1 00:00:10,300 --> 00:00:14,820 In the beginning, there was nothing but a dark, primordial ocean... 2 00:00:17,980 --> 00:00:22,860 ..but then two young gods, Izanagi and Izanami, 3 00:00:22,860 --> 00:00:25,540 looked across the void and saw potential. 4 00:00:28,740 --> 00:00:32,820 One day, they plunged a spear into the endless ocean and stirred. 5 00:00:34,500 --> 00:00:36,060 When they removed the spear, 6 00:00:36,060 --> 00:00:40,900 drops of water fell from its tip and formed a group of islands, 7 00:00:40,900 --> 00:00:44,660 and together, these islands became the whole known world. 8 00:01:03,940 --> 00:01:07,700 The gods called their creation Oyashima Kuni, 9 00:01:07,700 --> 00:01:10,660 the land of the eight great islands. 10 00:01:10,660 --> 00:01:15,900 Today its inhabitants call it Nihon, the Land of the Rising Sun - 11 00:01:15,900 --> 00:01:18,140 but we know it by a different name. 12 00:01:26,780 --> 00:01:30,900 Japan has fascinated me since I was a boy. 13 00:01:30,900 --> 00:01:34,220 It's always seemed like a parallel universe, 14 00:01:34,220 --> 00:01:37,780 a society so similar and yet so different from our own... 15 00:01:39,340 --> 00:01:40,580 ..and in this series, 16 00:01:40,580 --> 00:01:45,540 I finally have my chance to explore the Japanese imagination. 17 00:01:45,540 --> 00:01:50,300 I'll seek out its greatest artworks, both old and new... 18 00:01:53,700 --> 00:01:56,900 ..but this is also a journey into Japanese life. 19 00:01:58,300 --> 00:02:01,740 I'll travel through its landscapes and its cities. 20 00:02:02,860 --> 00:02:04,380 I'll enter its homes... 21 00:02:04,380 --> 00:02:05,700 Wow! 22 00:02:05,700 --> 00:02:07,940 ..meet its craftspeople... 23 00:02:07,940 --> 00:02:10,180 witness its rituals... 24 00:02:10,180 --> 00:02:12,580 and even sample its food. 25 00:02:12,580 --> 00:02:15,420 So, this little Bento box is like a work of art, 26 00:02:15,420 --> 00:02:17,020 and it's almost too beautiful to eat. 27 00:02:22,060 --> 00:02:27,660 Japan is a society in which so much is informed by aesthetics, 28 00:02:27,660 --> 00:02:31,100 not just painting and sculpture, not just homes and gardens, 29 00:02:31,100 --> 00:02:34,580 but the way you look at cherry blossom, the way you drink tea, 30 00:02:34,580 --> 00:02:36,980 even the way you arrange your lunchbox. 31 00:02:36,980 --> 00:02:39,420 And that's what I, as an art historian, 32 00:02:39,420 --> 00:02:41,860 find so inspiring about this place. 33 00:02:41,860 --> 00:02:46,500 In Japan, almost everything has the capacity to become art. 34 00:02:51,380 --> 00:02:52,580 In this episode, 35 00:02:52,580 --> 00:02:55,860 I'm going to explore Japanese attitudes to nature... 36 00:02:57,900 --> 00:03:01,980 ..from great landscape paintings and Zen gardens... 37 00:03:03,300 --> 00:03:07,220 ..to falling blossoms and soaring mountains. 38 00:03:08,620 --> 00:03:13,100 The natural world is central to traditional Japanese aesthetics... 39 00:03:14,580 --> 00:03:19,140 ..and yet in modern Japan, that old relationship is deeply uncertain... 40 00:03:21,700 --> 00:03:26,780 ..but Japanese artists continue to work with nature, to revere it... 41 00:03:29,020 --> 00:03:32,660 ..and to draw inspiration from the landscape that surrounds them. 42 00:03:47,100 --> 00:03:51,500 Japan is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. 43 00:03:52,620 --> 00:03:54,500 It is famous around the world 44 00:03:54,500 --> 00:03:57,220 for its vast cities and advanced technology. 45 00:03:58,460 --> 00:04:01,500 Most of its citizens live far away from nature, 46 00:04:01,500 --> 00:04:03,900 amid never-ending urban landscapes... 47 00:04:05,380 --> 00:04:12,700 ..and yet an astonishing 73% of Japan is uninhabited by humans. 48 00:04:12,700 --> 00:04:16,420 Its mountains are so steep and its forests so dense 49 00:04:16,420 --> 00:04:19,380 that people can barely penetrate them - 50 00:04:19,380 --> 00:04:24,580 and, though beautiful, this country lives on a geological knife edge. 51 00:04:24,580 --> 00:04:29,060 Japan contains 10% of the world's active volcanoes 52 00:04:29,060 --> 00:04:33,300 and experiences a staggering 1,500 earthquakes a year. 53 00:04:34,420 --> 00:04:38,140 In Japan, nature is ignored at one's peril. 54 00:04:52,900 --> 00:04:56,780 These are the sacred Kii mountains in central southern Japan. 55 00:05:02,420 --> 00:05:05,060 The Japanese have revered nature for millennia. 56 00:05:10,780 --> 00:05:14,180 These beliefs are embodied in the country's native religion, 57 00:05:14,180 --> 00:05:16,180 known today as Shinto... 58 00:05:18,420 --> 00:05:20,820 ..but, in some ways, it isn't even a religion. 59 00:05:28,900 --> 00:05:32,860 Shinto has no founder, no scriptures. 60 00:05:32,860 --> 00:05:35,780 For centuries, it didn't even have a name - 61 00:05:35,780 --> 00:05:41,740 but it did believe the world is inhabited by spirits known as kami, 62 00:05:41,740 --> 00:05:44,180 and these kami are all around us. 63 00:05:51,580 --> 00:05:54,860 They live in the sun and the wind... 64 00:05:54,860 --> 00:05:57,860 in trees and animals... 65 00:05:57,860 --> 00:06:01,380 and even in rocks and boulders. 66 00:06:01,380 --> 00:06:05,580 For Shinto, the world is endlessly animated by the divine... 67 00:06:08,380 --> 00:06:11,460 ..and here, deep in the forest, is a shrine. 68 00:06:13,300 --> 00:06:16,140 There is a simple aesthetic. 69 00:06:16,140 --> 00:06:19,060 Zigzags of paper hang from rope made of rice straw. 70 00:06:21,620 --> 00:06:24,260 It's something you see all over Japan... 71 00:06:27,660 --> 00:06:30,980 ..but, beyond these components, Shinto doesn't produce much art. 72 00:06:32,900 --> 00:06:36,100 The focus is on nature itself... 73 00:06:41,540 --> 00:06:45,540 ..although some natural phenomena get more attention than others. 74 00:06:50,740 --> 00:06:53,100 This is Nachi Falls. 75 00:07:00,820 --> 00:07:04,020 It's one of the tallest waterfalls in Japan, 76 00:07:04,020 --> 00:07:07,020 and, of course, it boasts its very own kami. 77 00:07:11,100 --> 00:07:12,620 MAN CHANTS 78 00:07:18,940 --> 00:07:21,860 Every morning, a Shinto priest makes an offering 79 00:07:21,860 --> 00:07:23,780 to the spirit of the waterfall. 80 00:07:26,300 --> 00:07:31,420 Sake and rice are placed on a table alongside a golden wand. 81 00:07:31,420 --> 00:07:32,900 CHANTING CONTINUES 82 00:07:39,540 --> 00:07:42,860 Ritual is at the heart of Shintoism. 83 00:07:42,860 --> 00:07:45,420 Kami can be good and bad, just like humans, 84 00:07:45,420 --> 00:07:49,220 and rituals are performed to maintain good relationships 85 00:07:49,220 --> 00:07:51,740 between the human world and the kami world. 86 00:07:56,140 --> 00:08:01,980 In so much of the world, religion is about gods and saints and prophets - 87 00:08:01,980 --> 00:08:05,740 but here in Nachi, and in countless other parts of Japan, 88 00:08:05,740 --> 00:08:09,540 nature itself is being venerated, 89 00:08:09,540 --> 00:08:15,580 and as I look up at this waterfall, 133 metres high, I can see why. 90 00:08:18,340 --> 00:08:21,340 But even though Shinto doesn't have a strong tradition 91 00:08:21,340 --> 00:08:22,500 of religious imagery, 92 00:08:22,500 --> 00:08:24,420 I believe its influence can be felt 93 00:08:24,420 --> 00:08:27,660 right through the history of Japanese art - 94 00:08:27,660 --> 00:08:30,220 even in the most unlikely places. 95 00:08:35,740 --> 00:08:38,260 These are netsuke. 96 00:08:38,260 --> 00:08:41,180 They were used as toggles on the end of purse strings 97 00:08:41,180 --> 00:08:43,700 as part of traditional Japanese dress. 98 00:08:43,700 --> 00:08:46,060 They depicted all sorts of things... 99 00:08:48,860 --> 00:08:50,980 ..and though just accessories for clothing, 100 00:08:50,980 --> 00:08:54,780 they are now revered as breathtaking miniature sculptures... 101 00:08:58,620 --> 00:09:01,340 ..and this is a particularly special one. 102 00:09:05,380 --> 00:09:09,340 So, this bizarre little masterpiece was made a few hundred years ago, 103 00:09:09,340 --> 00:09:12,860 probably by an artist called Harumitsu, who was based in Ise, 104 00:09:12,860 --> 00:09:15,580 one of the great Shinto centres of Japan, 105 00:09:15,580 --> 00:09:19,620 and it depicts a pretty much life-size cicada 106 00:09:19,620 --> 00:09:22,860 that's beautifully carved out of boxwood. 107 00:09:22,860 --> 00:09:25,660 Every single detail is anatomically correct. 108 00:09:25,660 --> 00:09:26,860 So we have the compound eyes 109 00:09:26,860 --> 00:09:28,140 at the top, 110 00:09:28,140 --> 00:09:31,180 the beautiful tracery of the veined wings, 111 00:09:31,180 --> 00:09:32,900 and this, this is the thorax and abdomen. 112 00:09:32,900 --> 00:09:38,420 Those contain the muscles that produce the famous cicada chirp - 113 00:09:38,420 --> 00:09:40,540 and if I turned it over onto the other side, 114 00:09:40,540 --> 00:09:43,780 which I'm really quite nervous about doing, because I'm extremely clumsy, 115 00:09:43,780 --> 00:09:48,220 we will see there is even more detail on the underside. 116 00:09:48,220 --> 00:09:53,260 And you can see that the cicada is even grasping a little branch. 117 00:09:53,260 --> 00:09:54,780 Absolutely beautiful. 118 00:10:00,300 --> 00:10:03,900 Cicadas have a really important place in Japanese culture. 119 00:10:03,900 --> 00:10:06,900 They are seen as symbolic of the summer, when they come out, 120 00:10:06,900 --> 00:10:09,860 and this object was probably worn during the summer months. 121 00:10:09,860 --> 00:10:13,500 But they're also seen as strangely melancholy creatures. 122 00:10:14,700 --> 00:10:16,340 There's that famous haiku. 123 00:10:16,340 --> 00:10:20,300 "Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die" - 124 00:10:20,300 --> 00:10:21,940 but it's not only cicadas. 125 00:10:21,940 --> 00:10:25,740 Japanese literature is filled with references to all kinds of insects, 126 00:10:25,740 --> 00:10:30,620 to caterpillars and beetles and fireflies and dragonflies, 127 00:10:30,620 --> 00:10:33,100 and indeed, even today, many Japanese people 128 00:10:33,100 --> 00:10:34,460 have insects as pets, 129 00:10:34,460 --> 00:10:37,260 and it's even possible to visit beetle petting zoos. 130 00:10:44,700 --> 00:10:46,140 Now, this all might sound rather odd, 131 00:10:46,140 --> 00:10:47,900 but actually, it's deeply revealing, 132 00:10:47,900 --> 00:10:51,780 because in Japan, nothing in nature is too small to be important. 133 00:10:51,780 --> 00:10:53,580 Everything is deserving of our respect, 134 00:10:53,580 --> 00:10:56,180 everything is deserving of our attention, 135 00:10:56,180 --> 00:11:00,140 even an intensely irritating insect like this one - 136 00:11:00,140 --> 00:11:03,260 and that, I'm sure, is partly down to Shinto. 137 00:11:16,180 --> 00:11:19,020 But Shinto isn't the only religion in Japan 138 00:11:19,020 --> 00:11:21,540 with a special relationship to nature. 139 00:12:04,580 --> 00:12:07,820 In Japan, there are numerous different schools and sects 140 00:12:07,820 --> 00:12:11,940 of Buddhism, but one kind particularly intrigues me, 141 00:12:11,940 --> 00:12:13,260 because it helped produce 142 00:12:13,260 --> 00:12:17,540 some of the world's most sophisticated landscape art forms. 143 00:12:17,540 --> 00:12:20,540 It is known by the Japanese as Zen. 144 00:12:23,860 --> 00:12:25,140 BELL RINGS 145 00:12:29,700 --> 00:12:32,540 Zen doesn't rely on scriptures or dogma 146 00:12:32,540 --> 00:12:36,580 but instead tries to promote an intuitive understanding of the world 147 00:12:36,580 --> 00:12:40,260 through meditation and repeated practical exercises. 148 00:13:47,580 --> 00:13:49,700 Zen monks used a number of methods 149 00:13:49,700 --> 00:13:54,100 to discipline their minds and their bodies and to help with meditation, 150 00:13:54,100 --> 00:13:58,060 and one of them, one of these methods, was painting. 151 00:13:58,060 --> 00:14:01,460 Japanese monks started to make brush paintings 152 00:14:01,460 --> 00:14:03,620 in black ink on paper and silk. 153 00:14:03,620 --> 00:14:06,900 Now, this technique had been developed by the Chinese 154 00:14:06,900 --> 00:14:08,260 centuries earlier, 155 00:14:08,260 --> 00:14:10,540 but the Japanese were quick learners. 156 00:14:14,020 --> 00:14:17,740 And perhaps the greatest of these Japanese ink wash painters 157 00:14:17,740 --> 00:14:20,300 was a man called Sesshu Toyo. 158 00:14:24,060 --> 00:14:28,300 Sesshu was born in western Japan in 1420. 159 00:14:28,300 --> 00:14:31,180 At the age of 11, he enrolled in a Zen temple, 160 00:14:31,180 --> 00:14:33,380 where he trained to be a priest - 161 00:14:33,380 --> 00:14:35,260 but, according to one anecdote, 162 00:14:35,260 --> 00:14:38,300 Sesshu showed little affinity for Zen discipline. 163 00:14:39,900 --> 00:14:42,660 One day, Sesshu was so badly behaved 164 00:14:42,660 --> 00:14:45,620 that his masters got hold of some rope 165 00:14:45,620 --> 00:14:48,540 and tied him to a pole as a punishment. 166 00:14:48,540 --> 00:14:50,140 Now, after several hours of this, 167 00:14:50,140 --> 00:14:53,420 Sesshu became so distressed that he started to cry, 168 00:14:53,420 --> 00:14:57,340 and his tears gradually formed a puddle at his feet - 169 00:14:57,340 --> 00:14:59,820 but then something remarkable happened. 170 00:14:59,820 --> 00:15:02,180 Using his toe as a brush, 171 00:15:02,180 --> 00:15:06,100 Sesshu painted the outline of a rat into his tears, 172 00:15:06,100 --> 00:15:08,660 and then the rat came to life, 173 00:15:08,660 --> 00:15:11,500 gnawed through the rope and set Sesshu free. 174 00:15:16,660 --> 00:15:20,220 In the late 1460s, Sesshu travelled to China, 175 00:15:20,220 --> 00:15:22,940 and there he learned the art of ink wash painting 176 00:15:22,940 --> 00:15:24,700 from its native masters. 177 00:15:26,660 --> 00:15:29,780 He went on to become one of Japan's greatest painters, 178 00:15:29,780 --> 00:15:34,620 and I've come to the Tokyo National Museum to see his masterpiece, 179 00:15:34,620 --> 00:15:38,660 a painting I've wanted to see for many years... 180 00:15:38,660 --> 00:15:42,260 and we are the first film crew to ever be granted access to it 181 00:15:42,260 --> 00:15:44,220 when it's not on display. 182 00:15:47,500 --> 00:15:51,220 This is the splashed ink landscape. 183 00:15:51,220 --> 00:15:56,220 Sesshu painted it in 1495 when he was in his mid-70s, 184 00:15:56,220 --> 00:15:59,340 and though it might only have taken a few minutes to make, 185 00:15:59,340 --> 00:16:03,380 it is the result of a lifetime's experience and skill. 186 00:16:04,860 --> 00:16:07,580 Now, I'll be honest with you. At first, it doesn't look like much. 187 00:16:07,580 --> 00:16:10,140 It just looks like some spatters on a page - 188 00:16:10,140 --> 00:16:15,540 but gradually, an image, a landscape, begins to appear. 189 00:16:20,660 --> 00:16:22,220 In the foreground, 190 00:16:22,220 --> 00:16:26,380 a craggy outcrop of rock covered by trees and bushes... 191 00:16:27,740 --> 00:16:29,500 ..and in the background, 192 00:16:29,500 --> 00:16:33,420 these towering mountains that are half hidden by mists 193 00:16:33,420 --> 00:16:36,300 or perhaps an incoming rain shower... 194 00:16:38,540 --> 00:16:42,380 ..but as you look at this picture longer, you begin to see yet more - 195 00:16:42,380 --> 00:16:45,980 so, down there, that is a little wooden building. 196 00:16:45,980 --> 00:16:47,860 You can see the triangular roof. 197 00:16:47,860 --> 00:16:49,860 There's a fence around its perimeter - 198 00:16:49,860 --> 00:16:52,940 and that, believe it or not, is a wine tavern, 199 00:16:52,940 --> 00:16:55,700 and we know that because the wine tavern banner 200 00:16:55,700 --> 00:16:57,300 is hanging out the front of it... 201 00:16:58,660 --> 00:17:02,140 ..but there's more even than that, because below that wine tavern, 202 00:17:02,140 --> 00:17:04,740 you can see two near-horizontal strokes, 203 00:17:04,740 --> 00:17:07,700 and those represent the ripples on a lake... 204 00:17:09,900 --> 00:17:11,260 ..and to the right, 205 00:17:11,260 --> 00:17:13,980 two people are rowing a boat across it. 206 00:17:17,540 --> 00:17:19,980 You know, I find this painting absolutely breathtaking, 207 00:17:19,980 --> 00:17:22,220 and what is so exciting about it 208 00:17:22,220 --> 00:17:25,260 is the way it unfolds in front of your eyes... 209 00:17:27,660 --> 00:17:29,780 ..the way that, by looking at it, you bring it to life... 210 00:17:33,620 --> 00:17:35,620 ..and what I admire so much about it 211 00:17:35,620 --> 00:17:38,980 is how he's achieved so much with such limited resources. 212 00:17:38,980 --> 00:17:41,020 Look at the varieties of blacks, 213 00:17:41,020 --> 00:17:42,740 these deep, dark, inky blacks 214 00:17:42,740 --> 00:17:43,820 in the foreground, 215 00:17:43,820 --> 00:17:45,100 and yet, in the background, 216 00:17:45,100 --> 00:17:46,540 these blacks that are so pale 217 00:17:46,540 --> 00:17:48,180 they are almost white... 218 00:17:48,180 --> 00:17:49,940 and look at the variety of strokes, 219 00:17:49,940 --> 00:17:52,740 the wide brushstrokes, the narrow brushstrokes, 220 00:17:52,740 --> 00:17:53,940 the wet, the dry, 221 00:17:53,940 --> 00:17:55,500 the washes, the scratches, 222 00:17:55,500 --> 00:17:58,260 all this different variety of marks 223 00:17:58,260 --> 00:18:01,260 combined and mobilised to create this landscape... 224 00:18:09,980 --> 00:18:12,060 ..and you know the thing I can't get off my mind? 225 00:18:12,060 --> 00:18:15,220 This was made in 1495. 226 00:18:15,220 --> 00:18:17,180 1495! 227 00:18:17,180 --> 00:18:19,420 Back in Europe, we had the Renaissance going on, 228 00:18:19,420 --> 00:18:22,220 and there were no images as audacious as this one. 229 00:18:22,220 --> 00:18:25,580 You know, it would take 300 years, 400 years, 230 00:18:25,580 --> 00:18:28,260 for the watercolours of Turner and Cezanne, 231 00:18:28,260 --> 00:18:32,700 before any Western artist made anything as abstract as this. 232 00:18:36,620 --> 00:18:40,500 Sesshu had helped create an intoxicating aesthetic, 233 00:18:40,500 --> 00:18:43,540 one that preferred ambiguity to clarity, 234 00:18:43,540 --> 00:18:45,180 absence to presence, 235 00:18:45,180 --> 00:18:47,140 and the hazy mysteries of nature. 236 00:18:49,620 --> 00:18:53,620 This quality is evident in the work of Sesshu's countless followers. 237 00:18:55,660 --> 00:19:00,500 This is Hasegawa Tohaku's pine trees in the mist, 238 00:19:00,500 --> 00:19:05,820 painted onto a folding screen about 100 years after Sesshu's landscape. 239 00:19:07,220 --> 00:19:09,860 The trees drift in and out of the mists. 240 00:19:12,300 --> 00:19:15,580 One can almost taste the cold, wet air. 241 00:19:22,380 --> 00:19:26,780 Empty space is as important as the landscape it surrounds... 242 00:19:33,540 --> 00:19:37,460 ..and this emptiness is surely a visual metaphor 243 00:19:37,460 --> 00:19:40,260 for the silences of Zen meditation. 244 00:19:48,740 --> 00:19:52,180 Zen Buddhism didn't simply inspire the Japanese 245 00:19:52,180 --> 00:19:54,340 to depict the natural world, 246 00:19:54,340 --> 00:19:57,100 it also encourage them to recreate it. 247 00:19:57,100 --> 00:20:00,420 While Sesshu and his colleagues pioneered landscape painting, 248 00:20:00,420 --> 00:20:03,300 other monks turned to horticulture. 249 00:20:05,460 --> 00:20:08,140 I've come to the northern edge of Kyoto 250 00:20:08,140 --> 00:20:10,780 to see one of Japan's greatest gardens. 251 00:20:12,580 --> 00:20:16,380 Ryoan-ji might be the most written-about garden in the world, 252 00:20:16,380 --> 00:20:19,220 but it's also one of the least understood. 253 00:20:19,220 --> 00:20:22,020 We don't know who designed it. We don't know who built it. 254 00:20:22,020 --> 00:20:23,820 We don't know when it was made - 255 00:20:23,820 --> 00:20:26,260 and we certainly don't know what it means. 256 00:20:34,140 --> 00:20:36,780 I've come early in the morning to beat the crowds... 257 00:20:39,780 --> 00:20:42,060 but I'm not allowed to step beyond the veranda. 258 00:20:44,740 --> 00:20:46,860 This isn't a garden for walking in. 259 00:20:48,660 --> 00:20:51,460 The ground is covered in white Shirakawa gravel 260 00:20:51,460 --> 00:20:54,260 that's carefully raked every morning... 261 00:20:55,940 --> 00:21:00,100 ..and emerging from the gravel are 15 craggy stones, 262 00:21:00,100 --> 00:21:01,820 surrounded by moss, 263 00:21:01,820 --> 00:21:04,660 arranged almost randomly... 264 00:21:04,660 --> 00:21:06,340 but there's nothing random about them... 265 00:21:08,380 --> 00:21:12,500 ..because 15 is an important number in Zen. 266 00:21:12,500 --> 00:21:16,260 It symbolises completeness, since the entire Buddhist world 267 00:21:16,260 --> 00:21:19,340 contains seven continents and eight oceans... 268 00:21:21,380 --> 00:21:22,860 ..but from where I'm sitting... 269 00:21:24,060 --> 00:21:27,580 ..you can't see 15 stones. You can only see 14. 270 00:21:29,860 --> 00:21:31,620 In fact, it doesn't matter where you go, 271 00:21:31,620 --> 00:21:35,820 you can never see all 15 stones at once, 272 00:21:35,820 --> 00:21:40,100 and this is thought to be a reminder of human imperfection. 273 00:21:40,100 --> 00:21:42,620 One mind can never understand everything. 274 00:21:51,980 --> 00:21:55,420 As time passes, something remarkable happens. 275 00:21:56,740 --> 00:21:59,460 The gaps between the stones come to life. 276 00:21:59,460 --> 00:22:01,100 The emptiness fills up... 277 00:22:02,500 --> 00:22:04,780 ..and suddenly this modest courtyard 278 00:22:04,780 --> 00:22:06,860 becomes a vast panorama of the world. 279 00:22:10,860 --> 00:22:13,260 One moment the stones are moss-covered islands 280 00:22:13,260 --> 00:22:15,740 in a rippling, foaming ocean... 281 00:22:18,780 --> 00:22:22,060 ..the next, they're mountaintops seen from above the clouds. 282 00:22:23,220 --> 00:22:25,860 And then, just like that, 283 00:22:25,860 --> 00:22:28,780 they're nothing more than a group of rocks in some gravel. 284 00:22:32,180 --> 00:22:34,500 People have been trying to decipher 285 00:22:34,500 --> 00:22:36,900 the meaning of this garden for years, 286 00:22:36,900 --> 00:22:40,100 but I think its meaning, if it has any meaning, 287 00:22:40,100 --> 00:22:42,860 ultimately comes from within us, 288 00:22:42,860 --> 00:22:47,220 because, like Sesshu's paintings and like so much Japanese culture, 289 00:22:47,220 --> 00:22:50,220 this garden is an almost blank canvas, 290 00:22:50,220 --> 00:22:54,500 a place that enables the mind to wander in any direction it pleases. 291 00:23:44,260 --> 00:23:47,740 The Zen preference for uncertainty and suggestiveness 292 00:23:47,740 --> 00:23:49,580 might still seem alien 293 00:23:49,580 --> 00:23:54,060 to us fact-loving, empirical, positivistic Westerners, 294 00:23:54,060 --> 00:23:57,900 but it became a crucial part of Japanese culture - 295 00:23:57,900 --> 00:24:00,340 and you can't understand Japanese culture 296 00:24:00,340 --> 00:24:04,020 until you begin to embrace the beauty of mystery. 297 00:24:19,260 --> 00:24:24,500 I've come 300 miles north of Kyoto to a suburb of Tokyo called Omiya. 298 00:24:26,220 --> 00:24:29,220 It's an unremarkable place and seems a world away 299 00:24:29,220 --> 00:24:33,500 from the wildernesses that inspired Shinto priests and Zen monks... 300 00:24:35,860 --> 00:24:38,980 ..but this place happens to be the nation's epicentre 301 00:24:38,980 --> 00:24:43,140 of another art form that combines nature and culture. 302 00:24:46,940 --> 00:24:50,180 These, of course, are bonsai. 303 00:24:50,180 --> 00:24:54,220 Like many Japanese artforms, bonsai emerged in China. 304 00:24:54,220 --> 00:24:57,580 It came to Japan perhaps as early as the sixth century, 305 00:24:57,580 --> 00:24:59,780 and it continues to be practised today. 306 00:25:02,660 --> 00:25:05,300 Kaori Yamada is unusual. 307 00:25:05,300 --> 00:25:07,380 Most bonsai artists are men... 308 00:25:10,820 --> 00:25:14,820 ..but Kaori is the fifth generation of her family to keep bonsai, 309 00:25:14,820 --> 00:25:17,540 and many of them are extremely old. 310 00:25:20,980 --> 00:25:22,140 It's a beautiful tree... 311 00:25:23,660 --> 00:25:25,420 ..and how old do you think it is? 312 00:25:26,820 --> 00:25:31,420 We think over 300 years. Over 300 years old. 313 00:25:34,780 --> 00:25:36,860 In the West, we might think of bonsai 314 00:25:36,860 --> 00:25:38,940 as little more than pot plants, 315 00:25:38,940 --> 00:25:43,500 but in Japan, it is a major imaginative endeavour. 316 00:25:43,500 --> 00:25:46,700 Just like Sesshu and the creators of Zen gardens, 317 00:25:46,700 --> 00:25:50,500 the bonsai artist is a maker of worlds. 318 00:26:34,620 --> 00:26:38,860 So, what can bonsai tell us about Japanese attitudes to nature? 319 00:27:33,420 --> 00:27:36,660 Just around the corner from Kaori Yamada's nursery 320 00:27:36,660 --> 00:27:38,660 is Omiya's bonsai museum. 321 00:27:39,860 --> 00:27:42,860 It's like an exclusive art gallery, 322 00:27:42,860 --> 00:27:46,620 but in the place of paintings and sculptures there are trees... 323 00:27:51,380 --> 00:27:53,860 ..and I've come to see one in particular. 324 00:27:58,220 --> 00:28:04,500 This magnificent bonsai is estimated to be about 500 years old. 325 00:28:04,500 --> 00:28:05,620 It's a Goyomatsu tree, 326 00:28:05,620 --> 00:28:10,340 a Japanese five-needle pine that only grows in Japan and Korea, 327 00:28:10,340 --> 00:28:12,820 and it's one of the most popular species used 328 00:28:12,820 --> 00:28:14,460 in the creation of bonsai - 329 00:28:14,460 --> 00:28:18,860 and this creation is so remarkable that it's even been given a name. 330 00:28:18,860 --> 00:28:23,660 It's called Uzushio, which means "whirlpool" in Japanese - 331 00:28:23,660 --> 00:28:25,140 and you can see why. 332 00:28:25,140 --> 00:28:29,940 The whole tree spirals with this remarkable, muscular energy. 333 00:28:29,940 --> 00:28:33,140 It was actually designed to resemble a wave or a tsunami 334 00:28:33,140 --> 00:28:35,380 crashing down on the shore. 335 00:28:35,380 --> 00:28:39,700 The wood spirals with the currents and torrents of water, 336 00:28:39,700 --> 00:28:43,100 and the needles are like the fingers of froth of a wave 337 00:28:43,100 --> 00:28:45,100 as it breaks on the shore. 338 00:28:46,540 --> 00:28:49,540 So, though it's small, although it's potted, 339 00:28:49,540 --> 00:28:53,300 this is about the untamability of nature. 340 00:28:54,540 --> 00:28:57,900 You'll also notice there's a great deal of dead wood on it. 341 00:28:57,900 --> 00:29:00,540 The whole front has become this white, 342 00:29:00,540 --> 00:29:02,540 ossified piece of driftwood 343 00:29:02,540 --> 00:29:05,460 that spirals like an S throughout the tree, 344 00:29:05,460 --> 00:29:08,260 and there are dead branches that have broken off. 345 00:29:08,260 --> 00:29:09,740 Now, this isn't an accident. 346 00:29:09,740 --> 00:29:11,620 This was cultivated, this was styled, 347 00:29:11,620 --> 00:29:13,140 it was created, 348 00:29:13,140 --> 00:29:16,820 and the purpose was to make this tree look aged and weathered, 349 00:29:16,820 --> 00:29:19,380 to make it look like it had lived a long, hard life, 350 00:29:19,380 --> 00:29:21,100 out exposed on a clifftop, 351 00:29:21,100 --> 00:29:24,260 mutilated by the winds and the rain and the lightning... 352 00:29:26,300 --> 00:29:30,060 ..and I'm reminded, this piece is about the same age 353 00:29:30,060 --> 00:29:32,180 as Michelangelo's David - 354 00:29:32,180 --> 00:29:34,940 both of them about 500 years old, 355 00:29:34,940 --> 00:29:37,980 and this, too, is a sculpture - 356 00:29:37,980 --> 00:29:41,180 and, indeed, seeing it in this location, in a museum setting, 357 00:29:41,180 --> 00:29:44,340 it has been elevated to the status of art - 358 00:29:44,340 --> 00:29:46,700 but this is a living sculpture. 359 00:29:46,700 --> 00:29:50,580 It hasn't been created once, it has been created and recreated 360 00:29:50,580 --> 00:29:53,020 and reshaped and cultivated and nourished 361 00:29:53,020 --> 00:29:55,860 and kept alive for generations... 362 00:29:57,980 --> 00:30:00,660 ..and, you know, there's a paradox at the heart of this, 363 00:30:00,660 --> 00:30:04,780 because on the one hand, it's deeply contrived, deeply created, 364 00:30:04,780 --> 00:30:06,260 deeply manufactured, 365 00:30:06,260 --> 00:30:10,300 but it also attempts to look like it's the creation 366 00:30:10,300 --> 00:30:12,020 of chance and nature. 367 00:30:17,780 --> 00:30:23,820 Bonsai is ultimately about persistence in nature and culture... 368 00:30:23,820 --> 00:30:28,300 but the Japanese also find beauty in something far more fleeting. 369 00:30:37,180 --> 00:30:41,140 This is the flower of the Prunus serrulata 370 00:30:41,140 --> 00:30:43,780 or, as it's more commonly known, cherry blossom. 371 00:30:45,580 --> 00:30:48,060 The Japanese have revered the life cycle 372 00:30:48,060 --> 00:30:50,420 of this delicately petalled tree flower 373 00:30:50,420 --> 00:30:52,220 for more than a thousand years... 374 00:30:55,460 --> 00:30:57,220 ..and in March and April every year, 375 00:30:57,220 --> 00:30:59,980 they gather beneath it to party and picnic. 376 00:31:02,020 --> 00:31:04,460 This celebration, known as Hanami, 377 00:31:04,460 --> 00:31:06,740 has become a vast national industry, 378 00:31:06,740 --> 00:31:10,940 and millions of tourists now travel to Japan to join in. 379 00:31:12,820 --> 00:31:15,580 No other country does anything quite like this... 380 00:31:17,940 --> 00:31:20,500 ..but the merriment disguises a melancholy. 381 00:31:23,620 --> 00:31:26,420 The Japanese were fascinated with blossom 382 00:31:26,420 --> 00:31:29,260 because they found it unbearably poignant. 383 00:31:29,260 --> 00:31:32,460 After all, here was this beautiful little organism 384 00:31:32,460 --> 00:31:34,500 that emerged, grew and dazzled 385 00:31:34,500 --> 00:31:37,460 and then, within little more than a week, 386 00:31:37,460 --> 00:31:39,540 fell to the ground and died. 387 00:31:39,540 --> 00:31:42,300 For the Japanese, it was, of course, a fact of nature, 388 00:31:42,300 --> 00:31:45,180 but it was also a lesson about the human condition, 389 00:31:45,180 --> 00:31:48,860 a reminder that our lives also are painfully brief. 390 00:31:50,820 --> 00:31:55,260 In Japan, blossom is celebrated not in spite of its transience 391 00:31:55,260 --> 00:31:59,900 but because of it. It is beautiful precisely because it doesn't last... 392 00:32:01,580 --> 00:32:04,580 ..but the preoccupation with cherry blossom 393 00:32:04,580 --> 00:32:07,140 was part of a broader set of interests. 394 00:32:07,140 --> 00:32:10,340 Japanese culture celebrates all of the seasons, 395 00:32:10,340 --> 00:32:12,100 not simply the spring... 396 00:32:13,660 --> 00:32:17,900 ..and so, in Japanese art, alongside the paintings of cherry blossoms, 397 00:32:17,900 --> 00:32:20,900 there are also pictures of verdant summer foliage... 398 00:32:22,180 --> 00:32:24,060 ..vermillion maple leaves of the autumn... 399 00:32:26,380 --> 00:32:28,140 ..and the deep snows of winter. 400 00:32:32,460 --> 00:32:36,740 I've often wondered why the Japanese are so preoccupied with the seasons, 401 00:32:36,740 --> 00:32:38,740 and I think there are two reasons. 402 00:32:38,740 --> 00:32:42,380 First, the seasons are really explicit here. 403 00:32:42,380 --> 00:32:47,060 The winters are bitterly cold and dry, the summers are hot and wet, 404 00:32:47,060 --> 00:32:48,860 and in the spring and the autumn, 405 00:32:48,860 --> 00:32:53,100 the foliage just explodes into these unbelievable colours - 406 00:32:53,100 --> 00:32:55,340 but I think there's another reason, as well. 407 00:32:55,340 --> 00:32:57,780 Written language came very late to Japan, 408 00:32:57,780 --> 00:32:59,860 and so the cycle of the seasons 409 00:32:59,860 --> 00:33:03,300 became a really important tool for measuring time - 410 00:33:03,300 --> 00:33:06,140 not just natural time, but human time, as well... 411 00:33:08,580 --> 00:33:12,620 ..and of all these pictures of Japanese seasonal surprises, 412 00:33:12,620 --> 00:33:15,060 one is without doubt the most famous. 413 00:33:16,900 --> 00:33:19,700 It is housed in the Nezu Museum in Tokyo. 414 00:33:37,420 --> 00:33:40,740 This is Ogata Korin's Irises, 415 00:33:40,740 --> 00:33:45,340 a pair of six panelled screens dating back to 1710. 416 00:33:50,900 --> 00:33:53,940 Irises begin to bloom across Japan in May, 417 00:33:53,940 --> 00:33:57,220 when spring explodes into summer, 418 00:33:57,220 --> 00:34:00,740 and in this utterly irresistible painting, 419 00:34:00,740 --> 00:34:03,020 Korin captures the excitement 420 00:34:03,020 --> 00:34:05,940 of those first really hot days of the year. 421 00:34:05,940 --> 00:34:09,540 The colours are so vivid and intense. 422 00:34:09,540 --> 00:34:13,020 The greens look like they were painted only a few minutes ago 423 00:34:13,020 --> 00:34:15,860 and haven't even had time to dry yet. 424 00:34:15,860 --> 00:34:19,900 The petals are painted from the most expensive blue pigment 425 00:34:19,900 --> 00:34:23,940 in the business, and the background, made from gold foil, 426 00:34:23,940 --> 00:34:27,020 dazzles like sunlight reflecting off the water. 427 00:34:29,460 --> 00:34:32,860 This painting was actually inspired by a tenth-century poem 428 00:34:32,860 --> 00:34:35,300 that told the story of a group of travellers 429 00:34:35,300 --> 00:34:37,340 who stopped for lunch at a river bank 430 00:34:37,340 --> 00:34:40,140 that was ablaze with irises. 431 00:34:40,140 --> 00:34:43,900 The travellers were reminded of a similar spot back at home 432 00:34:43,900 --> 00:34:45,940 and became all nostalgic. 433 00:34:45,940 --> 00:34:48,860 Now, this painting is also about nostalgia - 434 00:34:48,860 --> 00:34:51,860 it's about longing for things that have gone, 435 00:34:51,860 --> 00:34:54,340 and you can just imagine, 300 years ago, 436 00:34:54,340 --> 00:34:57,180 the original owners of this painting 437 00:34:57,180 --> 00:35:02,020 looking at it on a cold winter's night and feeling all warm inside. 438 00:35:04,580 --> 00:35:08,420 What I admire so much about this painting is its simplicity. 439 00:35:08,420 --> 00:35:12,460 Korin has distilled his subject to its fundamental ingredients 440 00:35:12,460 --> 00:35:14,820 and then repeated them rhythmically, 441 00:35:14,820 --> 00:35:16,740 almost as though it's music - 442 00:35:16,740 --> 00:35:20,140 and there is a little secret to how he's achieved that. 443 00:35:20,140 --> 00:35:22,620 If you actually look very closely at this painting, 444 00:35:22,620 --> 00:35:25,780 you begin to see that it's actually stencilled. 445 00:35:25,780 --> 00:35:29,580 This iris over here is identical to that one over there. 446 00:35:29,580 --> 00:35:32,620 This pattern down here is absolutely identical 447 00:35:32,620 --> 00:35:34,340 to that pattern over there. 448 00:35:42,700 --> 00:35:44,100 What an image. 449 00:35:44,100 --> 00:35:48,220 I know it's famous, but it really deserves to be. 450 00:35:48,220 --> 00:35:52,340 I challenge anyone to stand in front of this picture 451 00:35:52,340 --> 00:35:55,380 and not become just a little bit happier. 452 00:35:57,620 --> 00:36:01,460 But the Japanese don't only celebrate the small and ephemeral. 453 00:36:01,460 --> 00:36:05,180 In fact, their most famous natural symbol is anything but. 454 00:36:28,300 --> 00:36:35,420 3,776 metres high, Mount Fuji is the tallest mountain in Japan - 455 00:36:35,420 --> 00:36:38,620 a dormant volcano that could erupt at any moment. 456 00:36:40,700 --> 00:36:44,260 Fuji has been revered here since prehistoric times, 457 00:36:44,260 --> 00:36:46,940 venerated by Shinto and Buddhism alike. 458 00:36:49,740 --> 00:36:53,740 The Japanese have been rhapsodising about Mount Fuji for centuries, 459 00:36:53,740 --> 00:36:56,540 and it has inspired vast quantities of poetry. 460 00:36:58,220 --> 00:37:00,260 One winter in the 1680s, 461 00:37:00,260 --> 00:37:03,740 the father of haiku, Basho, made a journey to Mount Fuji, 462 00:37:03,740 --> 00:37:07,780 but the weather was so bad that the mountain was invisible. 463 00:37:07,780 --> 00:37:11,180 Many people would have been annoyed, but not Basho. 464 00:37:11,180 --> 00:37:12,660 This is what he wrote. 465 00:37:12,660 --> 00:37:17,060 "In the misty rain, Mount Fuji is veiled all day." 466 00:37:17,060 --> 00:37:18,420 How intriguing! 467 00:37:21,540 --> 00:37:25,100 For Basho, like his Zen predecessors, 468 00:37:25,100 --> 00:37:27,940 mist and mystery was exciting. 469 00:37:30,020 --> 00:37:33,260 After all, who wants an answer when you can have a question? 470 00:37:35,100 --> 00:37:37,100 Yet Mount Fuji's global fame 471 00:37:37,100 --> 00:37:40,300 is surely a result of something less ambiguous. 472 00:37:41,460 --> 00:37:44,820 Mount Fuji is almost ludicrously perfect, 473 00:37:44,820 --> 00:37:48,300 even on a drab and overcast day like today. 474 00:37:48,300 --> 00:37:51,780 Triangular, snow-capped, nearly symmetrical, 475 00:37:51,780 --> 00:37:55,020 this is a mountain almost as imagined by a child - 476 00:37:55,020 --> 00:37:58,860 and Mount Fuji's form has been crucial to its fame. 477 00:37:58,860 --> 00:38:01,500 Like the pyramids, like the Eiffel Tower, 478 00:38:01,500 --> 00:38:05,700 its silhouette alone has become a metonym for an entire culture. 479 00:38:08,500 --> 00:38:12,420 That flawless shape inevitably attracted artists. 480 00:38:12,420 --> 00:38:16,860 They have been depicting Mount Fuji since at least the 11th century. 481 00:38:16,860 --> 00:38:19,780 This ink painting, once thought to be by Sesshu, 482 00:38:19,780 --> 00:38:23,460 shows the mountain shrouded in that mandatory mist 483 00:38:23,460 --> 00:38:25,460 and towering over a wondrous landscape... 484 00:38:26,540 --> 00:38:30,340 ..but one artist immortalised it like no other. 485 00:38:30,340 --> 00:38:33,380 Internationally, he is the most famous figure 486 00:38:33,380 --> 00:38:34,940 in all of Japanese art - 487 00:38:34,940 --> 00:38:37,620 almost as famous as Fuji itself. 488 00:38:51,100 --> 00:38:56,740 Hokusai was born not far from Mount Fuji in 1760, 489 00:38:56,740 --> 00:39:00,220 just a few years after its last eruption, 490 00:39:00,220 --> 00:39:04,260 and he remained obsessed with the volcano throughout his life. 491 00:39:04,260 --> 00:39:06,980 He lived in Edo, now Tokyo, 492 00:39:06,980 --> 00:39:09,620 which was already one of the biggest cities in the world. 493 00:39:12,660 --> 00:39:14,860 Hokusai's success came slowly. 494 00:39:14,860 --> 00:39:17,500 He's best known for his woodcut prints, 495 00:39:17,500 --> 00:39:20,900 but throughout his life he loved to experiment. 496 00:39:20,900 --> 00:39:24,100 He made brush paintings of people and plants, 497 00:39:24,100 --> 00:39:26,020 and he also made erotica. 498 00:39:29,540 --> 00:39:32,500 The diversity of his output was breathtaking - 499 00:39:32,500 --> 00:39:34,180 but for those who knew him, 500 00:39:34,180 --> 00:39:36,540 this wasn't surprising at all. 501 00:39:41,260 --> 00:39:45,740 Hokusai, I think it's safe to say, was a restless soul. 502 00:39:45,740 --> 00:39:49,220 He changed his name more than 20 times. 503 00:39:49,220 --> 00:39:51,540 He moved house 93 times - 504 00:39:51,540 --> 00:39:56,860 but the one unshakeable thing in his life was his obsession with art. 505 00:39:56,860 --> 00:39:59,940 Hokusai was passionately, maniacally, 506 00:39:59,940 --> 00:40:02,340 pathologically obsessed with his craft 507 00:40:02,340 --> 00:40:06,020 and was relentlessly determined to get better at it. 508 00:40:08,940 --> 00:40:13,060 Hokusai, indeed, made his finest work late in life, 509 00:40:13,060 --> 00:40:17,380 and the best of it was arguably a series of prints about Mount Fuji. 510 00:40:19,340 --> 00:40:24,260 Between 1830 and 1833, when he was in his early seventies, 511 00:40:24,260 --> 00:40:29,500 Hokusai produced his masterpiece, Thirty-Six Views Of Mount Fuji, 512 00:40:29,500 --> 00:40:31,500 initially three dozen woodcuts 513 00:40:31,500 --> 00:40:33,660 printed in an array of vivid colours. 514 00:40:35,580 --> 00:40:39,820 They depict the sacred mountain from every imaginable viewpoint, 515 00:40:39,820 --> 00:40:42,980 from towns, sea and sky, 516 00:40:42,980 --> 00:40:45,380 from close up and vast distances... 517 00:40:46,460 --> 00:40:48,740 ..in all seasons and weather conditions... 518 00:40:49,900 --> 00:40:53,140 ..and ever surrounded by life in its endless abundance. 519 00:40:56,780 --> 00:40:59,140 This is number 33 in the series, 520 00:40:59,140 --> 00:41:01,980 from the Mishima Pass in Kai province, 521 00:41:01,980 --> 00:41:04,540 just to the north-west of the volcano, 522 00:41:04,540 --> 00:41:07,020 and I find this such a heart-warming image 523 00:41:07,020 --> 00:41:11,220 that refers back to the old Shinto worship of trees. 524 00:41:11,220 --> 00:41:13,860 This group of travellers down here, they are on a journey, 525 00:41:13,860 --> 00:41:16,780 and they have stumbled on this remarkable cedar tree, 526 00:41:16,780 --> 00:41:19,740 a tree so big it doesn't even fit into Hokusai's picture, 527 00:41:19,740 --> 00:41:21,380 and, quite delightfully, 528 00:41:21,380 --> 00:41:23,660 they are measuring its circumference 529 00:41:23,660 --> 00:41:25,340 by linking arms around it - 530 00:41:25,340 --> 00:41:28,380 but, of course, they, and even the tree, are dwarfed 531 00:41:28,380 --> 00:41:30,420 by the giant mountain behind them, 532 00:41:30,420 --> 00:41:33,460 which is almost being tickled by the clouds. 533 00:41:39,820 --> 00:41:42,220 Now, we've all seen this image before. 534 00:41:42,220 --> 00:41:46,180 It's actually one of the most famous pictures in all of art - 535 00:41:46,180 --> 00:41:47,740 but, for that very reason, 536 00:41:47,740 --> 00:41:50,100 we haven't always looked at it properly. 537 00:41:50,100 --> 00:41:52,860 People are so taken with this extraordinary wave 538 00:41:52,860 --> 00:41:56,740 that they don't always notice the rest of the picture. 539 00:41:56,740 --> 00:41:58,380 They don't notice, for instance, 540 00:41:58,380 --> 00:42:02,100 that there are in fact more than 20 people depicted here, 541 00:42:02,100 --> 00:42:04,020 22 shaven-headed fishermen 542 00:42:04,020 --> 00:42:07,020 who are heading home after a long shift on the water 543 00:42:07,020 --> 00:42:10,140 and have run into a spot of bother - 544 00:42:10,140 --> 00:42:12,660 and you can see them grabbing hold of their skiffs 545 00:42:12,660 --> 00:42:15,380 as they're tossed around on the surf. 546 00:42:15,380 --> 00:42:16,620 Are they going to make it? 547 00:42:16,620 --> 00:42:18,220 Well, I think they probably are - 548 00:42:18,220 --> 00:42:20,860 because, in the distance, the sacred mountain, 549 00:42:20,860 --> 00:42:22,380 disguised as another wave, 550 00:42:22,380 --> 00:42:24,140 is watching on. 551 00:42:27,020 --> 00:42:28,620 I don't really think we can understand 552 00:42:28,620 --> 00:42:30,980 how truly powerful this image originally was, 553 00:42:30,980 --> 00:42:33,660 because we, in the West, we read images, like texts, 554 00:42:33,660 --> 00:42:35,220 from left to right 555 00:42:35,220 --> 00:42:37,860 while the Japanese read images the other way. 556 00:42:37,860 --> 00:42:39,980 So, for us, we are travelling with the wave, 557 00:42:39,980 --> 00:42:41,620 and it's really quite good fun, 558 00:42:41,620 --> 00:42:42,820 but for the Japanese, 559 00:42:42,820 --> 00:42:44,740 they are travelling against the wave 560 00:42:44,740 --> 00:42:46,900 and it's really quite terrifying. 561 00:42:48,620 --> 00:42:51,180 It's an absolutely breathtaking piece of design. 562 00:42:51,180 --> 00:42:56,660 Every single element is manipulated to amplify the drama. 563 00:42:56,660 --> 00:43:00,220 It's printed in this bright synthetic Prussian blue pigment 564 00:43:00,220 --> 00:43:03,780 that hasn't lost any of its intensity over the years - 565 00:43:03,780 --> 00:43:06,340 and the froth, I absolutely love the froth, 566 00:43:06,340 --> 00:43:09,620 which is depicted as hundreds of individual fingers 567 00:43:09,620 --> 00:43:13,060 trying to grab hold of their victims... 568 00:43:13,060 --> 00:43:16,220 and this one is so simple, 569 00:43:16,220 --> 00:43:19,380 but I could look at it for hours and hours and hours. 570 00:43:20,660 --> 00:43:23,540 Fine Wind, Clear Sky, 571 00:43:23,540 --> 00:43:26,300 otherwise known as Red Fuji - 572 00:43:26,300 --> 00:43:28,940 red because that's the colour the mountain turns 573 00:43:28,940 --> 00:43:31,620 when the sun hits it in the autumn months. 574 00:43:31,620 --> 00:43:33,980 Now, for all The Great Wave's global fame, 575 00:43:33,980 --> 00:43:38,500 within Japan this image was the most popular print of the series 576 00:43:38,500 --> 00:43:40,900 by some way - and you can see why. 577 00:43:40,900 --> 00:43:44,220 It has a simplicity that no other image has. 578 00:43:44,220 --> 00:43:46,420 There are no people. There's no foreground. 579 00:43:46,420 --> 00:43:49,460 There is simply mountain and sky 580 00:43:49,460 --> 00:43:53,260 divided by one absolutely beautiful line - 581 00:43:53,260 --> 00:43:55,860 but that simplicity is deceptive, 582 00:43:55,860 --> 00:44:01,420 because, in reality, this is an unbelievably risky piece of work, 583 00:44:01,420 --> 00:44:03,340 because what Hokusai has done 584 00:44:03,340 --> 00:44:07,500 is he has taken the very subject of his picture, the mountain itself, 585 00:44:07,500 --> 00:44:11,700 and pushed it off centre and almost off the edge of the page, 586 00:44:11,700 --> 00:44:14,180 and then, to counterbalance that decision, 587 00:44:14,180 --> 00:44:18,060 he's filled the whole left-hand side of the page with all these details, 588 00:44:18,060 --> 00:44:21,500 the green forest, the clouds that look like a school of fish 589 00:44:21,500 --> 00:44:24,340 and even his signature and the title. 590 00:44:24,340 --> 00:44:28,220 Now, without those, this whole composition would fall apart, 591 00:44:28,220 --> 00:44:31,580 and yet it works absolutely perfectly - 592 00:44:31,580 --> 00:44:34,900 and that is what I find so thrilling about looking at this picture. 593 00:44:34,900 --> 00:44:38,060 We're watching an artist at the very top of his game 594 00:44:38,060 --> 00:44:41,260 setting himself an almost impossible challenge 595 00:44:41,260 --> 00:44:43,340 and then triumphing in the end. 596 00:44:46,820 --> 00:44:49,020 Hokusai's unforgettable images 597 00:44:49,020 --> 00:44:53,420 celebrate both the permanence and impermanence of nature, 598 00:44:53,420 --> 00:44:57,300 because whatever takes place around it, Mount Fuji stands firm. 599 00:44:58,380 --> 00:45:02,340 Hokusai's humans are tiny and inconsequential by comparison, 600 00:45:02,340 --> 00:45:04,620 and have little influence on their environment... 601 00:45:06,260 --> 00:45:08,660 ..but in the years after Hokusai's death, 602 00:45:08,660 --> 00:45:13,340 Japan's relationship with its landscape changed dramatically. 603 00:45:16,700 --> 00:45:20,580 In the 20th century, Japanese society rapidly modernised. 604 00:45:22,020 --> 00:45:26,140 Cities expanded, vast swathes of countryside were developed 605 00:45:26,140 --> 00:45:29,940 and roads and rail lines cut across the nation. 606 00:45:29,940 --> 00:45:31,140 At the same time, 607 00:45:31,140 --> 00:45:34,620 Japan was repeatedly ravaged by natural disasters... 608 00:45:36,100 --> 00:45:39,100 ..and these made the Japanese people yet more determined 609 00:45:39,100 --> 00:45:40,860 to control their environment... 610 00:45:42,180 --> 00:45:46,300 ..concreting their coastlines and damming thousands of rivers. 611 00:45:48,300 --> 00:45:50,060 Today it sometimes seems 612 00:45:50,060 --> 00:45:53,260 that the Japanese aren't in harmony with nature - 613 00:45:53,260 --> 00:45:55,060 they are at war with it. 614 00:45:56,260 --> 00:45:58,460 Alex Kerr has written extensively 615 00:45:58,460 --> 00:46:02,900 about modern Japan's troubled relationship with its environment. 616 00:46:02,900 --> 00:46:05,340 The transformation of nature is not unique to Japan. 617 00:46:05,340 --> 00:46:07,260 This has happened absolutely everywhere. 618 00:46:07,260 --> 00:46:13,900 It happened with great speed and great thoroughness in Japan... 619 00:46:13,900 --> 00:46:18,420 based on a kind of industrial sense 620 00:46:18,420 --> 00:46:22,620 that everything should be made industrially useful, 621 00:46:22,620 --> 00:46:25,820 and so let's cut down those messy forests 622 00:46:25,820 --> 00:46:29,700 and replant them with nice sugi trees that line up in rows, 623 00:46:29,700 --> 00:46:33,900 and they'll grow fast and they'll be good industrial lumber, you know? 624 00:46:33,900 --> 00:46:36,620 Let's straighten out those messy rivers 625 00:46:36,620 --> 00:46:38,660 and line them with concrete, 626 00:46:38,660 --> 00:46:41,140 and that will be so much more civilised 627 00:46:41,140 --> 00:46:43,260 and international and modern. 628 00:46:50,740 --> 00:46:53,500 Tens of thousands of rivers have been dammed. 629 00:46:53,500 --> 00:46:54,620 As a matter of fact, 630 00:46:54,620 --> 00:46:57,740 it's said that only three rivers remain that are undammed - 631 00:46:57,740 --> 00:47:00,820 and even those, of course, have concrete embankments. 632 00:47:00,820 --> 00:47:03,020 Now, this is something that everybody did. 633 00:47:03,020 --> 00:47:07,500 Look at America, where we built just horrendous dams by the thousand, 634 00:47:07,500 --> 00:47:08,620 but at some point - 635 00:47:08,620 --> 00:47:11,940 and this happened in most other industrialised nations - 636 00:47:11,940 --> 00:47:14,340 there came a point maybe 20, 30 years ago 637 00:47:14,340 --> 00:47:18,300 when we started to look back and review whether this was necessary - 638 00:47:18,300 --> 00:47:20,700 and in America, we've torn down hundreds of dams, 639 00:47:20,700 --> 00:47:22,660 including some very large ones. 640 00:47:22,660 --> 00:47:25,740 Japan, unfortunately, is stuck on autopilot, 641 00:47:25,740 --> 00:47:29,140 and so the idea that we must dam these rivers 642 00:47:29,140 --> 00:47:33,260 got fixed in the bureaucratic system and goes on forever. 643 00:47:38,940 --> 00:47:43,420 So it's natural to ask, well, why? Why couldn't Japan stop? 644 00:47:43,420 --> 00:47:46,100 I think one aspect of it is that Japan is thorough, 645 00:47:46,100 --> 00:47:48,940 and thoroughness is the strength of this culture. 646 00:47:48,940 --> 00:47:50,980 That's why you have the tea ceremony 647 00:47:50,980 --> 00:47:54,300 and that's why you have the excellence in car manufacture 648 00:47:54,300 --> 00:47:57,060 and camera manufacture and the delicacy of Japanese art 649 00:47:57,060 --> 00:48:00,260 and the incredible refinement of the gardens, all of that - 650 00:48:00,260 --> 00:48:02,140 but these are two-edged swords, 651 00:48:02,140 --> 00:48:05,780 and so, the other side of it is, that once Japan starts concreting, 652 00:48:05,780 --> 00:48:07,260 boy, will it concrete - 653 00:48:07,260 --> 00:48:10,980 and it can never stop until the last tiny little bit of roughness 654 00:48:10,980 --> 00:48:12,460 has been smoothed out. 655 00:48:15,180 --> 00:48:17,580 And there's another twist, 656 00:48:17,580 --> 00:48:20,460 which I think is part of this paradox 657 00:48:20,460 --> 00:48:24,060 of how could Japan be the land of aesthetic sensibility, 658 00:48:24,060 --> 00:48:25,380 which it still is, 659 00:48:25,380 --> 00:48:29,100 and large parts of it be as ugly as they are? 660 00:48:29,100 --> 00:48:31,620 And I think it's because of focus, 661 00:48:31,620 --> 00:48:33,540 and it's often been pointed out 662 00:48:33,540 --> 00:48:37,700 that the Japanese are capable of looking at the beautiful rice paddy 663 00:48:37,700 --> 00:48:40,020 and completely ignoring the big billboard 664 00:48:40,020 --> 00:48:42,060 that's stuck right in the middle of it. 665 00:48:51,980 --> 00:48:55,380 The thing about this Jurassic nature of Japan 666 00:48:55,380 --> 00:48:58,260 is that that was ancient Shinto. 667 00:48:58,260 --> 00:49:01,660 There was something mysterious, divine... 668 00:49:03,260 --> 00:49:05,860 That's where the Japanese saw the gods... 669 00:49:08,540 --> 00:49:09,820 ..and what I've found, 670 00:49:09,820 --> 00:49:12,860 as I go around Japan talking and writing about these things, 671 00:49:12,860 --> 00:49:15,900 is an incredible response from the Japanese. 672 00:49:15,900 --> 00:49:20,580 That feeling is still within them, and I think that gives me hope, 673 00:49:20,580 --> 00:49:25,020 and I'm already starting to feel a bit of a shift. 674 00:49:25,020 --> 00:49:27,660 Japan is beginning, or the Japanese are now beginning, 675 00:49:27,660 --> 00:49:31,380 to look at their natural environment and think, "Wait a minute." 676 00:49:31,380 --> 00:49:33,980 So, there's something to be hopeful for. 677 00:49:45,420 --> 00:49:48,300 All cultures are contradictory - of course they are - 678 00:49:48,300 --> 00:49:50,860 but one of the most obvious contradictions here 679 00:49:50,860 --> 00:49:54,460 is in the Japanese people's relationship to their environment, 680 00:49:54,460 --> 00:49:55,900 because on the one hand, 681 00:49:55,900 --> 00:49:58,020 Japanese culture has, from the very beginning, 682 00:49:58,020 --> 00:50:02,660 been so sensitive to the beauty and fragility of nature, 683 00:50:02,660 --> 00:50:03,900 but on the other hand, 684 00:50:03,900 --> 00:50:06,260 one only has to travel around this country 685 00:50:06,260 --> 00:50:09,340 to see how much of the landscape has been scarred... 686 00:50:18,860 --> 00:50:23,460 ..but even today, the great Shinto spirit still survives. 687 00:50:23,460 --> 00:50:26,740 I'm travelling to a place I've wanted to visit for a long time. 688 00:50:29,620 --> 00:50:32,940 Naoshima is a small island on the Seto Inland Sea 689 00:50:32,940 --> 00:50:34,940 in the south-west of Japan. 690 00:50:34,940 --> 00:50:38,460 It was originally inhabited only by fishermen, 691 00:50:38,460 --> 00:50:41,260 but now it has some very different residents. 692 00:50:46,100 --> 00:50:49,380 About 25 years ago, in the early 1990s, 693 00:50:49,380 --> 00:50:53,580 a Japanese educational publisher called the Benesse Corporation, 694 00:50:53,580 --> 00:50:55,220 together with other supporters, 695 00:50:55,220 --> 00:50:59,860 started transforming this small island into a centre of modern art. 696 00:51:01,780 --> 00:51:04,940 Naoshima is now home to dozens of museums, 697 00:51:04,940 --> 00:51:07,580 installations and art projects, 698 00:51:07,580 --> 00:51:09,940 and contemporary art from all over the world. 699 00:51:17,060 --> 00:51:20,020 There's a distinctly James Bond feel to the place... 700 00:51:23,820 --> 00:51:25,500 ..But I've come to see a work 701 00:51:25,500 --> 00:51:28,260 in which ancient Shinto attitudes to nature 702 00:51:28,260 --> 00:51:30,380 have been brilliantly revived 703 00:51:30,380 --> 00:51:33,780 by the great Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. 704 00:51:39,980 --> 00:51:43,340 Sugimoto has long been inspired by nature. 705 00:51:45,700 --> 00:51:47,500 He is perhaps most famous 706 00:51:47,500 --> 00:51:50,460 for a series of photographs begun in 1980... 707 00:51:53,020 --> 00:51:55,260 ..black and white images, 708 00:51:55,260 --> 00:51:57,260 all identical in form, 709 00:51:57,260 --> 00:51:59,980 of seas, skies and horizons 710 00:51:59,980 --> 00:52:01,220 from all over the world... 711 00:52:03,260 --> 00:52:05,300 ..but though they are universal, 712 00:52:05,300 --> 00:52:06,940 they owe much to Japan. 713 00:52:10,340 --> 00:52:13,820 They remind me of the mythical ocean origins of the country... 714 00:52:17,420 --> 00:52:20,700 ..the ambiguous inky brushstrokes of Zen painters... 715 00:52:22,500 --> 00:52:27,020 ..and Hokusai's attempts to capture a single form in every possible way. 716 00:52:32,740 --> 00:52:37,580 What I want for the present is the consciousness of the human being 717 00:52:37,580 --> 00:52:40,260 at the very early stage. 718 00:52:40,260 --> 00:52:46,940 I was looking for some kind of image that I can share with early man, 719 00:52:46,940 --> 00:52:49,900 ancient people, and probably... 720 00:52:50,980 --> 00:52:53,660 ..seascapes came to my mind, 721 00:52:53,660 --> 00:52:56,900 the sea. The land, we changed it, 722 00:52:56,900 --> 00:53:02,020 so we cannot see the land that the Stone Age people used to watch - 723 00:53:02,020 --> 00:53:05,340 but the seascape, might be we can share the same images. 724 00:53:12,980 --> 00:53:16,780 But on Naoshima, Sugimoto took on a quite different project. 725 00:53:20,140 --> 00:53:22,020 This is the Go'o Shrine. 726 00:53:22,020 --> 00:53:25,980 Inspired by Shintoism and Japan's ancient past, 727 00:53:25,980 --> 00:53:28,540 it is both an artwork and a sanctuary. 728 00:53:30,780 --> 00:53:33,660 There has been a shrine here since the 15th century, 729 00:53:33,660 --> 00:53:37,740 but it fell out of use in more recent times. 730 00:53:37,740 --> 00:53:42,300 In 2002, Sugimoto was commissioned to make an artwork on the site 731 00:53:42,300 --> 00:53:44,540 and decided to build a new kind of structure. 732 00:53:46,460 --> 00:53:51,540 I surprised myself that I received a kind of architecture commission. 733 00:53:51,540 --> 00:53:56,700 That made my life change. That wasn't... 734 00:53:56,700 --> 00:53:58,860 totally unexpected. 735 00:53:58,860 --> 00:54:02,420 I'm proud of my life, that I became an architect, now! 736 00:54:02,420 --> 00:54:03,780 HE CHUCKLES 737 00:54:06,420 --> 00:54:10,060 The design is based on buildings at Ise, in southern Japan, 738 00:54:10,060 --> 00:54:12,420 the holiest place in Shintoism. 739 00:54:14,380 --> 00:54:17,140 The Shintoism is not well organised. 740 00:54:17,140 --> 00:54:19,140 It's very hard to explain - 741 00:54:19,140 --> 00:54:23,020 and after the Buddhism came to Japan in the sixth century, 742 00:54:23,020 --> 00:54:28,260 only that time the people can write about coming... 743 00:54:28,260 --> 00:54:31,140 and think about coming, with language - 744 00:54:31,140 --> 00:54:35,820 but I think it's a very, very primitive stage of human mind... 745 00:54:37,220 --> 00:54:40,980 ..but still valuable - we have to think backwards, 746 00:54:40,980 --> 00:54:43,620 how humans lived with nature 747 00:54:43,620 --> 00:54:46,260 for many, many thousands of years. 748 00:54:50,260 --> 00:54:52,500 Leading down from the small building, 749 00:54:52,500 --> 00:54:56,100 a set of glass steps descends straight into the ground 750 00:54:56,100 --> 00:54:57,980 to a hidden chamber below. 751 00:55:03,460 --> 00:55:09,260 Here, Sugimoto has created a space he feels evokes prehistoric Japan. 752 00:55:16,180 --> 00:55:18,340 It's so atmospheric down here, 753 00:55:18,340 --> 00:55:21,260 deep beneath the volcanic Japanese rock - 754 00:55:21,260 --> 00:55:24,940 and though this is a modern work of art by a modern artist, 755 00:55:24,940 --> 00:55:28,620 there is something consciously ancient about it, 756 00:55:28,620 --> 00:55:32,500 because this piece is inspired by the old Shinto idea 757 00:55:32,500 --> 00:55:36,780 that the world around us, even the ground on which we stand, 758 00:55:36,780 --> 00:55:41,380 is animated and energised by the sacred. 759 00:55:50,580 --> 00:55:52,620 We destroy so much nature, 760 00:55:52,620 --> 00:55:54,900 and now I think it's a turning point. 761 00:55:58,260 --> 00:56:02,940 So, what has to be studied again, 762 00:56:02,940 --> 00:56:07,340 the Shintoism kind of concept of spiritualism, 763 00:56:07,340 --> 00:56:10,260 how to live with nature. 764 00:56:10,260 --> 00:56:13,700 That's the message from Japanese Shintoism, I think. 765 00:56:36,500 --> 00:56:38,460 I am back to where I started... 766 00:56:39,860 --> 00:56:41,900 ..in Japan's dense forests, 767 00:56:41,900 --> 00:56:44,620 the flicker of the spirits all around me. 768 00:56:46,820 --> 00:56:48,780 In the course of my journey, 769 00:56:48,780 --> 00:56:52,340 I have encountered a culture whose preoccupation with nature 770 00:56:52,340 --> 00:56:54,620 seems almost hard-wired, 771 00:56:54,620 --> 00:56:57,620 that sees the landscape as sacred 772 00:56:57,620 --> 00:57:00,980 and has painted and reshaped it for centuries - 773 00:57:00,980 --> 00:57:05,420 and though modern Japan doesn't always seem to value nature, 774 00:57:05,420 --> 00:57:08,700 nature has shaped its values, 775 00:57:08,700 --> 00:57:12,820 aesthetic principles so different from those of the West. 776 00:57:26,580 --> 00:57:29,260 It's often said that Japanese culture 777 00:57:29,260 --> 00:57:31,500 is all about harmony with nature, 778 00:57:31,500 --> 00:57:33,340 but that's not what I've seen. 779 00:57:33,340 --> 00:57:35,540 This landscape may be beautiful, 780 00:57:35,540 --> 00:57:38,140 but it's also unstable and dangerous, 781 00:57:38,140 --> 00:57:40,060 and that paradox, I think, 782 00:57:40,060 --> 00:57:43,580 is at the heart of Japanese interactions with nature. 783 00:57:43,580 --> 00:57:48,060 On the one hand, they celebrate it, they revere it, they mythologise it, 784 00:57:48,060 --> 00:57:52,060 but on the other hand, they possess an old yearning to tame it. 785 00:58:09,260 --> 00:58:12,860 In the next episode, I'll take a very different path through Japan... 786 00:58:14,380 --> 00:58:16,980 ..a path through its greatest cities. 787 00:58:18,700 --> 00:58:22,980 It's a story marked by dramatic periods of destruction and renewal 788 00:58:22,980 --> 00:58:25,340 that unleashed new forms of creativity. 789 00:58:27,020 --> 00:58:30,460 I'll explore its ancient capital and its refined culture. 790 00:58:33,260 --> 00:58:36,300 I'll sample the energy of the emerging metropolis... 791 00:58:37,940 --> 00:58:41,540 ..before delving into today's megacity, 792 00:58:41,540 --> 00:58:45,620 from its dark underbelly to its shimmering future.