Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/197

 compelled to seek shelter and sustenance in the castles of the feudal lords throughout the provinces. The Emperors were for the most part poor even to embarrassment,—so poor that on the death of one of them (1500) the corpse remained without burial for forty days because means were wanting to perform the funeral rites prescribed by etiquette. Under such circumstances the keramic art, in Japan always more or less dependent on patronage, was not likely to flourish in Kyōtō. Passing, however, to the times of Yoshimasa (1480) and the Taikō (1580), it may be supposed that the potter's trade would have grown and prospered under the protection of these munificent art patrons. Some impetus it certainly did receive, but nothing that could have presaged its ultimate fame. The Taikō ordered experts to be brought from Korea, and the reader knows already how large a debt Japanese keramics owed to this step. But the great general and statesman died before he could direct the employment of these potters. Had he lived a few years longer, there can be no doubt that he would have established several of the Koreans in Kyōtō, and that the story of the Imperial city's industry would now have to be told differently. On his decease things were ordered in a fashion at variance with his original purpose. The Koreans were distributed throughout the provincial factories, and there was not found in Kyōtō any nobleman disposed or competent to pursue the art programme traced by the Taikō. The city, it should be observed, was chiefly the residence of the Kugé, or Court Nobles,—men who, though superior to the provincial magnates in rank, were far inferior in wealth and authority. After the Taikō's death, too, there occurred between his