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The Empire of Things: Tokugawa Ieyasu's Material Legacy and Cultural Profile

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 29; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10371390902780506

1469-9338

Morgan Pitelka,

Chinese history and philosophy

This biographical sketch of Tokugawa Ieyasu aims to construct a cultural profile of the man primarily through a reading of a portrait of him done (after his death) by Kanō Tan'yū, ‘Dream Portrait of the Tōshōgu Deity’. The depiction shows his grounding in classical Chinese texts, his collection of Chinese ceramics and other objects, his large collection of swords, and his enduring interest in falconry. Each of these is investigated as a means to illuminating the social networks of patronage and cultural practices through which he established and maintained the power of his clan. These perspectives reveal Ieyasu as a representative sixteenth-century warrior, a product of the particular social and political conditions of his time, whose eventual apotheosis was an ideal which shaped the educations and aspirations of millions of samurai throughout the ensuing Edo period.