Manshu-in

As the power of the ruling Tokugawa regime up in Edo became more apparent, the imperial court in Kyoto begin reacting against it. One of the many incidents involving shogunal authority and court indignation occurred when the emperor Go-Mizunoo bestowed honors upon a number of priests after the shogun had specifically said such was not to be done. When Edo removed the honors, Go-Mizunoo abdicated.

Only in this way, by removing himself, could an emperor now express displeasure. That, and by turning his back upon the Edo world of the shogunate and retreating into the imperial past. Following the example of Go-Mizunoo—who built himself an elegantly old-fashioned palace, the Shugakuin, with buildings and gardens in the Heian style—the court followed, developed antiquarian tastes, and called the result Kan'ei culture, named after that short period (1624-30). This longing regard for the distant and golden past is often seen in Japanese history, perhaps because of all the destruction which this history has shown. Also, the focus of the country had moved from Kyoto, the old western capital, to the new one in the east—Edo, where now occurred nearly everything new and vital.

In Kyoto the habit of looking back upon the halcyon days of earlier times meant a regard of the golden age of the Heian period. Chinese learning came back into fashion, imperial poetry anthologies were revived, and refined avocations such as linked-verse gatherings became popular. Tea ceremony, flower arrangement, incense appreciation, were codified and revived. To have antiquarian interests was to be up-to-date. Indeed, all of our current ideas about traditional Japanese culture come from this courtly renaissance.

The best known architectural example is the Katsura Detached Villa. Deliberately rustic, it was built by Prince Toshihito and his son, Toshitada. Completed around 1640, it embodied an aristocratic nostalgia for a better time when life was simpler and more elegant. Like Marie Antoinette's Le Hameau it idealized simplicity and elevated the picturesque into an art form.

The retired Go-Mizunoo visited the place several times before constructing his own rustic' retreat, the Shugaku-in. He may also have looked in at the Manshu-in which was just being constructed in 1656.

It was built by an imperial priest, Ryosho (1622-93) who was the son of a nephew of the emperor Go-Mizunoo, a member of court circles and very much up on the new aesthetic.

Its original site was located on Mount Hiei, and the original building was constructed it is said, by Saicho, the founder of Tendai Buddhism. But, though still nominally Tendai, the temple in its new site far down the mountain was not exclusively concerned with religion.

Since Buddhism was no longer a major force it could thus serve as a more or less decorative base for a display of aestheticism which gratified aristocratic nostalgia and through its ostentatious lack of ostentation, could indicate how different this court was from Edo and those upstart Tokugawas.

The Manshu-in is exquisite in its evocation of an imaginary past. It is a superbly artificial container—a doll's house in which everything is scaled to a purported modesty everywhere denied by the prodigious skill with which it is put together.

Signs of this mock modesty are everywhere. The pillars are only, half the width of those seen in the official architecture of the period, the thatched roof half as thick. But this apparent restraint is questioned when one considers the carpentry skill necessary to keep such a flimsy-seeming structure standing strong through the ages.

There is also, perhaps because of the distance this mountainside dwelling maintains from cozy city comfort, something slightly chilly about it. But then one remembers that Yoshida Kenko said that a house should be built with the summer in view, that in the winter one can live anywhere, but a badly built dwelling in summer is unbearable—and that the Manshu-in is designed to be cold. Also, one recalls that coolness is often in Japan preferred and that the poet Saito Ryoku went even further when he said that elegance is frigid.

In this cabinet-like house are many rare curiosities. There is the Tiger Room with screens painted by Kano Eitoku; the Peacock Room, sliding doors painted by Ganku; the Waterfall Room, doors by Kano Tan'yu; and the Twilight Room with more pictures by Kano Tan'yu.

The garden is equally precious. Crane and tortoise islands abound, as well as a waterless waterfall (a rock) splashing out into a white sand sea. There is a magnificent espaliered pine tree which has azaleas planted beneath so that in the spring the entire tree is tinged with red.

Even now it is possible to imagine what life in this sheltered spot must have been like, surrounded by nature refined and relics from an illustrious past, resembling the retreats pictured in Beckford and Peacock, those products of the equally eclectic Gothic revival. Aiding this illusion of a cultivated leisure is a restaurant below the main gate which offers aristocratic kaiseki: seasonal foods—pickled fern, marinated rape, and tiny sweet river fish—all served under the autumn leaves in a most refined manner.

And just beyond the furthest hedge, there is Kyoto in the hazy distance. Sitting there one remembers that Prince Genji once looked back at Kyoto from such a height and found it like a painting, adding that people who live in such a place would hardly want to live anywhere else.