Word: edo
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...tolerated, though watched closely, by the shogunate. Originally the term "floating world," or ukiyo, referred to the Buddhist notion that the everyday grind of travail and tears is ephemeral. Yet the proprietors and patrons of the leisure districts that sprang up on the outskirts of Edo (Tokyo), Kyoto and Osaka in the 1600s turned that concept on its head. Life was to be savored. "Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maples," as novelist Asai Ryoi wrote in 1661, "singing songs, drinking wine, and diverting...
...Perhaps the most influential priest in the shrine's history was Yuzon, an avid painter and powerful art patron who lived there in the late 1700s and whose portrait is among the shown works. He commissioned not just Jakuchu's flowers but also the fine mid-Edo-style door screens in the building's more public areas, where the priest would receive guests. Painted in the late 18th century by Okyo Maruyama, each screen has a different theme, such as cranes, tigers, wise men and waterfalls. Okyo was an important transitional figure in Japanese art, as painting moved toward...
...influence of Okyo's work can be seen in a series of rooms commissioned 80 years later and painted by late-Edo master Gantai in the 1840s. His screens, like Okyo's, each have its own theme; they are filled with dazzling gold reeds, rushes, trees and butterflies. But by this time, figurative depiction had become so sophisticated that the butterflies look real, as if they are ready to fly off the screen...
...Especially on the top floor?where the treasures include pieces from before the rise of Buddhism in 6th century B.C. through the 18th century Edo period?the exhibitions benefit tremendously from the museum's emphasis on selective presentation. Many rooms feature only a handful of pieces, encouraging visitors to take a closer look instead of a flyby glance at 30 works in 30 seconds. "Our approach is for art appreciation, not mass exhibitionism," explains curator Yuji Dainobu...
When sprinter Shingo Suetsugu races around the track wearing his high-tech spikes and aerodynamic suit, he has another less visible secret weapon: he practices ancient techniques used by samurai and ninja to move more swiftly through the streets of Edo-era Japan. Suetsugu, 24, credits a centuries-old practice called nanba for the bronze medal he won in the 200-m race at last year's track-and-field World Championships, which made him the first East Asian since 1900 to land a medal in an international sprint competition. In Athens, the goateed native of Japan's southern Kyushu...