Artwork Description:
Signed by Asbjorn Lonvig.
Kinkaku-ji, literally Temple of the Golden Pavilion, or formally Rokuon-ji, Deer Garden Temple is a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan.
The original Kinkaku-ji was built in 1397 to serve as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, as part of his estate then known as Kitayama. It was his son who converted the building into a Zen temple of the Rinzai school.
The temple was burned down twice during the Onin War.
On July 2, 1950, at 2:30 am, the pavilion was burned down by a monk, who then attempted suicide on a hill behind the building. He survived, and was subsequently taken into custody. During the investigation after the monk's arrest, his mother was called in to talk with the police; on her way home, she committed suicide by jumping from her train into a river valley. The monk was sentenced to seven years in prison, but was released because of mental illness on September 29th, 1955; he died of other illnesses shortly after in 1956. During the fire, the original statue of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu was lost to the flames (now restored).
The present structure dates from 1955. In 1984, the coating of Japanese lacquer was found a little decayed, and a new coating as well as gilding with gold-leaf, much thicker than the original coatings (5/10,000mm instead of 1/10,000mm), was completed in 1987.