Japanese sculpture

During the Kofun period of the 3rd to 6th century CE, haniwa terracotta figures of humans and animals in a simplistic style were erected outside important tombs.

The arrival of Buddhism in the 6th century brought with it sophisticated traditions in sculpture, Chinese styles mediated via Korea.

The 7th-century Hōryū-ji and its contents have survived more intact than any East Asian Buddhist temple of its date, with works including a Shaka Trinity of 623 in bronze, showing the historical Buddha flanked by two bodhisattvas and also the Guardian Kings of the Four Directions.

Jōchō redefined the body shape of Buddha statues by perfecting the technique of yosegi zukuri (寄木造り) which is a combination of several woods.

Sculptors Unkei, Kaikei, and Tankei gained renown by replacing temples' Buddha statues that had been lost in wars or fires, such as those at Kofuku-ji.

[5] However sculptural work in the decorative arts was developed to a remarkable level of technical achievement and refinement in small objects such as inro and netsuke in many materials, and metal tosogu or Japanese sword mountings.

The Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan) which is an ancient history of Japan compiled in 720, states that haniwa was ordered at the time of an empress's death by the emperor who regretted the custom of servants and maids of the deceased following their master in death, and ordered that clay figures be molded and placed around the kofun burial mound instead of the sacrifice of living beings.

Scholars doubt the authenticity of this story and contend that plain cylindrical clay pipes were the first haniwa forms, and that they were used in the manner of stakes to hold the earth of the burial mound in place.

Japanese emergence from the period of native primitive arts was instigated mainly by the introduction of Buddhism from the mainland Asian continent in the middle of the sixth century.

Earliest examples of Buddhist art may be seen at the seventh-century Horyū-ji temple in Nara, whose buildings themselves, set in a prescribed pattern with main hall, belfry, pagodas, and other buildings enclosed within an encircling roofed corridor, retain an aura of the ancient era, together with the countless art treasures preserved within their halls.

The aloofness of the earlier Asuka sculpture is softened into a more native form; and there is to be seen in them a compromise between the divine and the human ideal.

Among many original works, the Asura in Kōfukuji temple is a dry lacquer statue showing delicate representation of sentiment.

Gilt bronze, dry lacquer, clay, terracotta, repousee, stone, and silver sculptures were made in the factory.

The statue bodies were carved from single blocks of wood and appear imposing, massive, and heavy when compared to Nara-period works.

Their thick limbs and severe, almost brooding facial features imbue them with a sense of dark mystery and inspire awe in the beholder, in keeping with the secrecy of esoteric Buddhist rites.

This realism reflected the tastes of samurai, who had effectively governed Japan since the Kamakura period and had become new patrons of Buddhist sculptures.

Many of his figures are more idealized than those of Unkei and his sons, and are characterized by a beautifully finished surface, richly decorated with pigments and gold.

As a result, craftsmen who made Japanese swords, armor, netsuke, kiseru, inro and furnishings lost customers, but with the support of the new government, they began to make extremely elaborate metal, ivory and wood sculptures, which they then exported to the United States and Europe.

[9] International exhibitions brought Japanese cast bronze to a new foreign audience, attracting strong praise.

[10] The past history of samurai weaponry equipped Japanese metalworkers to create metallic finishes in a wide range of colours.

By combining and finishing copper, silver and gold in different proportions, they created specialised alloys including shakudō and shibuichi.

[12] After World War II, sculptors turned away from the figurative French school of Rodin and Maillol toward aggressive modern and avant-garde forms and materials, sometimes on an enormous scale.

A profusion of materials and techniques characterized these new experimental sculptures, which also absorbed the ideas of international "op" (optical illusion) and pop art.

In the 1970s, the ideas of contextual placement of natural objects of stone, wood, bamboo, and paper into relationships with people and their environment were embodied in the mono-ha school.

The mono-ha artists emphasized materiality as the most important aspect of art and brought to an end the antiformalism that had dominated the avant-garde in the preceding two decades.

This focus on the relationships between objects and people was ubiquitous throughout the arts world and led to a rising appreciation of "Japanese" qualities in the environment and a return to native artistic principles and forms.

The strong influence of modern high technology on the artists resulted in experimentation with kinetic, tensile forms, such as flexible arcs and "info-environmental" sculptures using lights.

The new Japanese experimental sculptors could be understood as working with Buddhist ideas of permeability and regeneration in structuring their forms, in contrast to the general Western conception of sculpture as something with finite and permanent contours.