Ashikaga Yoshimasa
The rhymeprose essay, "Rhymeprose on a Miniature Landscape Garden", written around 1300 by the Japanese Zen monk Kokan Shiren, outlines the aesthetic principles for bonseki and garden architecture itself. Under the aesthetically minded Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1443–1490), Bonseki became popular among members of the aristocracy. A century later, Sen no Rikyū, the famed master of the tea ceremony, practised Bonseki and one of his students, Hosokawa Sansai, set up a school dedicated to Bonseki with established techniques. The Edo period (1603–1867) saw many Bonseki schools set up as it gained in popularity. Bonseki was particularly popular with many ladies of the Shogunate court in old Tokyo.