Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons

by Haruo Shirane

Elegant representations of nature, explicitly the four seasons, fill a wide range of Japanese genres and media--from poetry and screen painting to tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and annual observances. Haruo Shirane shows, for the first time, how, when, and why this occurred and explicates the richly encoded social, religious, and political meanings these representations embodied.
Refuting the long held belief that this phenomenon reflects agrarian origins, this book demonstrates how elegant representations of the four seasons first emerged in an urban environment among nobility in the eight century. They became highly codified and then spread to different social classes, eventually settling in popular culture and the pleasure quarters. Shirane accounts for all types of manifestations: textual (poetry, chronicles, tales), cultivated (gardens, flower arrangement), material (kimonos, screens), performative (noh drama, festivals), and gastronomic (tea ceremony, food rituals). He reveals how this kind of "secondary nature," which flourished in Japan's urban architecture and gardens, frequently fostered a sense of harmony with the natural world--just at the point at which it was receding. Eventually, alternative representations of nature derived from farm villages and elsewhere began to intersect with these elegant representations in the capital, creating a complex web of competing associations.
Anyone with an interest in Japanese visual arts, literature, cultural history, and social customs will relish this book, which illuminates the deeper meaning behind Japanese aesthetics and artifacts. Shirane explicates nature's complex codification, especially the use of images, the seasons to which they were attached, and the changes in cultural associations across history, genre, and community. His fascinating research shows these seasons to be as much a cultural construction as a reflection of the physical world.

Genres: Japan, History, Nonfiction, Art, Cultural, Japanese Literature, Asia

345 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 13, 2012

Reviews

[Harajyuku · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good read. Knowing little about waka beforehand, I found this book most accessible and an excellent introduction to both the themes of waka and the historical progression and place of waka in Japanese cultural consciousness. Exhaustive research and examples support the handful of conclusions he espouses in the outset and reinforces throughout. If he does repeat his point a little overmuch then it is only because the evidence is so overwhelmingly convincing. Will definitely reread.

[Bjorn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even to someone who only knows fragments of Japanese Culture and the cultural associations with the Four Seasons, it was a joy to read and learn more about how ingrained seasonal associations are within Japanese art. Recommend it to anyone who wants a closer look into this phenomenon!

[Simina · Rating 3 out of 5]

In part extremely insightful, but sometimes dragging and boring

[Katrinka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful.

[Norman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent so far, but I'd expect nothing less from Shirane.

[Jonas Stephan Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good day all well i faith this is a good book through the seasons god bless correct go in peace.