ABSTRACT
At the death of Hosokawa Yoriyuki shortly after the overthrow of the Yamanas in 1392, Yoshimitsu found himself in the possession of power and authority such as no Ashikaga Shogun had ever wielded before. The finest edifices were of course the Imperial Palaces. Their roofs seemed to pierce the sky and their balconies to touch the clouds. Under Yoshimitsu the foreign relations and policy of Japan again became matters of importance. In seasons of famine the misery of the farmers was unspeakable. It is tolerably plain that all the fabulous magnificence and grandeur of the capital at this time were reared upon the op-pression and degradation of the people at large. One great immediate cause of the breakdown of the Ashi-kaga Shogunate was incapacity of Yoshimasa as a ruler. It may indeed seem extraordinary to find that an era of such unceasing turmoil and of such chronic misery and destitution should have been the golden age of Japanese pictorial art.
