Hanshan and Shide are a pair of individuals associated with Chan, or Zen, Buddhism who lived on Mount Tiantai in China around the 700s to early 800s. In Japan, their names are read Kanzan and Jittoku. Hanshan, whose name means “Cold Mountain,” was a monk-poet, shown reading out from a scroll of his poetry in this work. His close friend Shide, or “Foundling,” was a temple’s custodian. Here, Shide listens intently to Hanshan’s verses, his brush broom behind him.
View the original at Cleveland Museum of Art →It protects not the buildings but the setting that holds them. Article 2 defines historic landscape as land where structures and remains of historical significance form a single whole with the surrounding natural environment, which is the legal way of saying the hills, the approaches and the sightlines. The ancient capitals are Kyoto, Nara and Kamakura, plus any other municipality added by Cabinet Order. The Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism designates a preservation area; city planning then carves a Special Preservation District over its core, and inside that district an owner needs permission from the prefectural governor to build, to fell timber, or to change the shape of the ground.
The cool part. It legislates the view, and then it pays for it. Article 10 requires the prefecture to compensate an owner who suffers loss because permission was refused. Article 12 goes further: where refusal seriously impairs the use of the land, the owner can require the prefecture to buy it, at market value. So the state does not merely tell you what the horizon behind a temple may look like. It agrees to purchase the land rather than let the skyline change. Two more things worth knowing. The prefecture must physically sign the district boundary, and a landowner may not obstruct the sign without just cause. And the ministry holding the pen is Transport, not Culture.
Verify at e-Gov 法令検索 →Use it Palette for a single-colour run: one ink, heavy stock, nothing else on the sheet.
Description source: museum curator text — not generated