  Sesshū Tōyō (雪舟等楊, 1420–1506) was a towering figure of the Japanese art world who helped initiate an indigenous artistic tradition at a time when philosophic-religious practices were going beyond their Chinese influence, as Chan Buddhism gave rise to Zen Buddhism in Japan. Sesshū was part of a trajectory of many centuries to establish Japanese forms of Buddhism as an enduring feature of the country’s religious, philosophic, and aesthetic identity. During his life, Zen was reaching prominence as a religious discipline, as were the related arts under Ashikaga patronage. The Muromachi Period was the time of Zen aesthetics: not only monochrome ink painting, but all Japanese aesthetic practices (geidō) including calligraphy, tea ceremony, Nō drama, and dry landscape gardening flourished as expressions of the Zen, especially Rinzai Zen, spirit of the time. During this period, a shift was underway in the painting world from kara-e (唐絵 “Chinese painting”) to yamato-e (大和絵 “Japanese painting”). Representations of deities for devotional purposes, and paintings of Daoist and Buddhist themes (dōshakuga) were being supplanted as the heart of art practice as Japan saw its first movements towards initiating an art tradition seeking purely aesthetic ideals. Landscape painting was central to that movement.