Edo - Arts of Japans Last Shogun Age (Part 2)

2010

Some of the wonderful artistic pieces used and created by Edo period Samurai are described by Barry Till from the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.Some of the wonderful artistic pieces used and created by Edo period Samurai are described by Barry Till from the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. …

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GALLERY
GALLERY
0:01

GALLERY

0:01

Samurai
Samurai
0:09

Samurai

0:09

The Pen and the Sword
The Pen and the Sword
1:52

The Pen and the Sword

1:52

Autogenerated Transcript from YouTube (if available)

Use CTRL+F to find key words if it is a longer transcript​.

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the samurai with apricots in Japan they

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had a lot of Rights that nobody else had

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they had the right to carry two swords

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and they had the right to cut and leave

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the words if something was disrespectful

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they could kill them and walk away and

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have no repercussions they kept the law

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and order in the country they were

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usually served a feudal lord and they’re

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tremendously laurel him Jado period

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Confucianism was very popular and that

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expressed a lot of loyalty towards you

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feudal lord the samurai would rather be

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killed then run away they hated

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cowardice during the Edo period they

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established a code of ethics known as

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Bushido in which it stressed loyalty to

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their master they were these elaborate

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suits of armor which are quite light and

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they carried these fantastic swords some

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of the Japanese swords could be folded

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over 1 million times often they would

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have the maker on the handle now they

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played such an important role in earlier

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periods in Japan but during the Edo

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period once the Empire was united they

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didn’t have a lot to do they were

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largely subsidized by rice stipends from

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the peasants but as inflation increased

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they found that they didn’t have a lot

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of money so they supplemented their

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income by becoming civil servants some

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became painters actors sort of policemen

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law enforcers and even firemen the first

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Shogun stressed to excel with the pen

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and the sword so they became very good

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at being very civilized when it came to

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collecting painting and calligraphy and

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ceramics they loved the tea ceremony and

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they loved Zen

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some samurai became very accomplished

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painters we have two examples here which

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are spectacular the first one is Hawkins

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snow and that it actually was done by a

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painter who was elevated to the samurai

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status by his feudal lord he’s allowed

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to carry two swords and it’s quite a

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fine painting and shows a lot of skill

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the one next to it is up two crows at

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sunset this is by a samurai family

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member named Gershwin he began very

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famous and he developed a very

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naturalistic school a painting called

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shijou this is one of the finest

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paintings in our collection

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