In the interior of these temple complexes, specially the halls and chapels, a substantial amount of Buddhist art was commissioned. We can also see sculptures representing various Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and guardian deities in these temples. Prime among them is the shaka Trinity, a sculpture housed at Horyuji. Yamato-e depicts the scenery around Kyoto, and its earliest examples are seen on sliding and folding screens. In the late twelfth century, although power shifted remarkably from the nobility to the samurai class, the nobility, as well as the administrators of temples and shrines, continued to retain great wealth and remained as patrons of various genres of art.
Realism is most manifest in the form of sculpture.
Zen Buddhism, which spread in the thirteenth century, introduced architecture and artistic works significantly different from those of other sects. In the fourteenth century, scroll painting largely gave way to ink painting, which took root in the prominent Zen monasteries of Kamakura and Kyoto. By the end of the 1400s, Zen painters and their patrons in Kyoto had developed a preference for monochrome landscape painting, called suibokuga. Among those Zen painters was Sesshu, a priest who went to China and studied Chinese paintings. Painting in the late sixteenth century was dominated by the Kano school, which enjoyed the backing of powerful sovereigns such as Oda Nobunaga.