Zeami (c. 1363-c. 1443) perfected Japanese Noh theater under the patronage of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, who saw him perform with his father Kan’ami at Imakumano in 1374. Together they established Yamato sarugaku as the supreme art of medieval Japan. Zeami’s treatises Fushikaden (“Style and Flower,” 1402) and Kakyo crystallized Noh as both performance and philosophy, with phrases like “What is hidden is the flower” entering Japanese aesthetics. After Yoshimitsu’s death in 1408, Zeami was progressively marginalized, and after the mysterious death of his son Motomasa in 1432, the harsh 6th shogun Yoshinori exiled him to Sado Island in 1434, at age 72. There he composed Kintosho, describing Sado in Noh-libretto style. Whether he returned to Kyoto after Yoshinori’s assassination in 1441 remains unknown.