The Ashikaga era of Japanese monochrome landscape is really the story of a few inspired individuals, artists whose works spanned a period of something more than one hundred and fifty years. As men of Zen, they found the landscape an ideal expression of reverence for the divine essence they perceived in nature. To contemplate nature was to contemplate the universal god, and to contemplate a painting of nature, or better still to paint nature itself, was to perform a sacrament. The landscape painting was their version of the Buddhist icon, and its monochrome abstraction was a profound expression of Zen aesthetics. Like the artists of the Renaissance, the Ashikaga artists worshiped through painting. The result is an art form showing no gods but resonant with spirituality. CHAPTER TEN The Zen Aesthetics of Japanese Architecture _Architecturally [the Zen-inspired Silver Pavilion's] chief interest lies in the compromise which it exhibits between religious and domestic types, and a new style of living apartments (called _shoin_) which specialists regard as the true forerunner of the Japanese dwelling. _George B. Sansom_, Japan: A Short Cultural History Traditional Zen-style house _ _Traditional interior w/ Zen art alcove _ ASK ANY JAPANESE why the traditional Japanese house is bitterly cold in winter and uncomfortably hot in summer, and he will unfailingly tell you that the design is historically adapted to the climate. Inquire about his purpose in rejecting furniture, thus to kneel daylong on a straw floor mat, and he will explain that the mat is more comfortable. Question his preference for sleeping on a wadded cotton floor pallet instead of a conventional mattress and springs, and he will reply that the floor provides surer rest. What he will not say, since he assumes a Westerner cannot comprehend it, is that through these seeming physical privations he finds shelter for the inner man. The exquisite traditional Japanese house has been compared to an outsized umbrella erected over the landscape, not dominating its surroundings but providing a shaded space for living amid nature. The outside resembles a tropical hut, while the inside is an interworking of Mondrian geometries. Together they represent the culmination of a long tradition of defining and handling interior space, using natural materials, and integrating architecture and setting. The Japanese house is one of those all too rare earthly creations that transcend the merely utilitarian, that attend as closely to man's interior needs as to his physical comfort.