Artworks

Five-storied pagoda, Murōji

Artwork · Anonymous · 767–833 · building · Murō-ji Temple

The oldest building of Murōji, a mountain temple south-east of Nara founded in the late eighth century by the monk Kenkyō from Kōfukuji at a place sacred for its dragon spirit and its rocks and streams. Extraordinarily slender and about half the height of most pagodas, it fits easily into the mountain setting; the cypress-bark roofs give it a more informal look than tile. Severely damaged in a typhoon in the late 1990s and since restored. 1 Mason 2005, p. 135, fig. 162. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.