Japanese art historians spend a great deal of time analyzing subject matter and style in order to shed light on the significance and production contexts of ancient artifacts. In this regard, the format of a given work, its state of preservation, its setting or provenance, and its inscriptions can provide important information. So, too, can a comparison of works by the same artist, same subject matter, or same subjects and textual sources that document the environment in which these artifacts were created. But what if the object in question originally functioned with the accompaniment of written commentary, such as ritual manuals and diaries, but came to be displayed in museums as an artifact outside its original context? What if the pictorial qualities of a painting or the detailed carvings of a sculpture were conditioned by the narrative of how ritual objects and rituals together aided in comforting the living and improving the deceased’s state in the afterlife, as well as to guide social norms of class and gender? Such is the case for a variety of artworks including paintings, ritual implements, screens, and portrait sculptures that were experienced by their initial audiences along with specific religious and ritual practices that have left few traces in art-historical records. To provide a survey of ritual objects used for religious practice in medieval Japanese funerals requires a highly creative use of disparate and unconventional resources, as well as an interdisciplinary use of methodologies from art history, history, religious study, and literature. This is precisely what Karen Gerhart has achieved with her ambitious and revolutionary study, The Material Culture of Death in Medieval Japan.

Recent scholarship in the interrelated fields of Japanese art history and religious studies, such as Jacqueline Stone’s Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008), Bryan Jaré Cuevas’s The Buddhist Dead: Practices, Discourses, Representations (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007), Fabio Rambelli’s Buddhist Materiality: A Cultural History of Objects in Japanese Buddhism (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2007), and Ikumi Kaminishi’s Explaining Pictures: Buddhist Propaganda and Etoki Storytelling in Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006), have informed an understanding of themes related to death and materiality in their discussions of representations of funeral rituals and ritual images. However, The Material Culture of Death in Medieval Japan not only situates itself at the intersection of these two themes, but extends them even further in emphasizing innovation within tradition by focusing on the function of physical objects in medieval Japanese funerary and memorial rituals. As Gerhart states, the book aims to show “how rituals and ritual objects not only helped to comfort the living and give sustenance to the dead, but also guided and cemented norms of class and gender” (5). This goal signals her interest in examining the function of material objects such as icons and memorial portraits differently from existing scholarship. Furthermore, her attention to material culture points to her objective of giving equal consideration to objects commonly omitted from the art-historical canon, such as enclosures, coffins, lanterns, and canopies, thereby making this book a groundbreaking study. By using various textual and visual sources to support her arguments, Gerhart successfully shows what aristocratic funerals looked like in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the roles that funerary objects played in these ceremonies.

Gerhart divides her study into two parts that move both chronologically and thematically, each further structured around the analysis of textual and pictorial examples. Furthermore, each case study is linked through an understanding of its function as “material culture of death.” In part 1, entitled “The Rituals of Death,” Gerhart offers case studies that shed light on the description and classification of death rituals in medieval Japan. Drawing on literary sources such as Heian-period ritual manuals, scroll paintings illustrating funeral and memorial services of monks, and Muromachi-period courtier diaries, she suggests that the fourteenth century saw a transition in the history of Japanese funerals whereas the fifteenth century saw increasing standardization and codification. Gerhart introduces readers to various medieval funerary and memorial rites performed in the years between 1345 and 1463 for members of the imperial family, aristocrats, shoguns and their kin, and monks. Chapter 1, “Death in the Fourteenth Century,” provides a detailed analysis of the funerary rituals for the aristocrat Nakahara Morosuke and his wife Nakahara Kenshin based on the Moromoriki (Diary of Nakahara Moromori), which was written by their son Moromori during the period of the Northern and Southern Courts (1336–1392). Chapter 2, “Funerals in the Fifteenth Century,” introduces four texts—Jishōindono ryōan sōbo (Complete Record of National Mourning for Jishōin), Kanmon gyoki (Record of Things Seen and Heard), Kennaiki (Record of Kenshōin Naifu Madenokōji Tokifusa), and Inryōken nichiroku (Daily Record of the Inryōken)—to illuminate the death rituals of four courtiers and warrior aristocrats in the fifteenth century. Gerhart points out that unlike the Moromoriki these four textual sources include diagrams and instructions of key rituals that illustrate not only the placement and usage of ritual objects, but also the handling of the body of the deceased.

Gerhart suggests that the timeframe of her study marked a transition during which Chinese-inspired funerals rituals, which had been introduced to Japan by Zen monks since the twelfth century, gained importance among the upper classes. In contrast to funeral rites performed prior to the fourteenth century, Gerhart notices an increasing number of similarities among elite funerals rites in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Furthermore, she points out that elements found in these funerary and memorial rituals are present in Japanese funerary rites today (78).

Building on this foundation, part 2, entitled “The Material Culture of Death,” focuses on material objects associated with death and mortuary rituals. Chapter 3, “Objects of Separation and Containment,” and chapter 4, “Ritual Implements for Funerals and Memorials,” show that material objects (such as the previously mentioned enclosures, coffins, lanterns, and canopies) served functions central to the efficacy of the ritual. The large number of various objects Gerhart lists is impressive, including folding screens to separate the dead from the living, implements to cleanse the deceased, funerary clothes, palanquins, sutras, grave markers, paper ornaments, and musical instruments, to name only a few. Some actual usages of these objects are outlined in detail through Gerhart’s analysis of memorial ceremonies for monks—such as Hōnen—based on visual evidence reproduced in scroll paintings.

The book concludes with a discussion of the function of portraits of the deceased in funerary and memorial rituals. In this final chapter (chapter 5, “Portraits of the Deceased”), Gerhart shows that portraits of famous figures were used in memorial services as both “proxies of the ancestors in rites of ancestral veneration” and “instruments in and objects of mortuary rituals” (147). The original function of these material objects was forgotten as funerary practices shifted and museums created new modes of viewing portraits that emphasized historical biography instead of the original ritual function.

Gerhart’s observation that “many of the famous medieval portraits now in museums once hung above funerary altars” (148) is an important one because it makes readers aware of the discrepancy between the usage of these objects in their original setting in medieval Japan and their display in contemporary museums. In addition, Gerhart’s examination of the development and flexibility of death rituals—funerary and memorial rites could be extended or canceled depending upon seasonal or calendrical concerns such as, for example, geomancy—is a valuable contribution that enhances an understanding of themes related to materiality and death in Japanese culture. Gerhart implies throughout her book that Japanese funerals for lay people were eventually modeled after monastic mortuary rituals, and while this significant aspect is beyond the scope of her study, future scholarship on the theme of the monasticization of the dead in Japanese Buddhism will be a welcome extension of Gerhart’s work.

Despite the minor shortcomings mentioned above, The Material Culture of Death in Medieval Japan does an excellent job of addressing an understudied aspect in the history of Japanese art. The modes of interpretation proposed by the book will serve as a provocation for the reconstruction of the perception contexts for other types of Japanese ritual objects—such as Buddhist icons and votive images—that were accompanied by rituals and featured as ritual objects.

Faculty, researchers, graduate students, and undergraduates will all benefit from The Material Culture of Death in Medieval Japan. The book will draw readers from the fields of Japanese art history, history, literature, and Buddhist studies, where it complements studies on Japanese death and death rituals, primarily those by Cuevas and Rambelli. It is also a valuable resource for anyone working in the field of Japanese religions because it is an exciting departure from established works in the areas of doctrinal and institutional studies. Furthermore, this book is strongly recommended to readers in premodern Japanese Buddhist art, who will find Gerhart’s engagement with issues of ritual, representation, society, gender, and death to be of great interest.