Kamakura and Nanbokucho Periods

 (1185-1392)

This wooden Kongorikishi statue originally guarded the gate to Ebaradrea, a temple in Sakai, Oska. 

A notable shift in Japanese aesthetic occurred during the Kamakura and Nanbokucho periods. Patrons were no longer interested in the cultured tastes of the upper class. Instead, they began favoring artists who treated their subjects with a direct honesty and virile energy that matched their own. What followed was an age of realism unparalleled before the late eighteenth century.