"Blue Roofs on Japanese Temples?" Topic

Is there any significance to the color of most temple roofs being blue? Stealing some ideas from other builders, I am going to try to scratch build a temple. But why are most of the roofs on castles and temples blue during the medieval period?

Blue, green, red etc colored roofs are still very common in Japan for homes and buildings today. Not surre there is any reason other than they look good. My wife is Japanese, so I will ask tonight and let you know if there is any meaning.

Jeff

I have the Osprey Japanese Fortified Temples & Monastaeries book & most of the color artwork seems to have the roofs in a medium blue-grey. Not sure if this is supposed to be the actual color or the representation of it. The color photos show most of the roofs in black or natural wood color. But, of course these are probably reconstructions, or repaired roofs. In most of the period artwork I've seen, the roofs appear to be colored the same; i.e. bluish-grey, black, or natural wood. It might be a representation of black. I'd go with a blue shade. v/r, Dean

tigrifsgt,

I talked with my wife about this and she agreed with DeanMoto that most of the temples, especially the major ones have dark color roofs. They can be either wood or occasionally ceramic, but in most cases they will be dark gray or black. Some of the newer shrines are flashier and have more color, but the old ones are a lot darker.

Residential dwellings are far different with many people choosing colorful ceramic tiles that set the building off, so there are a lot of Green and Blue roofs along with the more mundane colors. Also, I will point out that my wife is a history professor with more than 10 years teaching and right now finishing her Doctorate program, so she does have some background in this area. If I can survive editing her Dissertation on Intellectual Thought during the Meiji Era, I will be very happy!

Best of luck,

Jeff

Most of the temples I visited in Japan had dark roof tiles -most were ceramic, and darker colored with a black/blue/brown color – I've seen some with colored roof tiles, but not many.

Just a semi-facetious and totally off-topic point: Isn't all thought, sort of by definition, 'intellectual?'

best of luck on the dissertation and the editing, though. I need to get back to school.

Just a semi-facetious and totally off-topic point: Isn't all thought, sort of by definition, 'intellectual?' wink – JWOMACK94

Granted. This deals a lot with case studies of some of the predominant intellectuals of the period and how their books, articles, speeches etc. influenced the Japanese way of viewing the Western world and what impact those changes made on their ability to adapt in a manner that allowed them to stand up to the European colonialists while the rest of Asia fell under foreign domination. She has been working hard to make sure every paper she has had to write for one of her courses can be used as a section of her dissertation, so she has the vast majority of it already written. She needs a few more case studies and then some work to add transitions and more analysis, but she is WELL ahead of the game of most students that take years to get their degrees after finishing their course work. She should have it all completed within a year and a half, so that will work out very well. Just in time for her tenure review at the University where she works.

Jeff

Jeff,

the darker older shrines can be attributed to a progressive darkening on the color, or they were darker from start?

If you are talking wood, I would assume they would likely get darker over time depending on what is used as a preservitive. Dark tile should not change too much over time and I would imigine it was intentionally dark.

My wife is not around to ask . . . . .

Jeff

I will wait for a full reply later on… My idea come from the fact that the majority of natural hues (the ones from vegetal products) used had the tendency to darken with hair contact. Greek pottery keep color beacuse more often than not the color were "cooked" (sorry I do not known a better term in english, when I was working in that field we didn't use english too much) with the vase, but in the instances where added after the cooking of the vase (like in some apulian or campanian copies in later hellenistic period) the brighter colors tend to fade or darken (ok we are talking of a different tim period, but still of natural colors…). Still in Italy we have a lot of tile made roofs. When they are shiny new they are bright red, after some years they tend to become duller and darker.

now the question is… the roof tiles were painted before cooking or were painted with minaeral based colors? Also how frequently they were changed?

(questions for Jeff's wife I suppose!)

Arrigo (who is constantly toying with the idea of doing some Japanese 28mm scenery… sooner or later).

PS:
And best wishes for your wife's Doctorate… started mine in january and already panicking! (and I am even writing in foreign language… me silly!)

And best wishes for your wife's Doctorate… started mine in january and already panicking! (and I am even writing in foreign language… me silly!)

My wife is Japanses and has done all her undergrad and graduate work in English. She has done a lot of work to get where she is working in English rather than Japanese.

I will see if she can answer the question about original colors and let you guys know.

Jeff

I'll have to dig up the reference, but there is at least one archaeological journal article on the beginnings of tile manufacturing in Japan, when Buddhism was introduced and Buddhist temples were first established there.

That was in the 8th or 9th centuries, so much could have changed since, but Japanese tiles were, apparently, inspired by Korean or Chinese tiles.

What in Japan in the 8th and 9th century was NOT inspired by Korea and China? ;)

Here is the reference, and it looks as though tiles were introduced slightly earlier. Regardless, the origins of Japanese tile manufacture may provide some clues about default tile colours.

Early Buddhist Temples in Japan: Roof-Tile Manufacture and the Social Basis of Temple Construction
Yamamoto Tadanao and Walter Edwards
World Archaeology, Vol. 27, No. 2, Buddhist Archaeology (Oct., 1995), pp. 336-353