Muromachi

The main hall of Kusabe Shrine in Sakai, Osaka, an early Muromachi building, is gabled at the front and hip-and-gable at the back, an Important Cultural Property.

Three main halls stand in a row at Kumata Jinja in Osaka. The Third Hall, built in 1513 in single-bay Kasuga style, ranks among the city's oldest wooden buildings.

At Kumata Shrine in Osaka's Hirano district, the central Second Hall is a three-bay nagare-zukuri building of 1513, among the city's oldest, dated by its ridge tags.

An early Muromachi refectory at Amanosan Kongoji in Kawachinagano, Osaka, used by Emperor Go-Murakami as a temporary palace from 1354, entered under a cusped gable.

An early Muromachi bell tower northeast of the main hall at Amanosan Kongoji in Kawachinagano, Osaka, its lower level wrapped in a flared hakamagoshi skirt.

The tahoto pagoda of Daiitokuji in Kishiwada, Osaka, built in 1515, is a delicate late Muromachi pagoda unusually placed behind the temple's main hall.

A mid-Muromachi sanctuary of three cypress-bark halls, one kasuga-zukuri and two nagare-zukuri, linked by corridors and designated in 1900; closed beyond the haiden.

Built in 1541, the main hall of Tajihayahime Shrine in Sakai carries carved struts and openwork brackets, among them a praying mantis on a banana plant.

Kongo-ji's National Treasure screens set a gold sun over spring hills and a silver moon over snowy pines. Explore this Muromachi masterpiece and its rare openings.

The National Treasure celadon vase 'Bansei', fired at Southern Song China's Longquan kilns, passed from an empress to a Kyoto temple before reaching Izumi, Osaka.

Osaka's Kyou Shooku library holds eleven Song-printed volumes of the Shiji jijie, the oldest Shiji commentary, a National Treasure once owned by Naito Konan.

Printed in Southern Song China in 1139, these 17 National Treasure volumes of the Maoshi zhengyi rest at Kyo-U Library in Osaka with Kanazawa Bunko seals.

The Tobiseiji Hanaike at the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, is a National Treasure regarded as the finest surviving example of Chinese Yuan-dynasty Longquan celadon with iron-spot decoration. Standing 27.3 cm tall in the elegant yuhuchun form, twenty-one iron spots dance across its jade-green glaze. Discover this masterpiece treasured in Japan for centuries through the Konoike merchants and the famed Ataka Collection.

Held by the Fujita Museum in Osaka, the National Treasure Saimon Shingetsu-zu (Brushwood Gate and the New Moon) is the oldest surviving Japanese poem-painting scroll with a confirmed date, inscribed Ōei 12 (1405). Inspired by a couplet of the Tang poet Du Fu, it carries a preface by the Zen monk Gyokuen Bonpō and poems by eighteen monks of Nanzen-ji and other Five Mountains temples. This guide explores the work itself, its place at the origin of Muromachi ink painting, what to look for in the scroll, and how to plan a visit to the Fujita Museum.

A herdboy rides his ox home through falling snow in Li Di's Returning Herd in Snow, a Southern Song National Treasure kept at Nara's Yamato Bunkakan museum.

The old main hall of Ono Oimatsu Tenmansha in Hita, Oita, built in 1488, is a sheltered three-bay nagare-style hall, a rare Muromachi survivor in Kyushu.

The main hall of Buzen Zenkoji in Usa, Oita: a mid-Muromachi hipped-roof building entered from its short end, protected nationally since 1907. Grounds open free.

Built in 1524 at Senpukuji in Kunisaki, Oita, this is the oldest Soto Zen Buddha hall in Japan and the only medieval example in Kyushu. Rethatched in 2007.

A stone five-tiered pagoda at Kutsukake in Kitsuki, Oita, 4.11 m high. A 1968 repair uncovered an inscription of 1339, and it was designated nationally in 1954.

The three-storey pagoda of Shinano Kokubunji in Ueda, Nagano, a mid-Muromachi tower mainly in the Japanese style, rises among village houses with curving eaves.