It was a period of some forty yeras, beginning with the collapse of the Ashikaga Shogunate and ending with the downfall of the House of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Short as it was, it played an important role in the history of Japanese art. Great masters such as Eitoku and Sanraku flourished in this period. They adorned the rooms of castles and palaces with gorgeous wall and screen paintings. In their impasing effects these paintings are unique in the history of Japanese art.
Some historians suggest that they reflect the ardent spirit of the warrios who ruled the land.
They were just what people wanted as that time, since it was a time of national prosperity and expansion. It was in the Momoyama period that Toyotomi Hideyoshi made an imperialistic expedition to Korea, and further an opening of the trade with Europe helped to increase the wealth of the country, while the producion of gold reached its higest point. It is true that wall and screen paintings were already in vogue in the Fujiwara period, but they were painted so gracefully that we cannot look upon them as the stylistic precursor of the vigorous art of the Momoyama period. However, we know that in some picture-scrolls later than the Kamakura period, there are depicted sliding screens where the tender and the graceful gave way to the grand and the vigorous. The above considerations make it possible to assume that the germ of the Momoyama art had already sprouted in Ashikaga period.