0:00:10 > 0:00:15In the beginning, there was nothing but a dark, primordial ocean...
0:00:18 > 0:00:23..but then two young gods, Izanagi and Izanami,
0:00:23 > 0:00:26looked across the void and saw potential.
0:00:29 > 0:00:33One day, they plunged a spear into the endless ocean and stirred.
0:00:34 > 0:00:36When they removed the spear,
0:00:36 > 0:00:41drops of water fell from its tip and formed a group of islands,
0:00:41 > 0:00:45and together, these islands became the whole known world.
0:01:04 > 0:01:08The gods called their creation Oyashima Kuni,
0:01:08 > 0:01:11the land of the eight great islands.
0:01:11 > 0:01:16Today its inhabitants call it Nihon, the Land of the Rising Sun -
0:01:16 > 0:01:18but we know it by a different name.
0:01:27 > 0:01:31Japan has fascinated me since I was a boy.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34It's always seemed like a parallel universe,
0:01:34 > 0:01:38a society so similar and yet so different from our own...
0:01:39 > 0:01:40..and in this series,
0:01:40 > 0:01:45I finally have my chance to explore the Japanese imagination.
0:01:45 > 0:01:50I'll seek out its greatest artworks, both old and new...
0:01:54 > 0:01:57..but this is also a journey into Japanese life.
0:01:58 > 0:02:02I'll travel through its landscapes and its cities.
0:02:03 > 0:02:04I'll enter its homes...
0:02:04 > 0:02:06Wow!
0:02:06 > 0:02:08..meet its craftspeople...
0:02:08 > 0:02:10witness its rituals...
0:02:10 > 0:02:12and even sample its food.
0:02:12 > 0:02:15So, this little Bento box is like a work of art,
0:02:15 > 0:02:17and it's almost too beautiful to eat.
0:02:22 > 0:02:28Japan is a society in which so much is informed by aesthetics,
0:02:28 > 0:02:31not just painting and sculpture, not just homes and gardens,
0:02:31 > 0:02:34but the way you look at cherry blossom, the way you drink tea,
0:02:34 > 0:02:37even the way you arrange your lunchbox.
0:02:37 > 0:02:39And that's what I, as an art historian,
0:02:39 > 0:02:42find so inspiring about this place.
0:02:42 > 0:02:47In Japan, almost everything has the capacity to become art.
0:02:51 > 0:02:52In this episode,
0:02:52 > 0:02:56I'm going to explore Japanese attitudes to nature...
0:02:58 > 0:03:02..from great landscape paintings and Zen gardens...
0:03:03 > 0:03:07..to falling blossoms and soaring mountains.
0:03:09 > 0:03:13The natural world is central to traditional Japanese aesthetics...
0:03:15 > 0:03:19..and yet in modern Japan, that old relationship is deeply uncertain...
0:03:22 > 0:03:27..but Japanese artists continue to work with nature, to revere it...
0:03:29 > 0:03:33..and to draw inspiration from the landscape that surrounds them.
0:03:47 > 0:03:52Japan is one of the most densely populated places on Earth.
0:03:53 > 0:03:54It is famous around the world
0:03:54 > 0:03:57for its vast cities and advanced technology.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01Most of its citizens live far away from nature,
0:04:01 > 0:04:04amid never-ending urban landscapes...
0:04:05 > 0:04:13..and yet an astonishing 73% of Japan is uninhabited by humans.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16Its mountains are so steep and its forests so dense
0:04:16 > 0:04:19that people can barely penetrate them -
0:04:19 > 0:04:24and, though beautiful, this country lives on a geological knife edge.
0:04:24 > 0:04:29Japan contains 10% of the world's active volcanoes
0:04:29 > 0:04:33and experiences a staggering 1,500 earthquakes a year.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38In Japan, nature is ignored at one's peril.
0:04:53 > 0:04:57These are the sacred Kii mountains in central southern Japan.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05The Japanese have revered nature for millennia.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14These beliefs are embodied in the country's native religion,
0:05:14 > 0:05:16known today as Shinto...
0:05:18 > 0:05:21..but, in some ways, it isn't even a religion.
0:05:29 > 0:05:33Shinto has no founder, no scriptures.
0:05:33 > 0:05:36For centuries, it didn't even have a name -
0:05:36 > 0:05:42but it did believe the world is inhabited by spirits known as kami,
0:05:42 > 0:05:44and these kami are all around us.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55They live in the sun and the wind...
0:05:55 > 0:05:58in trees and animals...
0:05:58 > 0:06:01and even in rocks and boulders.
0:06:01 > 0:06:06For Shinto, the world is endlessly animated by the divine...
0:06:08 > 0:06:11..and here, deep in the forest, is a shrine.
0:06:13 > 0:06:16There is a simple aesthetic.
0:06:16 > 0:06:19Zigzags of paper hang from rope made of rice straw.
0:06:22 > 0:06:24It's something you see all over Japan...
0:06:28 > 0:06:31..but, beyond these components, Shinto doesn't produce much art.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36The focus is on nature itself...
0:06:41 > 0:06:46..although some natural phenomena get more attention than others.
0:06:51 > 0:06:53This is Nachi Falls.
0:07:01 > 0:07:04It's one of the tallest waterfalls in Japan,
0:07:04 > 0:07:07and, of course, it boasts its very own kami.
0:07:11 > 0:07:13MAN CHANTS
0:07:19 > 0:07:22Every morning, a Shinto priest makes an offering
0:07:22 > 0:07:24to the spirit of the waterfall.
0:07:26 > 0:07:31Sake and rice are placed on a table alongside a golden wand.
0:07:31 > 0:07:33CHANTING CONTINUES
0:07:40 > 0:07:43Ritual is at the heart of Shintoism.
0:07:43 > 0:07:45Kami can be good and bad, just like humans,
0:07:45 > 0:07:49and rituals are performed to maintain good relationships
0:07:49 > 0:07:52between the human world and the kami world.
0:07:56 > 0:08:02In so much of the world, religion is about gods and saints and prophets -
0:08:02 > 0:08:06but here in Nachi, and in countless other parts of Japan,
0:08:06 > 0:08:09nature itself is being venerated,
0:08:09 > 0:08:16and as I look up at this waterfall, 133 metres high, I can see why.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21But even though Shinto doesn't have a strong tradition
0:08:21 > 0:08:22of religious imagery,
0:08:22 > 0:08:24I believe its influence can be felt
0:08:24 > 0:08:28right through the history of Japanese art -
0:08:28 > 0:08:30even in the most unlikely places.
0:08:36 > 0:08:38These are netsuke.
0:08:38 > 0:08:41They were used as toggles on the end of purse strings
0:08:41 > 0:08:44as part of traditional Japanese dress.
0:08:44 > 0:08:46They depicted all sorts of things...
0:08:49 > 0:08:51..and though just accessories for clothing,
0:08:51 > 0:08:55they are now revered as breathtaking miniature sculptures...
0:08:59 > 0:09:01..and this is a particularly special one.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09So, this bizarre little masterpiece was made a few hundred years ago,
0:09:09 > 0:09:13probably by an artist called Harumitsu, who was based in Ise,
0:09:13 > 0:09:16one of the great Shinto centres of Japan,
0:09:16 > 0:09:20and it depicts a pretty much life-size cicada
0:09:20 > 0:09:23that's beautifully carved out of boxwood.
0:09:23 > 0:09:26Every single detail is anatomically correct.
0:09:26 > 0:09:27So we have the compound eyes
0:09:27 > 0:09:28at the top,
0:09:28 > 0:09:31the beautiful tracery of the veined wings,
0:09:31 > 0:09:33and this, this is the thorax and abdomen.
0:09:33 > 0:09:38Those contain the muscles that produce the famous cicada chirp -
0:09:38 > 0:09:40and if I turned it over onto the other side,
0:09:40 > 0:09:44which I'm really quite nervous about doing, because I'm extremely clumsy,
0:09:44 > 0:09:48we will see there is even more detail on the underside.
0:09:48 > 0:09:53And you can see that the cicada is even grasping a little branch.
0:09:53 > 0:09:55Absolutely beautiful.
0:10:00 > 0:10:04Cicadas have a really important place in Japanese culture.
0:10:04 > 0:10:07They are seen as symbolic of the summer, when they come out,
0:10:07 > 0:10:10and this object was probably worn during the summer months.
0:10:10 > 0:10:14But they're also seen as strangely melancholy creatures.
0:10:15 > 0:10:16There's that famous haiku.
0:10:16 > 0:10:20"Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die" -
0:10:20 > 0:10:22but it's not only cicadas.
0:10:22 > 0:10:26Japanese literature is filled with references to all kinds of insects,
0:10:26 > 0:10:31to caterpillars and beetles and fireflies and dragonflies,
0:10:31 > 0:10:33and indeed, even today, many Japanese people
0:10:33 > 0:10:34have insects as pets,
0:10:34 > 0:10:37and it's even possible to visit beetle petting zoos.
0:10:45 > 0:10:46Now, this all might sound rather odd,
0:10:46 > 0:10:48but actually, it's deeply revealing,
0:10:48 > 0:10:52because in Japan, nothing in nature is too small to be important.
0:10:52 > 0:10:53Everything is deserving of our respect,
0:10:53 > 0:10:56everything is deserving of our attention,
0:10:56 > 0:11:00even an intensely irritating insect like this one -
0:11:00 > 0:11:03and that, I'm sure, is partly down to Shinto.
0:11:16 > 0:11:19But Shinto isn't the only religion in Japan
0:11:19 > 0:11:22with a special relationship to nature.
0:12:04 > 0:12:08In Japan, there are numerous different schools and sects
0:12:08 > 0:12:12of Buddhism, but one kind particularly intrigues me,
0:12:12 > 0:12:13because it helped produce
0:12:13 > 0:12:18some of the world's most sophisticated landscape art forms.
0:12:18 > 0:12:21It is known by the Japanese as Zen.
0:12:24 > 0:12:25BELL RINGS
0:12:30 > 0:12:32Zen doesn't rely on scriptures or dogma
0:12:32 > 0:12:36but instead tries to promote an intuitive understanding of the world
0:12:36 > 0:12:40through meditation and repeated practical exercises.
0:13:48 > 0:13:50Zen monks used a number of methods
0:13:50 > 0:13:54to discipline their minds and their bodies and to help with meditation,
0:13:54 > 0:13:58and one of them, one of these methods, was painting.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01Japanese monks started to make brush paintings
0:14:01 > 0:14:04in black ink on paper and silk.
0:14:04 > 0:14:07Now, this technique had been developed by the Chinese
0:14:07 > 0:14:08centuries earlier,
0:14:08 > 0:14:11but the Japanese were quick learners.
0:14:14 > 0:14:18And perhaps the greatest of these Japanese ink wash painters
0:14:18 > 0:14:20was a man called Sesshu Toyo.
0:14:24 > 0:14:28Sesshu was born in western Japan in 1420.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31At the age of 11, he enrolled in a Zen temple,
0:14:31 > 0:14:33where he trained to be a priest -
0:14:33 > 0:14:35but, according to one anecdote,
0:14:35 > 0:14:38Sesshu showed little affinity for Zen discipline.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43One day, Sesshu was so badly behaved
0:14:43 > 0:14:46that his masters got hold of some rope
0:14:46 > 0:14:49and tied him to a pole as a punishment.
0:14:49 > 0:14:50Now, after several hours of this,
0:14:50 > 0:14:53Sesshu became so distressed that he started to cry,
0:14:53 > 0:14:57and his tears gradually formed a puddle at his feet -
0:14:57 > 0:15:00but then something remarkable happened.
0:15:00 > 0:15:02Using his toe as a brush,
0:15:02 > 0:15:06Sesshu painted the outline of a rat into his tears,
0:15:06 > 0:15:09and then the rat came to life,
0:15:09 > 0:15:12gnawed through the rope and set Sesshu free.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20In the late 1460s, Sesshu travelled to China,
0:15:20 > 0:15:23and there he learned the art of ink wash painting
0:15:23 > 0:15:25from its native masters.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30He went on to become one of Japan's greatest painters,
0:15:30 > 0:15:35and I've come to the Tokyo National Museum to see his masterpiece,
0:15:35 > 0:15:39a painting I've wanted to see for many years...
0:15:39 > 0:15:42and we are the first film crew to ever be granted access to it
0:15:42 > 0:15:44when it's not on display.
0:15:47 > 0:15:51This is the splashed ink landscape.
0:15:51 > 0:15:56Sesshu painted it in 1495 when he was in his mid-70s,
0:15:56 > 0:15:59and though it might only have taken a few minutes to make,
0:15:59 > 0:16:03it is the result of a lifetime's experience and skill.
0:16:05 > 0:16:07Now, I'll be honest with you. At first, it doesn't look like much.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10It just looks like some spatters on a page -
0:16:10 > 0:16:16but gradually, an image, a landscape, begins to appear.
0:16:21 > 0:16:22In the foreground,
0:16:22 > 0:16:26a craggy outcrop of rock covered by trees and bushes...
0:16:28 > 0:16:29..and in the background,
0:16:29 > 0:16:33these towering mountains that are half hidden by mists
0:16:33 > 0:16:36or perhaps an incoming rain shower...
0:16:38 > 0:16:42..but as you look at this picture longer, you begin to see yet more -
0:16:42 > 0:16:46so, down there, that is a little wooden building.
0:16:46 > 0:16:48You can see the triangular roof.
0:16:48 > 0:16:50There's a fence around its perimeter -
0:16:50 > 0:16:53and that, believe it or not, is a wine tavern,
0:16:53 > 0:16:56and we know that because the wine tavern banner
0:16:56 > 0:16:57is hanging out the front of it...
0:16:59 > 0:17:02..but there's more even than that, because below that wine tavern,
0:17:02 > 0:17:05you can see two near-horizontal strokes,
0:17:05 > 0:17:08and those represent the ripples on a lake...
0:17:10 > 0:17:11..and to the right,
0:17:11 > 0:17:14two people are rowing a boat across it.
0:17:17 > 0:17:20You know, I find this painting absolutely breathtaking,
0:17:20 > 0:17:22and what is so exciting about it
0:17:22 > 0:17:25is the way it unfolds in front of your eyes...
0:17:28 > 0:17:30..the way that, by looking at it, you bring it to life...
0:17:34 > 0:17:36..and what I admire so much about it
0:17:36 > 0:17:39is how he's achieved so much with such limited resources.
0:17:39 > 0:17:41Look at the varieties of blacks,
0:17:41 > 0:17:43these deep, dark, inky blacks
0:17:43 > 0:17:44in the foreground,
0:17:44 > 0:17:45and yet, in the background,
0:17:45 > 0:17:46these blacks that are so pale
0:17:46 > 0:17:48they are almost white...
0:17:48 > 0:17:50and look at the variety of strokes,
0:17:50 > 0:17:53the wide brushstrokes, the narrow brushstrokes,
0:17:53 > 0:17:54the wet, the dry,
0:17:54 > 0:17:55the washes, the scratches,
0:17:55 > 0:17:58all this different variety of marks
0:17:58 > 0:18:01combined and mobilised to create this landscape...
0:18:10 > 0:18:12..and you know the thing I can't get off my mind?
0:18:12 > 0:18:15This was made in 1495.
0:18:15 > 0:18:171495!
0:18:17 > 0:18:19Back in Europe, we had the Renaissance going on,
0:18:19 > 0:18:22and there were no images as audacious as this one.
0:18:22 > 0:18:26You know, it would take 300 years, 400 years,
0:18:26 > 0:18:28for the watercolours of Turner and Cezanne,
0:18:28 > 0:18:33before any Western artist made anything as abstract as this.
0:18:37 > 0:18:40Sesshu had helped create an intoxicating aesthetic,
0:18:40 > 0:18:43one that preferred ambiguity to clarity,
0:18:43 > 0:18:45absence to presence,
0:18:45 > 0:18:47and the hazy mysteries of nature.
0:18:50 > 0:18:54This quality is evident in the work of Sesshu's countless followers.
0:18:56 > 0:19:00This is Hasegawa Tohaku's pine trees in the mist,
0:19:00 > 0:19:06painted onto a folding screen about 100 years after Sesshu's landscape.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10The trees drift in and out of the mists.
0:19:12 > 0:19:16One can almost taste the cold, wet air.
0:19:22 > 0:19:27Empty space is as important as the landscape it surrounds...
0:19:34 > 0:19:37..and this emptiness is surely a visual metaphor
0:19:37 > 0:19:40for the silences of Zen meditation.
0:19:49 > 0:19:52Zen Buddhism didn't simply inspire the Japanese
0:19:52 > 0:19:54to depict the natural world,
0:19:54 > 0:19:57it also encourage them to recreate it.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00While Sesshu and his colleagues pioneered landscape painting,
0:20:00 > 0:20:03other monks turned to horticulture.
0:20:05 > 0:20:08I've come to the northern edge of Kyoto
0:20:08 > 0:20:11to see one of Japan's greatest gardens.
0:20:13 > 0:20:16Ryoan-ji might be the most written-about garden in the world,
0:20:16 > 0:20:19but it's also one of the least understood.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22We don't know who designed it. We don't know who built it.
0:20:22 > 0:20:24We don't know when it was made -
0:20:24 > 0:20:26and we certainly don't know what it means.
0:20:34 > 0:20:37I've come early in the morning to beat the crowds...
0:20:40 > 0:20:42but I'm not allowed to step beyond the veranda.
0:20:45 > 0:20:47This isn't a garden for walking in.
0:20:49 > 0:20:51The ground is covered in white Shirakawa gravel
0:20:51 > 0:20:54that's carefully raked every morning...
0:20:56 > 0:21:00..and emerging from the gravel are 15 craggy stones,
0:21:00 > 0:21:02surrounded by moss,
0:21:02 > 0:21:05arranged almost randomly...
0:21:05 > 0:21:06but there's nothing random about them...
0:21:08 > 0:21:12..because 15 is an important number in Zen.
0:21:12 > 0:21:16It symbolises completeness, since the entire Buddhist world
0:21:16 > 0:21:19contains seven continents and eight oceans...
0:21:21 > 0:21:23..but from where I'm sitting...
0:21:24 > 0:21:28..you can't see 15 stones. You can only see 14.
0:21:30 > 0:21:32In fact, it doesn't matter where you go,
0:21:32 > 0:21:36you can never see all 15 stones at once,
0:21:36 > 0:21:40and this is thought to be a reminder of human imperfection.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43One mind can never understand everything.
0:21:52 > 0:21:55As time passes, something remarkable happens.
0:21:57 > 0:21:59The gaps between the stones come to life.
0:21:59 > 0:22:01The emptiness fills up...
0:22:02 > 0:22:05..and suddenly this modest courtyard
0:22:05 > 0:22:07becomes a vast panorama of the world.
0:22:11 > 0:22:13One moment the stones are moss-covered islands
0:22:13 > 0:22:16in a rippling, foaming ocean...
0:22:19 > 0:22:22..the next, they're mountaintops seen from above the clouds.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26And then, just like that,
0:22:26 > 0:22:29they're nothing more than a group of rocks in some gravel.
0:22:32 > 0:22:34People have been trying to decipher
0:22:34 > 0:22:37the meaning of this garden for years,
0:22:37 > 0:22:40but I think its meaning, if it has any meaning,
0:22:40 > 0:22:43ultimately comes from within us,
0:22:43 > 0:22:47because, like Sesshu's paintings and like so much Japanese culture,
0:22:47 > 0:22:50this garden is an almost blank canvas,
0:22:50 > 0:22:55a place that enables the mind to wander in any direction it pleases.
0:23:44 > 0:23:48The Zen preference for uncertainty and suggestiveness
0:23:48 > 0:23:49might still seem alien
0:23:49 > 0:23:54to us fact-loving, empirical, positivistic Westerners,
0:23:54 > 0:23:58but it became a crucial part of Japanese culture -
0:23:58 > 0:24:00and you can't understand Japanese culture
0:24:00 > 0:24:04until you begin to embrace the beauty of mystery.
0:24:19 > 0:24:25I've come 300 miles north of Kyoto to a suburb of Tokyo called Omiya.
0:24:26 > 0:24:29It's an unremarkable place and seems a world away
0:24:29 > 0:24:34from the wildernesses that inspired Shinto priests and Zen monks...
0:24:36 > 0:24:39..but this place happens to be the nation's epicentre
0:24:39 > 0:24:43of another art form that combines nature and culture.
0:24:47 > 0:24:50These, of course, are bonsai.
0:24:50 > 0:24:54Like many Japanese artforms, bonsai emerged in China.
0:24:54 > 0:24:57It came to Japan perhaps as early as the sixth century,
0:24:57 > 0:25:00and it continues to be practised today.
0:25:03 > 0:25:05Kaori Yamada is unusual.
0:25:05 > 0:25:07Most bonsai artists are men...
0:25:11 > 0:25:15..but Kaori is the fifth generation of her family to keep bonsai,
0:25:15 > 0:25:18and many of them are extremely old.
0:25:21 > 0:25:22It's a beautiful tree...
0:25:24 > 0:25:25..and how old do you think it is?
0:25:27 > 0:25:31- We think over 300 years. - Over 300 years old.
0:25:35 > 0:25:37In the West, we might think of bonsai
0:25:37 > 0:25:39as little more than pot plants,
0:25:39 > 0:25:43but in Japan, it is a major imaginative endeavour.
0:25:43 > 0:25:47Just like Sesshu and the creators of Zen gardens,
0:25:47 > 0:25:51the bonsai artist is a maker of worlds.
0:26:34 > 0:26:39So, what can bonsai tell us about Japanese attitudes to nature?
0:27:33 > 0:27:37Just around the corner from Kaori Yamada's nursery
0:27:37 > 0:27:39is Omiya's bonsai museum.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43It's like an exclusive art gallery,
0:27:43 > 0:27:47but in the place of paintings and sculptures there are trees...
0:27:51 > 0:27:54..and I've come to see one in particular.
0:27:58 > 0:28:04This magnificent bonsai is estimated to be about 500 years old.
0:28:04 > 0:28:06It's a Goyomatsu tree,
0:28:06 > 0:28:10a Japanese five-needle pine that only grows in Japan and Korea,
0:28:10 > 0:28:13and it's one of the most popular species used
0:28:13 > 0:28:14in the creation of bonsai -
0:28:14 > 0:28:19and this creation is so remarkable that it's even been given a name.
0:28:19 > 0:28:24It's called Uzushio, which means "whirlpool" in Japanese -
0:28:24 > 0:28:25and you can see why.
0:28:25 > 0:28:30The whole tree spirals with this remarkable, muscular energy.
0:28:30 > 0:28:33It was actually designed to resemble a wave or a tsunami
0:28:33 > 0:28:35crashing down on the shore.
0:28:35 > 0:28:40The wood spirals with the currents and torrents of water,
0:28:40 > 0:28:43and the needles are like the fingers of froth of a wave
0:28:43 > 0:28:45as it breaks on the shore.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49So, though it's small, although it's potted,
0:28:49 > 0:28:53this is about the untamability of nature.
0:28:54 > 0:28:58You'll also notice there's a great deal of dead wood on it.
0:28:58 > 0:29:01The whole front has become this white,
0:29:01 > 0:29:02ossified piece of driftwood
0:29:02 > 0:29:05that spirals like an S throughout the tree,
0:29:05 > 0:29:08and there are dead branches that have broken off.
0:29:08 > 0:29:10Now, this isn't an accident.
0:29:10 > 0:29:12This was cultivated, this was styled,
0:29:12 > 0:29:13it was created,
0:29:13 > 0:29:17and the purpose was to make this tree look aged and weathered,
0:29:17 > 0:29:19to make it look like it had lived a long, hard life,
0:29:19 > 0:29:21out exposed on a clifftop,
0:29:21 > 0:29:24mutilated by the winds and the rain and the lightning...
0:29:26 > 0:29:30..and I'm reminded, this piece is about the same age
0:29:30 > 0:29:32as Michelangelo's David -
0:29:32 > 0:29:35both of them about 500 years old,
0:29:35 > 0:29:38and this, too, is a sculpture -
0:29:38 > 0:29:41and, indeed, seeing it in this location, in a museum setting,
0:29:41 > 0:29:44it has been elevated to the status of art -
0:29:44 > 0:29:47but this is a living sculpture.
0:29:47 > 0:29:51It hasn't been created once, it has been created and recreated
0:29:51 > 0:29:53and reshaped and cultivated and nourished
0:29:53 > 0:29:56and kept alive for generations...
0:29:58 > 0:30:01..and, you know, there's a paradox at the heart of this,
0:30:01 > 0:30:05because on the one hand, it's deeply contrived, deeply created,
0:30:05 > 0:30:06deeply manufactured,
0:30:06 > 0:30:10but it also attempts to look like it's the creation
0:30:10 > 0:30:12of chance and nature.
0:30:18 > 0:30:24Bonsai is ultimately about persistence in nature and culture...
0:30:24 > 0:30:28but the Japanese also find beauty in something far more fleeting.
0:30:37 > 0:30:41This is the flower of the Prunus serrulata
0:30:41 > 0:30:44or, as it's more commonly known, cherry blossom.
0:30:45 > 0:30:48The Japanese have revered the life cycle
0:30:48 > 0:30:50of this delicately petalled tree flower
0:30:50 > 0:30:52for more than a thousand years...
0:30:55 > 0:30:57..and in March and April every year,
0:30:57 > 0:31:00they gather beneath it to party and picnic.
0:31:02 > 0:31:04This celebration, known as Hanami,
0:31:04 > 0:31:07has become a vast national industry,
0:31:07 > 0:31:11and millions of tourists now travel to Japan to join in.
0:31:13 > 0:31:16No other country does anything quite like this...
0:31:18 > 0:31:21..but the merriment disguises a melancholy.
0:31:24 > 0:31:26The Japanese were fascinated with blossom
0:31:26 > 0:31:29because they found it unbearably poignant.
0:31:29 > 0:31:32After all, here was this beautiful little organism
0:31:32 > 0:31:34that emerged, grew and dazzled
0:31:34 > 0:31:37and then, within little more than a week,
0:31:37 > 0:31:39fell to the ground and died.
0:31:39 > 0:31:42For the Japanese, it was, of course, a fact of nature,
0:31:42 > 0:31:45but it was also a lesson about the human condition,
0:31:45 > 0:31:49a reminder that our lives also are painfully brief.
0:31:51 > 0:31:55In Japan, blossom is celebrated not in spite of its transience
0:31:55 > 0:32:00but because of it. It is beautiful precisely because it doesn't last...
0:32:02 > 0:32:05..but the preoccupation with cherry blossom
0:32:05 > 0:32:07was part of a broader set of interests.
0:32:07 > 0:32:10Japanese culture celebrates all of the seasons,
0:32:10 > 0:32:12not simply the spring...
0:32:14 > 0:32:18..and so, in Japanese art, alongside the paintings of cherry blossoms,
0:32:18 > 0:32:21there are also pictures of verdant summer foliage...
0:32:22 > 0:32:24..vermillion maple leaves of the autumn...
0:32:26 > 0:32:28..and the deep snows of winter.
0:32:32 > 0:32:37I've often wondered why the Japanese are so preoccupied with the seasons,
0:32:37 > 0:32:39and I think there are two reasons.
0:32:39 > 0:32:42First, the seasons are really explicit here.
0:32:42 > 0:32:47The winters are bitterly cold and dry, the summers are hot and wet,
0:32:47 > 0:32:49and in the spring and the autumn,
0:32:49 > 0:32:53the foliage just explodes into these unbelievable colours -
0:32:53 > 0:32:55but I think there's another reason, as well.
0:32:55 > 0:32:58Written language came very late to Japan,
0:32:58 > 0:33:00and so the cycle of the seasons
0:33:00 > 0:33:03became a really important tool for measuring time -
0:33:03 > 0:33:06not just natural time, but human time, as well...
0:33:08 > 0:33:13..and of all these pictures of Japanese seasonal surprises,
0:33:13 > 0:33:15one is without doubt the most famous.
0:33:17 > 0:33:20It is housed in the Nezu Museum in Tokyo.
0:33:37 > 0:33:41This is Ogata Korin's Irises,
0:33:41 > 0:33:45a pair of six panelled screens dating back to 1710.
0:33:51 > 0:33:54Irises begin to bloom across Japan in May,
0:33:54 > 0:33:57when spring explodes into summer,
0:33:57 > 0:34:01and in this utterly irresistible painting,
0:34:01 > 0:34:03Korin captures the excitement
0:34:03 > 0:34:06of those first really hot days of the year.
0:34:06 > 0:34:09The colours are so vivid and intense.
0:34:09 > 0:34:13The greens look like they were painted only a few minutes ago
0:34:13 > 0:34:16and haven't even had time to dry yet.
0:34:16 > 0:34:20The petals are painted from the most expensive blue pigment
0:34:20 > 0:34:24in the business, and the background, made from gold foil,
0:34:24 > 0:34:27dazzles like sunlight reflecting off the water.
0:34:29 > 0:34:33This painting was actually inspired by a tenth-century poem
0:34:33 > 0:34:35that told the story of a group of travellers
0:34:35 > 0:34:37who stopped for lunch at a river bank
0:34:37 > 0:34:40that was ablaze with irises.
0:34:40 > 0:34:44The travellers were reminded of a similar spot back at home
0:34:44 > 0:34:46and became all nostalgic.
0:34:46 > 0:34:49Now, this painting is also about nostalgia -
0:34:49 > 0:34:52it's about longing for things that have gone,
0:34:52 > 0:34:54and you can just imagine, 300 years ago,
0:34:54 > 0:34:57the original owners of this painting
0:34:57 > 0:35:02looking at it on a cold winter's night and feeling all warm inside.
0:35:04 > 0:35:08What I admire so much about this painting is its simplicity.
0:35:08 > 0:35:12Korin has distilled his subject to its fundamental ingredients
0:35:12 > 0:35:15and then repeated them rhythmically,
0:35:15 > 0:35:17almost as though it's music -
0:35:17 > 0:35:20and there is a little secret to how he's achieved that.
0:35:20 > 0:35:23If you actually look very closely at this painting,
0:35:23 > 0:35:26you begin to see that it's actually stencilled.
0:35:26 > 0:35:30This iris over here is identical to that one over there.
0:35:30 > 0:35:33This pattern down here is absolutely identical
0:35:33 > 0:35:34to that pattern over there.
0:35:43 > 0:35:44What an image.
0:35:44 > 0:35:48I know it's famous, but it really deserves to be.
0:35:48 > 0:35:52I challenge anyone to stand in front of this picture
0:35:52 > 0:35:55and not become just a little bit happier.
0:35:57 > 0:36:01But the Japanese don't only celebrate the small and ephemeral.
0:36:01 > 0:36:05In fact, their most famous natural symbol is anything but.
0:36:28 > 0:36:353,776 metres high, Mount Fuji is the tallest mountain in Japan -
0:36:35 > 0:36:39a dormant volcano that could erupt at any moment.
0:36:41 > 0:36:44Fuji has been revered here since prehistoric times,
0:36:44 > 0:36:47venerated by Shinto and Buddhism alike.
0:36:50 > 0:36:54The Japanese have been rhapsodising about Mount Fuji for centuries,
0:36:54 > 0:36:57and it has inspired vast quantities of poetry.
0:36:58 > 0:37:00One winter in the 1680s,
0:37:00 > 0:37:04the father of haiku, Basho, made a journey to Mount Fuji,
0:37:04 > 0:37:08but the weather was so bad that the mountain was invisible.
0:37:08 > 0:37:11Many people would have been annoyed, but not Basho.
0:37:11 > 0:37:13This is what he wrote.
0:37:13 > 0:37:17"In the misty rain, Mount Fuji is veiled all day."
0:37:17 > 0:37:18How intriguing!
0:37:22 > 0:37:25For Basho, like his Zen predecessors,
0:37:25 > 0:37:28mist and mystery was exciting.
0:37:30 > 0:37:33After all, who wants an answer when you can have a question?
0:37:35 > 0:37:37Yet Mount Fuji's global fame
0:37:37 > 0:37:40is surely a result of something less ambiguous.
0:37:41 > 0:37:45Mount Fuji is almost ludicrously perfect,
0:37:45 > 0:37:48even on a drab and overcast day like today.
0:37:48 > 0:37:52Triangular, snow-capped, nearly symmetrical,
0:37:52 > 0:37:55this is a mountain almost as imagined by a child -
0:37:55 > 0:37:59and Mount Fuji's form has been crucial to its fame.
0:37:59 > 0:38:01Like the pyramids, like the Eiffel Tower,
0:38:01 > 0:38:06its silhouette alone has become a metonym for an entire culture.
0:38:08 > 0:38:12That flawless shape inevitably attracted artists.
0:38:12 > 0:38:17They have been depicting Mount Fuji since at least the 11th century.
0:38:17 > 0:38:20This ink painting, once thought to be by Sesshu,
0:38:20 > 0:38:23shows the mountain shrouded in that mandatory mist
0:38:23 > 0:38:25and towering over a wondrous landscape...
0:38:27 > 0:38:30..but one artist immortalised it like no other.
0:38:30 > 0:38:33Internationally, he is the most famous figure
0:38:33 > 0:38:35in all of Japanese art -
0:38:35 > 0:38:38almost as famous as Fuji itself.
0:38:51 > 0:38:57Hokusai was born not far from Mount Fuji in 1760,
0:38:57 > 0:39:00just a few years after its last eruption,
0:39:00 > 0:39:04and he remained obsessed with the volcano throughout his life.
0:39:04 > 0:39:07He lived in Edo, now Tokyo,
0:39:07 > 0:39:10which was already one of the biggest cities in the world.
0:39:13 > 0:39:15Hokusai's success came slowly.
0:39:15 > 0:39:17He's best known for his woodcut prints,
0:39:17 > 0:39:21but throughout his life he loved to experiment.
0:39:21 > 0:39:24He made brush paintings of people and plants,
0:39:24 > 0:39:26and he also made erotica.
0:39:29 > 0:39:32The diversity of his output was breathtaking -
0:39:32 > 0:39:34but for those who knew him,
0:39:34 > 0:39:37this wasn't surprising at all.
0:39:41 > 0:39:46Hokusai, I think it's safe to say, was a restless soul.
0:39:46 > 0:39:49He changed his name more than 20 times.
0:39:49 > 0:39:51He moved house 93 times -
0:39:51 > 0:39:57but the one unshakeable thing in his life was his obsession with art.
0:39:57 > 0:40:00Hokusai was passionately, maniacally,
0:40:00 > 0:40:02pathologically obsessed with his craft
0:40:02 > 0:40:06and was relentlessly determined to get better at it.
0:40:09 > 0:40:13Hokusai, indeed, made his finest work late in life,
0:40:13 > 0:40:17and the best of it was arguably a series of prints about Mount Fuji.
0:40:19 > 0:40:24Between 1830 and 1833, when he was in his early seventies,
0:40:24 > 0:40:29Hokusai produced his masterpiece, Thirty-Six Views Of Mount Fuji,
0:40:29 > 0:40:31initially three dozen woodcuts
0:40:31 > 0:40:34printed in an array of vivid colours.
0:40:35 > 0:40:40They depict the sacred mountain from every imaginable viewpoint,
0:40:40 > 0:40:43from towns, sea and sky,
0:40:43 > 0:40:45from close up and vast distances...
0:40:46 > 0:40:49..in all seasons and weather conditions...
0:40:50 > 0:40:53..and ever surrounded by life in its endless abundance.
0:40:57 > 0:40:59This is number 33 in the series,
0:40:59 > 0:41:02from the Mishima Pass in Kai province,
0:41:02 > 0:41:04just to the north-west of the volcano,
0:41:04 > 0:41:07and I find this such a heart-warming image
0:41:07 > 0:41:11that refers back to the old Shinto worship of trees.
0:41:11 > 0:41:14This group of travellers down here, they are on a journey,
0:41:14 > 0:41:17and they have stumbled on this remarkable cedar tree,
0:41:17 > 0:41:20a tree so big it doesn't even fit into Hokusai's picture,
0:41:20 > 0:41:21and, quite delightfully,
0:41:21 > 0:41:24they are measuring its circumference
0:41:24 > 0:41:25by linking arms around it -
0:41:25 > 0:41:28but, of course, they, and even the tree, are dwarfed
0:41:28 > 0:41:30by the giant mountain behind them,
0:41:30 > 0:41:34which is almost being tickled by the clouds.
0:41:40 > 0:41:42Now, we've all seen this image before.
0:41:42 > 0:41:46It's actually one of the most famous pictures in all of art -
0:41:46 > 0:41:48but, for that very reason,
0:41:48 > 0:41:50we haven't always looked at it properly.
0:41:50 > 0:41:53People are so taken with this extraordinary wave
0:41:53 > 0:41:57that they don't always notice the rest of the picture.
0:41:57 > 0:41:58They don't notice, for instance,
0:41:58 > 0:42:02that there are in fact more than 20 people depicted here,
0:42:02 > 0:42:0422 shaven-headed fishermen
0:42:04 > 0:42:07who are heading home after a long shift on the water
0:42:07 > 0:42:10and have run into a spot of bother -
0:42:10 > 0:42:13and you can see them grabbing hold of their skiffs
0:42:13 > 0:42:15as they're tossed around on the surf.
0:42:15 > 0:42:17Are they going to make it?
0:42:17 > 0:42:18Well, I think they probably are -
0:42:18 > 0:42:21because, in the distance, the sacred mountain,
0:42:21 > 0:42:22disguised as another wave,
0:42:22 > 0:42:24is watching on.
0:42:27 > 0:42:29I don't really think we can understand
0:42:29 > 0:42:31how truly powerful this image originally was,
0:42:31 > 0:42:34because we, in the West, we read images, like texts,
0:42:34 > 0:42:35from left to right
0:42:35 > 0:42:38while the Japanese read images the other way.
0:42:38 > 0:42:40So, for us, we are travelling with the wave,
0:42:40 > 0:42:42and it's really quite good fun,
0:42:42 > 0:42:43but for the Japanese,
0:42:43 > 0:42:45they are travelling against the wave
0:42:45 > 0:42:47and it's really quite terrifying.
0:42:49 > 0:42:51It's an absolutely breathtaking piece of design.
0:42:51 > 0:42:57Every single element is manipulated to amplify the drama.
0:42:57 > 0:43:00It's printed in this bright synthetic Prussian blue pigment
0:43:00 > 0:43:04that hasn't lost any of its intensity over the years -
0:43:04 > 0:43:06and the froth, I absolutely love the froth,
0:43:06 > 0:43:10which is depicted as hundreds of individual fingers
0:43:10 > 0:43:13trying to grab hold of their victims...
0:43:13 > 0:43:16and this one is so simple,
0:43:16 > 0:43:19but I could look at it for hours and hours and hours.
0:43:21 > 0:43:24Fine Wind, Clear Sky,
0:43:24 > 0:43:26otherwise known as Red Fuji -
0:43:26 > 0:43:29red because that's the colour the mountain turns
0:43:29 > 0:43:32when the sun hits it in the autumn months.
0:43:32 > 0:43:34Now, for all The Great Wave's global fame,
0:43:34 > 0:43:38within Japan this image was the most popular print of the series
0:43:38 > 0:43:41by some way - and you can see why.
0:43:41 > 0:43:44It has a simplicity that no other image has.
0:43:44 > 0:43:46There are no people. There's no foreground.
0:43:46 > 0:43:49There is simply mountain and sky
0:43:49 > 0:43:53divided by one absolutely beautiful line -
0:43:53 > 0:43:56but that simplicity is deceptive,
0:43:56 > 0:44:01because, in reality, this is an unbelievably risky piece of work,
0:44:01 > 0:44:03because what Hokusai has done
0:44:03 > 0:44:07is he has taken the very subject of his picture, the mountain itself,
0:44:07 > 0:44:12and pushed it off centre and almost off the edge of the page,
0:44:12 > 0:44:14and then, to counterbalance that decision,
0:44:14 > 0:44:18he's filled the whole left-hand side of the page with all these details,
0:44:18 > 0:44:21the green forest, the clouds that look like a school of fish
0:44:21 > 0:44:24and even his signature and the title.
0:44:24 > 0:44:28Now, without those, this whole composition would fall apart,
0:44:28 > 0:44:31and yet it works absolutely perfectly -
0:44:31 > 0:44:35and that is what I find so thrilling about looking at this picture.
0:44:35 > 0:44:38We're watching an artist at the very top of his game
0:44:38 > 0:44:41setting himself an almost impossible challenge
0:44:41 > 0:44:43and then triumphing in the end.
0:44:47 > 0:44:49Hokusai's unforgettable images
0:44:49 > 0:44:53celebrate both the permanence and impermanence of nature,
0:44:53 > 0:44:57because whatever takes place around it, Mount Fuji stands firm.
0:44:58 > 0:45:02Hokusai's humans are tiny and inconsequential by comparison,
0:45:02 > 0:45:05and have little influence on their environment...
0:45:06 > 0:45:09..but in the years after Hokusai's death,
0:45:09 > 0:45:13Japan's relationship with its landscape changed dramatically.
0:45:17 > 0:45:21In the 20th century, Japanese society rapidly modernised.
0:45:22 > 0:45:26Cities expanded, vast swathes of countryside were developed
0:45:26 > 0:45:30and roads and rail lines cut across the nation.
0:45:30 > 0:45:31At the same time,
0:45:31 > 0:45:35Japan was repeatedly ravaged by natural disasters...
0:45:36 > 0:45:39..and these made the Japanese people yet more determined
0:45:39 > 0:45:41to control their environment...
0:45:42 > 0:45:46..concreting their coastlines and damming thousands of rivers.
0:45:48 > 0:45:50Today it sometimes seems
0:45:50 > 0:45:53that the Japanese aren't in harmony with nature -
0:45:53 > 0:45:55they are at war with it.
0:45:56 > 0:45:58Alex Kerr has written extensively
0:45:58 > 0:46:03about modern Japan's troubled relationship with its environment.
0:46:03 > 0:46:05The transformation of nature is not unique to Japan.
0:46:05 > 0:46:07This has happened absolutely everywhere.
0:46:07 > 0:46:14It happened with great speed and great thoroughness in Japan...
0:46:14 > 0:46:18based on a kind of industrial sense
0:46:18 > 0:46:23that everything should be made industrially useful,
0:46:23 > 0:46:26and so let's cut down those messy forests
0:46:26 > 0:46:30and replant them with nice sugi trees that line up in rows,
0:46:30 > 0:46:34and they'll grow fast and they'll be good industrial lumber, you know?
0:46:34 > 0:46:37Let's straighten out those messy rivers
0:46:37 > 0:46:39and line them with concrete,
0:46:39 > 0:46:41and that will be so much more civilised
0:46:41 > 0:46:43and international and modern.
0:46:51 > 0:46:53Tens of thousands of rivers have been dammed.
0:46:53 > 0:46:55As a matter of fact,
0:46:55 > 0:46:58it's said that only three rivers remain that are undammed -
0:46:58 > 0:47:01and even those, of course, have concrete embankments.
0:47:01 > 0:47:03Now, this is something that everybody did.
0:47:03 > 0:47:07Look at America, where we built just horrendous dams by the thousand,
0:47:07 > 0:47:09but at some point -
0:47:09 > 0:47:12and this happened in most other industrialised nations -
0:47:12 > 0:47:14there came a point maybe 20, 30 years ago
0:47:14 > 0:47:18when we started to look back and review whether this was necessary -
0:47:18 > 0:47:21and in America, we've torn down hundreds of dams,
0:47:21 > 0:47:23including some very large ones.
0:47:23 > 0:47:26Japan, unfortunately, is stuck on autopilot,
0:47:26 > 0:47:29and so the idea that we must dam these rivers
0:47:29 > 0:47:33got fixed in the bureaucratic system and goes on forever.
0:47:39 > 0:47:43So it's natural to ask, well, why? Why couldn't Japan stop?
0:47:43 > 0:47:46I think one aspect of it is that Japan is thorough,
0:47:46 > 0:47:49and thoroughness is the strength of this culture.
0:47:49 > 0:47:51That's why you have the tea ceremony
0:47:51 > 0:47:54and that's why you have the excellence in car manufacture
0:47:54 > 0:47:57and camera manufacture and the delicacy of Japanese art
0:47:57 > 0:48:00and the incredible refinement of the gardens, all of that -
0:48:00 > 0:48:02but these are two-edged swords,
0:48:02 > 0:48:06and so, the other side of it is, that once Japan starts concreting,
0:48:06 > 0:48:07boy, will it concrete -
0:48:07 > 0:48:11and it can never stop until the last tiny little bit of roughness
0:48:11 > 0:48:12has been smoothed out.
0:48:15 > 0:48:18And there's another twist,
0:48:18 > 0:48:20which I think is part of this paradox
0:48:20 > 0:48:24of how could Japan be the land of aesthetic sensibility,
0:48:24 > 0:48:25which it still is,
0:48:25 > 0:48:29and large parts of it be as ugly as they are?
0:48:29 > 0:48:32And I think it's because of focus,
0:48:32 > 0:48:33and it's often been pointed out
0:48:33 > 0:48:38that the Japanese are capable of looking at the beautiful rice paddy
0:48:38 > 0:48:40and completely ignoring the big billboard
0:48:40 > 0:48:42that's stuck right in the middle of it.
0:48:52 > 0:48:55The thing about this Jurassic nature of Japan
0:48:55 > 0:48:58is that that was ancient Shinto.
0:48:58 > 0:49:02There was something mysterious, divine...
0:49:03 > 0:49:06That's where the Japanese saw the gods...
0:49:09 > 0:49:10..and what I've found,
0:49:10 > 0:49:13as I go around Japan talking and writing about these things,
0:49:13 > 0:49:16is an incredible response from the Japanese.
0:49:16 > 0:49:21That feeling is still within them, and I think that gives me hope,
0:49:21 > 0:49:25and I'm already starting to feel a bit of a shift.
0:49:25 > 0:49:28Japan is beginning, or the Japanese are now beginning,
0:49:28 > 0:49:31to look at their natural environment and think, "Wait a minute."
0:49:31 > 0:49:34So, there's something to be hopeful for.
0:49:45 > 0:49:48All cultures are contradictory - of course they are -
0:49:48 > 0:49:51but one of the most obvious contradictions here
0:49:51 > 0:49:54is in the Japanese people's relationship to their environment,
0:49:54 > 0:49:56because on the one hand,
0:49:56 > 0:49:58Japanese culture has, from the very beginning,
0:49:58 > 0:50:03been so sensitive to the beauty and fragility of nature,
0:50:03 > 0:50:04but on the other hand,
0:50:04 > 0:50:06one only has to travel around this country
0:50:06 > 0:50:09to see how much of the landscape has been scarred...
0:50:19 > 0:50:23..but even today, the great Shinto spirit still survives.
0:50:23 > 0:50:27I'm travelling to a place I've wanted to visit for a long time.
0:50:30 > 0:50:33Naoshima is a small island on the Seto Inland Sea
0:50:33 > 0:50:35in the south-west of Japan.
0:50:35 > 0:50:38It was originally inhabited only by fishermen,
0:50:38 > 0:50:41but now it has some very different residents.
0:50:46 > 0:50:49About 25 years ago, in the early 1990s,
0:50:49 > 0:50:54a Japanese educational publisher called the Benesse Corporation,
0:50:54 > 0:50:55together with other supporters,
0:50:55 > 0:51:00started transforming this small island into a centre of modern art.
0:51:02 > 0:51:05Naoshima is now home to dozens of museums,
0:51:05 > 0:51:07installations and art projects,
0:51:07 > 0:51:10and contemporary art from all over the world.
0:51:17 > 0:51:20There's a distinctly James Bond feel to the place...
0:51:24 > 0:51:25..But I've come to see a work
0:51:25 > 0:51:28in which ancient Shinto attitudes to nature
0:51:28 > 0:51:30have been brilliantly revived
0:51:30 > 0:51:34by the great Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43Sugimoto has long been inspired by nature.
0:51:46 > 0:51:47He is perhaps most famous
0:51:47 > 0:51:51for a series of photographs begun in 1980...
0:51:53 > 0:51:55..black and white images,
0:51:55 > 0:51:57all identical in form,
0:51:57 > 0:52:00of seas, skies and horizons
0:52:00 > 0:52:01from all over the world...
0:52:03 > 0:52:05..but though they are universal,
0:52:05 > 0:52:07they owe much to Japan.
0:52:10 > 0:52:14They remind me of the mythical ocean origins of the country...
0:52:17 > 0:52:21..the ambiguous inky brushstrokes of Zen painters...
0:52:22 > 0:52:27..and Hokusai's attempts to capture a single form in every possible way.
0:52:33 > 0:52:38What I want for the present is the consciousness of the human being
0:52:38 > 0:52:40at the very early stage.
0:52:40 > 0:52:47I was looking for some kind of image that I can share with early man,
0:52:47 > 0:52:50ancient people, and probably...
0:52:51 > 0:52:54..seascapes came to my mind,
0:52:54 > 0:52:57the sea. The land, we changed it,
0:52:57 > 0:53:02so we cannot see the land that the Stone Age people used to watch -
0:53:02 > 0:53:05but the seascape, might be we can share the same images.
0:53:13 > 0:53:17But on Naoshima, Sugimoto took on a quite different project.
0:53:20 > 0:53:22This is the Go'o Shrine.
0:53:22 > 0:53:26Inspired by Shintoism and Japan's ancient past,
0:53:26 > 0:53:29it is both an artwork and a sanctuary.
0:53:31 > 0:53:34There has been a shrine here since the 15th century,
0:53:34 > 0:53:38but it fell out of use in more recent times.
0:53:38 > 0:53:42In 2002, Sugimoto was commissioned to make an artwork on the site
0:53:42 > 0:53:45and decided to build a new kind of structure.
0:53:46 > 0:53:51I surprised myself that I received a kind of architecture commission.
0:53:51 > 0:53:57That made my life change. That wasn't...
0:53:57 > 0:53:59totally unexpected.
0:53:59 > 0:54:02I'm proud of my life, that I became an architect, now!
0:54:02 > 0:54:04HE CHUCKLES
0:54:06 > 0:54:10The design is based on buildings at Ise, in southern Japan,
0:54:10 > 0:54:12the holiest place in Shintoism.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17The Shintoism is not well organised.
0:54:17 > 0:54:19It's very hard to explain -
0:54:19 > 0:54:23and after the Buddhism came to Japan in the sixth century,
0:54:23 > 0:54:28only that time the people can write about coming...
0:54:28 > 0:54:31and think about coming, with language -
0:54:31 > 0:54:36but I think it's a very, very primitive stage of human mind...
0:54:37 > 0:54:41..but still valuable - we have to think backwards,
0:54:41 > 0:54:44how humans lived with nature
0:54:44 > 0:54:46for many, many thousands of years.
0:54:50 > 0:54:52Leading down from the small building,
0:54:52 > 0:54:56a set of glass steps descends straight into the ground
0:54:56 > 0:54:58to a hidden chamber below.
0:55:03 > 0:55:09Here, Sugimoto has created a space he feels evokes prehistoric Japan.
0:55:16 > 0:55:18It's so atmospheric down here,
0:55:18 > 0:55:21deep beneath the volcanic Japanese rock -
0:55:21 > 0:55:25and though this is a modern work of art by a modern artist,
0:55:25 > 0:55:29there is something consciously ancient about it,
0:55:29 > 0:55:32because this piece is inspired by the old Shinto idea
0:55:32 > 0:55:37that the world around us, even the ground on which we stand,
0:55:37 > 0:55:41is animated and energised by the sacred.
0:55:51 > 0:55:53We destroy so much nature,
0:55:53 > 0:55:55and now I think it's a turning point.
0:55:58 > 0:56:03So, what has to be studied again,
0:56:03 > 0:56:07the Shintoism kind of concept of spiritualism,
0:56:07 > 0:56:10how to live with nature.
0:56:10 > 0:56:14That's the message from Japanese Shintoism, I think.
0:56:36 > 0:56:39I am back to where I started...
0:56:40 > 0:56:42..in Japan's dense forests,
0:56:42 > 0:56:45the flicker of the spirits all around me.
0:56:47 > 0:56:49In the course of my journey,
0:56:49 > 0:56:52I have encountered a culture whose preoccupation with nature
0:56:52 > 0:56:55seems almost hard-wired,
0:56:55 > 0:56:58that sees the landscape as sacred
0:56:58 > 0:57:01and has painted and reshaped it for centuries -
0:57:01 > 0:57:05and though modern Japan doesn't always seem to value nature,
0:57:05 > 0:57:09nature has shaped its values,
0:57:09 > 0:57:13aesthetic principles so different from those of the West.
0:57:26 > 0:57:29It's often said that Japanese culture
0:57:29 > 0:57:31is all about harmony with nature,
0:57:31 > 0:57:33but that's not what I've seen.
0:57:33 > 0:57:35This landscape may be beautiful,
0:57:35 > 0:57:38but it's also unstable and dangerous,
0:57:38 > 0:57:40and that paradox, I think,
0:57:40 > 0:57:43is at the heart of Japanese interactions with nature.
0:57:43 > 0:57:48On the one hand, they celebrate it, they revere it, they mythologise it,
0:57:48 > 0:57:52but on the other hand, they possess an old yearning to tame it.
0:58:09 > 0:58:13In the next episode, I'll take a very different path through Japan...
0:58:14 > 0:58:17..a path through its greatest cities.
0:58:19 > 0:58:23It's a story marked by dramatic periods of destruction and renewal
0:58:23 > 0:58:25that unleashed new forms of creativity.
0:58:27 > 0:58:30I'll explore its ancient capital and its refined culture.
0:58:33 > 0:58:36I'll sample the energy of the emerging metropolis...
0:58:38 > 0:58:41..before delving into today's megacity,
0:58:41 > 0:58:46from its dark underbelly to its shimmering future.