High Middle Ages · East Asia · Culture

1212

Kamo no Chomei writes Hojoki

1212

A Japanese courtier turned Buddhist hermit composed his Account of My Hut, a slender masterpiece of reclusive literature reflecting on fire, famine, earthquake, and the impermanence of all worldly things. Written in a ten-foot-square hut in the Kyoto hills, it became a touchstone of Japanese aesthetics. Its spare prose anticipated the wabi-sabi sensibility that would later define Japanese art and architecture.