Art
- 1210: Iraqi painter – Two Galloping Horsemen
- 1212: Unkei sculpts Miroku Bosatsu in Kōfuku-ji
- 1216: Kōben sculpts statues of Tentōki and Ryūtōki, who carry lanterns as offering to the Historical Buddha at Kōfuku-ji
| 1200s .1210s in art. 1220s |
| Art timeline |
The decade of the 1210s in art involved some significant events.
Unkei was a Japanese sculptor of the Kei school, which flourished in the Kamakura period. He specialized in statues of the Buddha and other important Buddhist figures. Unkei's early works are fairly traditional, similar in style to pieces by his father, Kōkei. However, the sculptures he produced for the Tōdai-ji in Nara show a flair for realism different from anything Japan had seen before. Today, Unkei is the best known of the Kei artists, and many art historians consider him its "most distinguished member".
Sculpture in Japan began with the clay figure. Towards the end of the long Neolithic Jōmon period, some pottery vessels were "flame-rimmed" with extravagant extensions to the rim that can only be called sculptural, and very stylized pottery dogū figures were produced, many with the characteristic "snow-goggle" eyes. 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.
Cosmatesque, or Cosmati, is a style of geometric decorative inlay stonework typical of the architecture of Medieval Italy, and especially of Rome and its surroundings. It was used most extensively for the decoration of church floors, but was also used to decorate church walls, pulpits, and bishop's thrones. The name derives from the Cosmati, the leading family workshop of craftsmen in Rome who created such geometrical marble decorations.
The Cosmati were a Roman family, seven members of which, for four generations, were skilful architects, sculptors and workers in decorative geometric mosaic, mostly for church floors. Their name is commemorated in the genre of Cosmatesque work, often just called "Cosmati", a technique of opus sectile formed of elaborate inlays of small triangles and rectangles of colored stones and glass mosaics set into stone matrices or encrusted upon stone surfaces. Bands, panels and shaped reserves of intricate mosaic alternate with contrasting bands, guilloches and simple geometric shapes of plain white marble. Pavements and revetments were executed in Cosmatesque technique, columns were inlaid with fillets and bands, and immovable church furnishings like cathedras and ambones were similarly treated.
Tōfuku-ji (東福寺) is a Buddhist temple in Higashiyama-ku in Kyoto, Japan. Tōfuku-ji takes its name from two temples in Nara, Tōdai-ji and Kōfuku-ji. It is one of the Kyoto Gozan or "five great Zen temples of Kyoto". Its honorary sangō prefix is Enichi-san (慧日山).
Buddhism played an important role in the development of Japanese art between the 6th and the 16th centuries. Buddhist art and Buddhist religious thought came to Japan from China through Korea. Buddhist art was encouraged by Crown Prince Shōtoku in the Suiko period in the sixth century, and by Emperor Shōmu in the Nara period in the eighth century. In the early Heian period, Buddhist art and architecture greatly influenced the traditional Shinto arts, and Buddhist painting became fashionable among wealthy Japanese. The Kamakura period saw a flowering of Japanese Buddhist sculpture, whose origins are in the works of Heian period sculptor Jōchō. During this period, outstanding busshi appeared one after another in the Kei school, and Unkei, Kaikei, and Tankei were especially famous. The Amida sect of Buddhism provided the basis for many popular artworks. Buddhist art became popular among the masses via scroll paintings, paintings used in worship and paintings of Buddhas, saint's lives, hells and other religious themes. Under the Zen sect of Buddhism, portraiture of priests such as Bodhidharma became popular as well as scroll calligraphy and sumi-e brush painting.
The decade of the 1330s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1290s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1300s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1250s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1240s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1200s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1270s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1230s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1220s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1180s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1170s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1190s in art involved some significant events.
The Kei school was a Japanese school (style) of Buddhist sculpture which emerged in the early Kamakura period. Based in Nara, it was the dominant school in Buddhist sculpture in Japan into the 14th century, and remained influential until the 19th. Art historian Joan Stanley Baker cites the Kei school's early works as the last highpoint in the history of Japanese sculpture.
Jōkei (貞慶) (1155–1213) was an influential Buddhist scholar-monk and reformer of the East Asian Yogācāra sect in Japan, posthumously known as Gedatsu shōnin.