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The Prehistoric Art of Japan

ALTHOUGH Japan has been inhabited for at least five thousand years, the Japanese as we know them today have probably only existed for about half that time. Who they were and where they came from are questions about which archaeologists and historians have never been able to agree. Their racial strains are varied, but it is generally recognized that the three chief components are Mongoloid, Malayan, and Caucasian. It is also agreed that waves of immigrants from the mainland, especially from China and Korea, came to Japan during the course of the neolithic period. It seems unlikely that Japan was settled before this, though archaeological discoveries may substantiate the theories of those who believe that it was inhabited during paleolithic times.

The Kojiki and the Nihonshokj, two sacred books compiled in the eighth century of our era, record myths which tell of the origin of the universe and of the Japanese people. These stories are confused in the extreme. A fantastic number of kami are created, spirits of every conceivable kind, such as the three Kami called "Shore Distant," "Wave-Edge-Shore-Prince," and "Intermediate-Shore-Direction." The creation myth, retold by Post Wheeler in his book The Sacred Scriptures of the Japanese, is as follows:

Of old time the Sky and the Earth were not yet set apart the one from the other nor were the female and male principles separated. All was a mass, formless and egg-shaped, the extent whereof is not known, which held the life principle. Thereafter the purer tenuous essence, ascending gradually, formed the Sky; the heavier portion sank and became the Earth. The lighter element merged readily, but the heavier was united with difficulty. Thus the Sky was formed first, the Earth next, and later Kami were produced in the space between them.

When the Sky and the Earth began, there was a something in the very midst of the emptiness whose shape cannot be described. At the first a thing like a white cloud appeared, which floated between Sky and Earth, and from it three Kami came into being in the High-Sky-Plain. These three Kami, appearing earliest, were born without progenitors and later hid their bodies. They were Mid-Sky-Master, High-Producer, Divine-Producer. (Some hold that the last two did not appear till after He-Who-Invites and She-Who-Invites, and that High-Producer was their child.) These first three were called the Three-Creator-Kami.

Seven generations of gods, or kami, followed, ending with the divine pair Izanagi and Izanami. They descended from heaven to an island in the ocean and from their union sprang the islands of Japan and all of nature. They also gave birth to various deities, among them the Sun Goddess, Ama-terasu-ō-mi-Kami, or the Heaven-Great-Shining Kami, the chief deity of the ancient Japanese, who to this day is worshipped at Shinto shrines throughout Japan.

These legends were not put into writing until a relatively late date, for no written language had existed in Japan prior to the introduction of Chinese culture during the sixth century. They therefore show certain Chinese elements which were introduced long after the original myths were created. Other elements, similar to Polynesian legends, are probably Malayan in origin. It seems likely that these stories, even in their oral form, are no earlier than the Yayoi period, that is, the second or first century B.C, for they relate the coming of a southern people and seem to bear no relationship to the original northern inhabitants.

The earliest settlers, who came to Japan at least at the beginning of the second millenium, are called Jōmon people, a name coined by modern archaeologists from the kind of cord-impressed pottery they produced. It is not clear where they came from, but the most reliable anthropologists think that they are related to the modern Ainu, who today inhabit certain parts of Hokkaido, the Kurile Islands, and Sakhalin. They are of Caucasian stock, and it is believed that they came to Japan from the Asian continent. Their original home is thought to have been in northern India, and from there they migrated to Central Asia, Manchuria, and Siberia and finally, pushed farther and farther east by neolithic peoples coming from the west, to Japan. The fact that the skeletons of these Jōmon people show none of the Mongoloid characteristics present in the modern Japanese indicates that they belonged to a completely different racial group, although an admixture of Jōmon stock was no doubt absorbed by the people who supplanted them. From philological evidence, especially that of place names, it is believed that these Ainoid people originally inhabited all of Japan but that they were driven north, as conquerors from the south arrived with a higher civilization. These later people are usually referred to as Yayoi, a name taken from the street in Tokyo where the first remains of this civilization, which flourished between 200 B.C. and A.D. 200, were discovered. It is these people who are the real ancestors of the modern Japanese, although the Japanese have, of course, other racial components.

JOMŌN POTTERY

The earliest art objects created in Japan are the pottery vessels known as Jōmon doki, or rope-design ware, and the idols (found at the same sites as the vessels) which are called dogu, or clay dolls. They were usually made of dark-grey clay, which was shaped by hand rather than on the potter's wheel. Both the vessels and the figures not only show a great variety of form but also have an extraordinary expressiveness. In fact, they are among the most remarkable artistic achievements of any neolithic culture, the idols in particular being without close parallel anywhere in the world. There is a feeling of mystery about them as well as a strange beauty which appeals to modern taste because it recalls contemporary expressionist and surrealist art.

No clear relationship exists between Jōmon pottery and that of the Asiatic continent although certain ornamental motifs such as the spiral design, the wavy line, and the cicada in larva form are reminiscent of prehistoric Chinese pottery and Shang bronzes. Some of the ornamental designs are also similar to those in Ainu costumes and wood carvings, although the link between Ainu and Jōmon art has not been discovered. Jōmon pottery ceased being made around the fourth or fifth century A.D., but as recently as seventy-five years ago the Ainus of the Kuriles were making pottery which was similar to Jōmon ware. It must be assumed that such designs were transmitted to the Ainu in perishable materials such as wood and cloth. Here again scholarly opinion is by no means in agreement, and it may well be impossible to establish with certainty any such connections.

The pottery vessels of the Jōmon type are often impressive both in size and ornament (Plate 1). They are called rope-design pottery because of the raised, cord-like designs so frequently seen on their surfaces, patterns which were made by pressing rope, or a stick wound with rope, against the clay. The designs themselves are very irregular, not balanced or static but filled with a dynamic movement. The dominant motif is one of curves often resembling those spirals found on prehistoric Chinese vessels. The nature of these designs, depending on the age and place of origin, varies all the way from simple cord impressions to the most intricate and fantastic reliefs. Experts distinguish between Proto-Jōmon, Early Jōmon, and Late Jōmon, and there is even a final degenerate form of Jōmon which continued in northern Japan after Yayoi and Iwaibe wares had replaced Jōmon pottery in the rest of the country.

The 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 of which are of interest to the student of the period (Plate 7). Various utensils were represented, as well as boats and houses and all sorts of animals, so a good picture of the material culture can be gained through a study of the haniwa. Some of the clothes and the armor of the figures is similar to that of the Chinese of the time, suggesting that already at this early date there was a close connection between China and Japan.

The influence of Han China is most clearly seen in the bronze mirrors which were often found in the tombs (Plate 8). Many are actually of Chinese origin, while others closely follow Chinese prototypes. Generally speaking the workmanship is inferior to that of the Chinese and the design is usually nothing more than a crude approximation of the Chinese models. However, there are some later mirrors which show a complete technical mastery as well as an originality of design. Some of these are very abstract, with linear patterns of great delicacy and beauty, while others depict scenes from the life of the period, such as the famous mirror with battling and dancing figures, which has an animation not found in contemporary Chinese mirrors. Another shows the four heavenly mansions, probably a symbol of the four directions, an idea clearly derived from China but here represented in a Japanese manner and of particular interest in showing the design used for the houses of the period.

Besides the mirrors, ornaments and ceremonial objects were also found in the tombs, among which the most typically Japanese are the magatama, or curved jewels, which together with the mirror and the sword are regarded as the three sacred treasures of Shintoism. Originally they were no doubt derived from the claws of the tiger or the tusk of the boar, both of which were believed to have magic power by the early Chinese. Although these particular curved jewels are regarded as characteristically Japanese, similar ones have been found in southern Korea, and even in quite recent times the claws of tigers were thought to have protective power in Korea and Siberia, so the underlying idea at least is a common one to the people of eastern Asia.

Of all the objects surviving from this period, the strangest are the bronze bells, or dotaku, the origin and purpose of which are unknown (Plate 9). The earliest are believed to date back to the first century before Christ, but it is not clear for how long they were used. Here again Japanese archaeologists have tended to emphasize the unique character of these dotaku, but excavations at Lo-lang in northern Korea, which at the time was a flourishing military outpost of the Han empire, have unearthed, similar objects and their design is quite like that found on bronzes excavated in Indo-China. It may well be that the dotaku did not have any utilitarian function but were considered treasures, as was the case with many of the ancient Chinese bronze vessels. Indeed it seems likely that objects made of bronze or iron were regarded as signs of wealth during the period when they were first introduced to Japan from the continent. So far no such objects from the late Chou dynasty have been found, but there can be no doubt that the contact between Japan and Han China was very close.

The dotaku vary in length from a few inches to over four feet and in make from crude casting to the most elegant and refined forms. However, what interests us most today are their simple linear designs, something like children's drawings, which represent animals such as tortoises, lizards, insects, and birds, scenes from the lives of the hunters and fishermen, and house designs. These latter are of particular interest, for they show how the type of structure which is still seen in Ise Shrine goes back to the beginning of the Christian era. The designs, which may give us some idea of the painting of the period, are probably symbolic, although the symbolism is no longer understood.

Paintings from this period are very rare and those which do exist are primitive in the extreme. The most famous are the wall paintings in sixth-century tombs located in Fukuoka Prefecture in Kyushu. Executed in bright colors against a red or grey background, they consist primarily of abstract shapes such as volutes, circles, dots, wheels, spirals, triangles, and squares, which were undoubtedly symbolic in meaning. Other pictures show horses, still others portray hunting scenes and people crossing water in a boat, subjects quite common in the art of primitive people and usually connected with hunting magic and the afterlife. These pictures, artistically very crude, show that even at this comparatively late period the art of painting had not yet been developed. Besides these paintings, there are also line drawings of a childlike character, which portray human figures and animals, but these too show little artistic maturity, although they have a kind of naive charm recalling some of the work of Klee.

A new kind of pottery, one used for ceremonial purposes and called Iwaibe or Sue ware, began to be made at this period. Compared to the earlier wares it shows a marked technical advance, for it was fired at far higher temperatures and thus is much harder. The color is a dark, subdued grey and the shape is often very lovely, with a bulbous body resting upon a hollow stem into which triangular or rectangular openings are cut. The mouth is usually large and there are often additional spouts at the shoulders, or little human or animal figures, or a combination of both. The Iwaibe vessel, derived from a type first developed in China and introduced to Japan via Korea, proved very popular and was in fact used for centuries.

ISE SHRINE AND EARLY JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE

The numerous models of ancient Japanese houses found among the haniwa, the designs on the dōtaku, and the descriptions in the Kojikj and Nihonshoki give us a fairly good idea of the type of architecture which flourished in Japan prior to the introduction of Buddhism. This ancient type of building, which originally was probably a chieftain's palace as well as a sacred shrine, is preserved for us almost unchanged in Ise Shrine at Ujiyamada. Due to the fact that these buildings have been torn down and rebuilt every twenty years in their original form, the ancient design has come down to us intact. The original shrine of which the present one is a faithful replica was erected in the seventh century A.D., but the design itself, which is far more ancient, can be traced back to a much earlier period, probably to the arrival of the Yayoi people in Japan. The type of construction used shows certain affinities to the houses of Malaya and the South Sea Islands, suggesting that originally it may have been derived from some common source in the south of China, since the settlement of the South Sea Islands by the Polynesians is of more recent date than the origin of this type of structure in Japan.

The architectural style employed at Ise Shrine is known as the shimmei zukuri, meaning the style associated with the Sun Goddess, for it is to her that the most ancient and venerable of Shinto sanctuaries is dedicated. As the modern German architect Bruno Taut remarked, the design used here is characteristic of the very best in the Japanese artistic tradition, for it shows clarity of construction, simplicity of material, and beauty of proportion. As in so much of the best of later Japanese architecture, the unpainted and undecorated architectural members are allowed to speak for themselves. The material of the wood and the thatch is not hidden and the whole is fitted into its natural setting with great sensitivity. This is, of course, a typical expression of the Japanese love for nature in general and the Shinto worship of the forces of nature in particular.

There are actually two shrines at Ise, the inner shrine, the Naigū or Naikū, dedicated to the Heaven-Great-Shining Kami, Ama-terasu-ō-mi-Kami, and the outer shrine, the Gegū or Gekū, dedicated to the Plentiful-Food-August-Goddess, Toyo-uke-hime, which are located at some distance from each other but are very similar in style. They are surrounded by a series of fences which separate the sacred precinct from the outer world. The sanctuary itself is in this way completely cut off from the general public, who can approach but not enter it, a privilege reserved for the priests and special guests like the emperor. In this way the sanctuary is much like the Greek temple which was also looked upon as a dwelling place of the god. Behind the main building are two smaller structures, which serve as treasure houses in which the sacred relics and offerings are kept. The three inner fences have gates while the outermost enclosure is approached through a torii, a kind of Shinto sacred gateway, which is still one of the main distinguishing marks of a Shinto shrine. It consists of two pillars topped by two horizontal bars. The lower one extends between the pillars like the crossbar of an H, while the upper one, which rests on the top of the pillars, projects beyond them with slanting ends. Here again the simplest of forms is combined with great beauty of proportion. Japanese tradition has it that these torii were built for birds to perch on, but obviously this is a later rationalistic explanation for something which is far more ancient, probably a ceremonial gateway of the type found in India at Sanchi and Barhut and which is common to many early civilizations.

The main building, a rectangular wooden structure with gables at both ends and a large thatched roof, was no doubt originally derived from a palace (Plate 10). The building rests upon heavy piers which are rammed into the earth without laying any foundation. The floor level is raised above the ground so that there is an open space between the earth and the floor; the walls consist of simple, unpainted boards and are surrounded by an open veranda. The entrance at Ise, in contrast to other shrines, such as the one at Izumo, is on the long side rather than at the gable end, and there is a staircase leading from the ground to the entrance. The building faces south, the direction of the sun, just as the Chinese palaces and temples do.

Perhaps the most beautiful as well as the most characteristic part of the Shinto shrine is the magnificent thatched roof. Here the architect employs two features which are unique to the Shinto shrine, namely the chigi, or rafters crossing at the gable with the ridge lying in the angle of the crutches formed by the rafters, and the katsuogi, or the horizontal logs resting upon the ridge to hold it in place. Both the chigi and the katsuogi are still used in most Shinto shrines today and, together with the torii, enable even the uninitiated to distinguish between a Buddhist temple and a Shinto shrine, although there are cases when the architectural styles are mixed. This is especially true in later Shinto shrines, which absorb more and more of Buddhist temple architecture. Another feature, typical of Ise Shrine and very ancient, is the additional free-standing pillar at the gable end of the building, which is designed to help support the ridge and suggests that the roof might well have projected much farther in the original structures, as is indicated by the archaic pictures on the mirrors and dotaku. The interior of the shrine is extremely plain, for it was not used as a place of assembly or group worship but was looked upon as a dwelling place of the Sun Goddess, where her symbol, the divine mirror, was kept.

Plate 1. Clay Vessel. Jōmon period..

Plate 2. Head of Idol. Middle Jōmon period.

Plate 3. Head of Idol. Middle Jōmon period.

Plate 4. Clay Vessel. Yayoi period

Plate 5. Haniwa Dancers. Grave Mound period

Plate 6. Haniwa Horse's Head. Grave Mound period.

Plate 7. Haniwa Warrior. Grave Mound period.

Plate 8. Bronze Mirror. Grave Mound period.

Plate 9. Dōtaka. Yayoi period

Plate 10. Honden, Ise Shrine, Ujiyamada. (based on prehistoric design)

Although it is the most ancient and sacred of Shinto shrines, Ise Shrine is undoubtedly only one of many such shrines built at the period. A record of A.D. 737 tells us that there were no less than three thousand officially recognized shrines at that time. Of the ones surviving today, the next most famous is Izumo Shrine located on the Japan Sea coast of Honshu and built in a style known as taisha zukuri, which differs in some respects from the one used at Ise. The main difference lies in the fact that the entrance is at the gable end, but there is also a central pillar in the interior and the floor is somewhat higher above the ground. However, the general design and style are the same in both, although Ise Shrine is believed to be more authentic, while Izumo Shrine already shows some influence of Chinese Buddhist temples. Both, however, are typical of the native tradition of Japanese architecture. They represent the first examples of a truly national art, and it is characteristic of the traditional-minded Japanese society that they have been rebuilt again and again in the style which was first developed two thousand years ago.