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Subject:A historical question
Posted By: Horst Graebner Mon, Apr 19, 2021 IP: 88.69.152.61
I have a woodblock print (it's not a painting), originally mounted as hanging scroll, the format is 87 x 30 cm.
Stylistically, it should be from the second half of the 19th century.
At first glance, the print looks like a musha-e: a gathering of warlords from the Sengoku / Azuchi Momoyama period (for example:
Shōdai Shimōsa no kami Kiyonaga, Katō Yozaemon Kiyotaka, Aoki (?) Tosa no kami Masanao, Kimura Matazō, Inoue Taikurō, Katō Seibei etc).
The man in the top center could be Katō Kiyomasa (I couldn't find the kanji for this name, however).
The cartousches left and right below give the editor as Hokozan Jōon-ji (法光山長遠寺) (a Nichiren Buddhism temple) and its adress in province Echigo, district Kubiki, Takada (Echigo-koku kubiki-gun Takada - 越後国(國)頸城郡高田).
The red banner at the top right is the Gohonzon "Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō" (南無妙法蓮華経).
So it is clearly a Buddhist print.
I cannot read the text on top of the print, my knowledge of Japanese is insufficient.
My question: what is the point of the connection between the early warlords and the Buddhist temple at the end of the 19th century?
Does anyone have an idea and / or can I give me references to literature for further reading?
Horst
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