f Nara period sculpture. Unkei had begun his career working in his father's shop in Kyoto and, when Kokei was assigned to work at the Kofuku-ji, Unkei was his assistant. After a brief period spent in Kamakura with his uncle Seicho, who was then the leader of the Nara sculptors, Unkei returned to Nara and spent most of the rest of his life working on the restoration projects there. The influence of Nara realism of the eighth century is clear in works such as Kokei's Six Monks, but the somewhat rigid arrangements of drapery, and the smoothing out and idealizing of features common to Nara sculpture begins to be replaced by a more direct, relaxed naturalism in Kokei's work.
Second, several Buddhist sects, especially the Zen group, revitalized Japanese Buddhism. This change was conducive to innovations in the arts. While the arts of the late Fujiwara era had accommodated the obscure doctrines favored by the sects that catered to the aristocracy, the newer sects directed their message toward the common people and the warrior class. This change "encouraged more readily understandable symbols of the faith," and this had an enormous effect on the arts (Mori 105). Zen Buddhism discouraged any preoccupation with religious apparatus "that might come between man and his identity with god" (Warner 31). But, because the message of Zen was carried by its clergy, "much was made of the direct and communicable personality of its leaders" (Warner 32).
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