressive (Plate 4). They are usually dark red, their forms simple and severe, and they were not only made on the potter's wheel but they were also baked at higher temperatures than the Jōmon wares. The ornamental designs are geometrical in character, usually consisting of zigzag, undulating, parallel, dotted, or slanting lines, and sometimes there are simple incised drawings on the surface. These designs are never as bold as the ones of the Jōmon works, but the vessels themselves are more beautiful in shape. In contrast to the expressiveness of the Jōmon ornaments (something very different from anything else found in Japanese art), the restraint of the Yayoi vessels as well as their emphasis on form seems quite typically Japanese. There is a direct connection between these works and those of the following period, showing the continuity of the civilization established by the Yayoi people, who in terms of technical progress were far more advanced than the people whom they replaced. At the same time there can be no doubt that after the Yayoi people had established themselves in southern and western Japan, the Jōmon people continued to live in the eastern and northern sections of the country, and we are told that even centuries later these northern barbarians continued to give trouble to the Japanese. Of course many of the Jōmon people were undoubtedly absorbed by their conquerors, and yet there is little or no influence of Jōmon art either in the art of the Yayoi or that of later periods. In spite of what some Japanese anthropologists say, it would seem that the break between these two cultures was so complete that little could be absorbed from the earlier by the later one.
During this period there were at least three main centers of culture, the first at Izumo on the Japan Sea side of Honshu, where the god Okuni-nushino-Mikoto, the kami of medicine, sericulture, and fishing was worshipped; the second at Ise in the Yamato region, where the Sun Goddess, Ama-terasu, had her sanctuary; and the third on the southern island of Kyushu, where various maritime cults were observed. Among these the second gradually won supremacy, and Yamato became the center of Japanese culture.
THE ART OF THE SEPULCHRAL MOUNDS
While the main archaeological discoveries of the neolithic era were found in the shell mounds of the period, the most important repositories of the art of the subsequent age were the grave mounds of the third to the sixth centuries. Their exact dates are uncertain and no doubt vary in different parts of the country, but it may be assumed that they continued to be made right into historical times. Although basically they are nothing but earthen mounds covering the graves of the rulers, they are often of tremendous size. For example, the fourth-century tomb of the Emperor Nintoku in Izumo Province measures no less than 1,620 feet in length and ninety feet in height and is surrounded by a moat. These tombs had chambers made of clay or stone, in which various burial objects were placed—jewels, mirrors, weapons and other implements of bronze or iron, as well as vases closely related to those of the Yayoi type, suggesting that there was a gradual transition from the Yayoi culture to that of the grave mounds.
The most remarkable feature of these mounds (which were covered with cobblestones and had terraces and moats around them) were the haniwa, or clay figures which often surrounded them. Modelled no doubt upon Chinese grave-figures of the Han and Six Dynasties periods, they nevertheless are characteristically Japanese. As with the dogu, modern abstract taste is better able to appreciate them than the nineteeenth century, with its classical and naturalistic ideals of art. The haniwa were originally cylinders which were filled with dirt and set quite closely together around the base of the mound in order to secure the earth. As time went on these hollow clay cylinders became ornamented with the figures of men, women, animals, houses, as well as with all sorts of utensils. They show a great variety of form and subject matter and are often very numerous, as for example at the tomb of the Emperor Nintoku, which had no less than 11,280 such figures.
According to the Nihonshoky, the haniwa were originally made as substitutes for human beings buried with the dead rulers. We are told that when the Empress-Consort Hisasukime died,, the Emperor's minister, taking pity on those who had been buried previously, ordered clay statues to be made. Similar stories are told in China at a somewhat earlier date and there may well be some truth in such accounts, although it seems unlikely that this particular story is based on historical fact. In China the grave-figures were actually placed in the tombs and must therefore be looked upon as companions who accompany the dead to the realm of the spirits, while in Japan the haniwa are never inside the tomb but stand on the outside, so it does not seem logical to assume that they were substitutes for the retainers and servants who were originally buried with the dead. However, this is another of the many cases where we may never be certain just what the original facts were.
The haniwa, which are always hollow, are made of reddish-brown, un-baked clay. They are highly abstract, but in spite of their stiff, cylindrical shape they show a considerable variety of posture. In contrast to the strange, rather mysterious dogū, they seem naive in expression. The emphasis with them, as with the Yayoi objects, is far more on shape than on line or ornament (Plate 5). Often very beautiful plastically, they are reduced to the and it is not surprising that sculptors such as Isamu Noguchi have been greatly influenced by them. The eyes, which are cut directly into the clay, create an extraordinary contrast of light and shadow and often achieve a remarkable expression, as for example in the famous figure of a monkey in the National Museum in Tokyo. Some figures, presumably the earlier ones, consist of little more than a cylinder surmounted by a head, while others show a great deal of freedom as well as a certain natural observation in the treatment of the human or animal form. In contrast to the corresponding Chinese figures, they seem less sophisticated, their shapes rounder and simpler, their expressions more childlike and yet often more moving emotionally (Plate 6). Especially if the horses are compared, the Japanese ones seem as charming and naive as large toys, while the Chinese ones are self-conscious artistic creations of great elegance and beauty.
The appeal of the haniwa does not lie only in their plastic quality but in their historical and cultural importance as well. A great variety of types are found—men and women in court dress, men clad in armor, a man holding a hawk, another playing a musical instrument similar to the koto, to mention only a few—all