0:11

the samurai with apricots in Japan they

0:15

had a lot of Rights that nobody else had

0:16

they had the right to carry two swords

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and they had the right to cut and leave

0:20

the words if something was disrespectful

0:22

they could kill them and walk away and

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have no repercussions they kept the law

0:27

and order in the country they were

0:29

usually served a feudal lord and they’re

0:31

tremendously laurel him Jado period

0:34

Confucianism was very popular and that

0:37

expressed a lot of loyalty towards you

0:39

feudal lord the samurai would rather be

0:41

killed then run away they hated

0:44

cowardice during the Edo period they

0:46

established a code of ethics known as

0:48

Bushido in which it stressed loyalty to

0:51

their master they were these elaborate

0:54

suits of armor which are quite light and

0:57

they carried these fantastic swords some

0:59

of the Japanese swords could be folded

1:00

over 1 million times often they would

1:03

have the maker on the handle now they

1:06

played such an important role in earlier

1:08

periods in Japan but during the Edo

1:10

period once the Empire was united they

1:13

didn’t have a lot to do they were

1:15

largely subsidized by rice stipends from

1:18

the peasants but as inflation increased

1:21

they found that they didn’t have a lot

1:23

of money so they supplemented their

1:24

income by becoming civil servants some

1:27

became painters actors sort of policemen

1:31

law enforcers and even firemen the first

1:35

Shogun stressed to excel with the pen

1:38

and the sword so they became very good

1:41

at being very civilized when it came to

1:44

collecting painting and calligraphy and

1:46

ceramics they loved the tea ceremony and

1:48

they loved Zen

1:54

some samurai became very accomplished

1:57

painters we have two examples here which

1:59

are spectacular the first one is Hawkins

2:03

snow and that it actually was done by a

2:04

painter who was elevated to the samurai

2:06

status by his feudal lord he’s allowed

2:09

to carry two swords and it’s quite a

2:11

fine painting and shows a lot of skill

2:13

the one next to it is up two crows at

2:15

sunset this is by a samurai family

2:19

member named Gershwin he began very

2:21

famous and he developed a very

2:23

naturalistic school a painting called

2:25

shijou this is one of the finest

2:27

paintings in our collection

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