SamuraiArt2

Samurai Arts

Samurai started to create art when the first Japanese emperor, Minamoto Yoritomo, decided that cultural talents were needed to rule Japan affectively. Samurai started to express their cultural talents, which showed their high-ranking status. Minamoto Yoritomo started to promote a lifestyle for samurai that combined fighting and being warriors with the arts. Samurai arts included having tea ceremonies, painting, practicing calligraphy, designing gardens, and writing haikus. The later Tokagawa rulers focused their samurai's attention on more scholarly arts such as calligraphy and poetry. Samurai arts helped balance the Japanese culture; without the arts there would have been a surplus of trading and fighting.