Zen in Medieval Japan: Paintings etc

choi

Lee Lawrence, A Contemplation of Zen That Surprises; This show of Japanese world at the Freer Gallery upends stereotypes. Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2022 at page A13.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/min ... ui-soen-11652294311

Excerpt in the window of print: One ink portrait by an unidentified monk, for example, captures a violent intensity.

Note:
(a)
(i) The following are Chinese pronunciations of respective kanji: 良 (ryō; the pronunciation of ra, as in Nara 奈良県奈良市 is neither Chinese nor Japanese pronunciation but appears in names only), 雪 (setsu), 舟 (shū), 雲 (un), 谷 (koku; Japanese pronunciation: tani), 等 (tō), 益 (eki), 村 (son (pronounced similar to song, not son, both being English words); Japanese pronunciation: mura), 佐 (sa), 平 (hei), 蔵 (zō).

In comparison, 竹 (take) is Japanese pronunciation.
(ii) One should not believe every word of a reviewer. I, for one, disagree with her view (Lee Lawrence is a woman) on portrait by Ryōzen as well one about Linji Yixuan.

(b)
(i) This is an exhibition review on "Mind Over Matter: Zen in Medieval Japan." Freer Gallery, Mar 5-July 24, 2022.
https://asia.si.edu/exhibition/m ... -in-medieval-japan/
("Monastic Zen painting in medieval Japan (ca. 1200–1600) is one of the great artistic traditions of East Asia and of the world. The abbreviated, seemingly impromptu paintings in monochrome ink have influenced artists and enthusiasts for centuries. Many of the most accomplished artists of this era—Mokuan, Ryōzen, Shūbun, Sesshū, Sesson, and many others—were Zen monks credited by later generations as the creators of a unique and remarkable legacy of ink painting. Indeed, Zen monk-painters inspired a number of the most important professional painting lineages of Japan's early modern period (ca 1600–1868) and formed a thematic backbone of Japanese art and cultural identity in modern times")

Quote:

• "Monastic Zen painting in medieval Japan (ca. 1200–1600) is one of the great artistic traditions of East Asia and of the world. The abbreviated, seemingly impromptu paintings in monochrome ink have influenced artists and enthusiasts for centuries. Many of the most accomplished artists of this era—Mokuan, Ryōzen, Shūbun, Sesshū, Sesson, and many others—were Zen monks credited by later generations as the creators of a unique and remarkable legacy of ink painting. Indeed, Zen monk-painters inspired a number of the most important professional painting lineages of Japan’s early modern period (ca. 1600–1868) and formed a thematic backbone of Japanese art and cultural identity in modern times.

• "To learn more about some of the key aspects of Zen, an online interactive experience Voices of Zen: Contemporary Voices will accompany the exhibition. High school students from Washington, DC, award-winning koto [琴 (same as 箏 in Chinese)] musician Yumi Kurosawa, Zen priest Reverend Inryū Bobbi Poncé-Barger, and curator Frank Feltens offer their modern-day perspectives on three important medieval Japanese works.

"The interactive features three artworks from the exhibition—a splashed-ink [溌墨] landscape by the sixteenth-century artist Sōen, dynamic calligraphy by the rebellious monk Ikkyū, and an early sixteenth-century tea bowl fixed using kintsugi repair.

(A) Rev Inryū Bobbi Poncé-Barger, Sensei – Shinchi Inryū 身知 隱竜.
https://www.shinchiinryu.org
(B) Voices of Zen: Contemporary Voices
https://asia.si.edu/interactives/mind-over-matter/
• Sometimes it takes a while to load when one click taps in this Web page.
• Click "Landscape" tap. In the new page, click "about this object" in the lower right corner.

Sōen, Landscape.
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1998.19a-g/
• "Calligraphy":
Ikkyū Sōjun 一休宗純, Bo Juyi Questions Zen Master Bird Nest [白居易問鳥巢和尚].
https://asia.si.edu/object/F2019.3.7a-g/

Ikkyū
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikkyū

The ja.wikipedia.org says "一休は道号" (not surname).
• "Tea Bowl":
Seto or Mino ware tea bowl. Freer Gallery, undated.
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1900.53/

Seto ware 瀬戸焼 ([rpoduced in and around 愛知県 (capital: Nagoya) 瀬戸市)

Mino ware 美濃焼 (produced in (ancient) Mino Province 美濃国.

kintsugi  金継ぎ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi

(ii) Freer Gallery of Art
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freer_Gallery_of_Art
("The Freer and the Arthur M Sackler Gallery together form the Smithsonian's national museums of Asian art in the United States. The Freer and Sackler galleries house the largest Asian art research library in the country and contain art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt, as well as a significant collection of American art")


(c)
(i) Ryōzen  良暹 ("生没年不詳" ja.wikipedia.org; "flourished c 998—1064" en.wikipedia.org)
(A) Freer Gallery has a set of 16 arhats with accession numbers from F1904.295 to F1904.311 -- all by Ryōzen (except otherwise indicated, as in F1904.309).
• F1904.295         Arhat (Pindola-Bharadvaja)                Medium[:] "Ink and color on silk"
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.295/
• F1904.296        Arhat (Kiyataka Hasha Sonja)
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.296/
• F1904.297        Buddhist Luohan (one of a set of sixteen)
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.297/
• F1904.298         Arhat (Subinda), one of a set of sixteen
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.298/
• F1904.301        The Arhat Kalika (Karika Sunja)
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.301/
• F1904.302        Arhat (Hottara Sonja – Vajraputra) (One of a set with F1904.295 through F1904.311)        Medium[:] "Ink and color on silk"
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.302/
("This painting comes from a set that depicts the sixteen arhats (rakan in Japanese) who were the original followers of the Buddha in India.  The arhats have attained enlightenment, which has freed them from continuous cycles of birth and rebirth; they remain in the world to protect the Buddhist Law.  For special ceremonies, a painting of the Buddha was displayed at the center of two ranks of eight paintings or arhats.  The arhats shown here are accompanied by a tiger and a dragon, animals that, in East Asian Buddhism, represent cosmic polarities that can be overcome through Buddhist meditation and practice")

This painting has dragon only. The reason that I went through most of the set of 16 was to look for tiger, which is F1904.301.
• F1904.303         Arhat
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.303/
• F1904.304         Arhat
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.304/
• F1904.305         Arhat
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.305/
("This painting comes from a set of seventeen, depicting sixteen arhats and the historical Buddha")
• F1904.307        Arhat (Sonja), one of a set of sixteen
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.307/
• F1904.307        Arhat (Sonja), one of a set of sixteen
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.308/
• F1904.309        Arhat (Ashita Sonja – Ajita) seated (one of a set of sixteen)
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.309/
   ^ Compare Ajita Sonja, the 15th Arhat (copy after Ryozen, F1904.309)        "Artist: SHIBATA Zeshin 柴田 是真 (1807-1891) Copy after Ryōzen"
   https://asia.si.edu/object/F2012.5a-e/
• F1904.310        Arhat (Panthaka)
https://www.si.edu/object/fsg_F1904.310
• F1904.311        Arhat (Shaka), one of a set of sixteen
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.311/
(ii) Hu zhifu 胡直夫 [元朝], Sakyamuni Emerging from the Mountains.
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1965.9a-g/
(iii) painting by an unidentified monk:

Lin-chih, a patrician of the Dhyana sect. Freer Gallery, undated
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1905.269/  
("Inscription [refers top calligraphy atop the painting]: ITTO Shoteki [一凍 紹滴] (1533-1606) Sitter: Lin-chi (died 867l; On View Location  Freer Gallery 07: Mind Over Matter: Zen in Medieval Japan)
(A) A Chinese of Yuan Dynasty, 臨済 義玄 (which are kanji) was founder of 臨済宗 of Chan/ Zen.
(B) dhyāna in Buddhism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhyāna_in_Buddhism
("In Buddhist traditions of Chán and Zen (the names of which are, respectively, the Chinese and Japanese pronunciations of [Sanskrit] dhyāna"/ section 1 Etymology)

The dhyāna in the title is italicized because it is a loan word.
(iv) Sekkyakushi [赤脚子 (fl. early 15c)], Boy on a water buffalohttps://asia.si.edu/object/F1966.16/


(d)
(i) Sesshū Tōyō 雪舟 等楊 (1420 – 1506; "His family name was Oda 小田, but his original [given] name is unknown. He received the name Tōyō in 1431, when he was enrolled at the Hōfuku-ji 宝福寺, a Zen temple in [present-day (岡山県)] Sōja 総社(市)."  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesshū_Tōyō
(A) The ja.wikipedoia.org says, "「雪舟」は号."
(B) Category:Hōfuku-ji (Sōja)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hōfuku-ji_(Sōja)
(Iyama Hōfuku-ji)
, which (quotation) is 井山 宝福寺. 井山 is 山号: "寺院が所在する山の名称を付けている場合" (my translatiomn: the name of the mountain where the temple is on, that affixes to a temple). ja.wikipedia.org for 山号, which also says that 山号 n Japan came from convention in China, which is/ was not found in 南伝仏教 Theravada Buddhism (such as India, Sri Lanka or Thailand), and that "中国では六朝時代を経て隋代・唐代に仏教が普及し、同名の寺院が各地に建立されるようになって区別に難儀したため、その寺院が所在する地域の名称を付けて区別するようになった。" (my translation: in 六朝時代, 隋代 and 唐代, Buddhism spread in China; temples of same names were distinguished by attaching the names neighborhood where temples were in to temple names).
(ii) "In 'Autumn and Winter Landscape' by Sesson Shūkei (c 1492-1577)"  
(A) Sesson Shūkei  雪村 周継
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesson_Shukei  
(born SATAKE Heizō 佐竹 平蔵)
(B) Landscape. Seasons: autumn and winter. National Museum of Asian Arts, undated
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1966.3/
(for year of painting, only "HISTORICAL PERIOD(S) Muromachi period, 16th century")
(C) The name suggests there is a painting of his titled Spring and Summer Landscape (in English) but I failed to find such.

However, there is a pair in Japanese title:
雪村周継「四季山水図屏風」特別展示. (福島県)郡山市立美術館, Dec 17, 2016 -- Jan 15, 2017
https://www.gurutto-koriyama.com/detail/298/news/news-35591.html
(table: 16世紀後半, 紙本墨画（六曲一双）各150.2×341.8cm / "右から順に四季の風景"  my translation: starting from tge right pif two 屏風, in the order of four seasons' scenery/ landscape 風景)
but I do not know how the pair in Japanese fits into the Freer collection of Autumn and Winter Landscape, except difference in medium (one is 屏風 and the other 墨画).

For 六曲一双, see 【美検 [short for 美術検定2級]】六曲一双って何？屏風を数える曲・隻・双の解説.
https://theory-of-art.blog.jp/archives/22980670.html
(一双は二隻です。[屏風: 一双 = 二隻];
"「曲」は曲がった面の数、つまり全体の形を見て、いくつ曲がっているかを示す単位。「扇」は最小単位の面の数そのものなので、着眼点が違うのです" (my translation: 曲 = 扇, but 着眼点 viewpoint/ perspective are different: 曲 is when seeing 屏風 as a whole and count how many bends it has, whereas 扇 is when counting 面);
examples: 二曲一隻, 四曲一隻, 六曲一隻, 二曲一双, 四曲一双, 六曲一双)

Same as in Chinese, in Japanese 一双 = 一対, and 隻 is used to count birds and vessels (boats/ ships). (In English, a vessel is any floating device, including barge, raft, kayak, canoe etc).
(iii) "UNKOKU Tōeki 雲谷 等益 (1591-1644; 雲谷 等顔 (画派 雲谷派 開祖) の次男) * * * 'Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers' "
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.355/


(e)
(i) Geiai 藝愛, Willows and birds.
https://asia.si.edu/object/F1963.2/
(ii) JOSUI Sōen  如水 宗淵  (See Note(a)(i)(B) above.)

choi

This posting is about Chinese culture, in simplified Chinese. For my own satisfaction (as it is quite familiar to you, not not to me).

(1) The arhats is Sanskrit, which in Chinese is 阿罗汉 or 罗汉 and in Japanese is 阿羅漢 (pronounced arakan) or 羅漢 (rakan).
(a) "十六罗汉（或称十六阿罗汉、十六尊者）是释迦牟尼的得道弟子。十六罗汉的名字早有佛经所载。后来十六罗汉传入中国后，约于唐末至五代十国时期演变为十八罗汉。"  zh.wikipedi.org.
"藏传佛教主要是讲十六罗汉"  zh.wikipedi.org
(b) F1904.302                Arhat ([name of this arhat:] Hottara Sonja – Vajraputra)  "The arhats shown here are accompanied by a tiger and a dragon, animals that, in East Asian Buddhism, represent cosmic polarities that can be overcome through Buddhist meditation and practice."

Does the quotation reference 四象
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/四象
(section 1 中国, section 1.2 天文学: "在中国天文学中，指青龙、白虎、朱雀和玄武为四大神兽，分别代表东西南北四个方向"

(1) 潇湘八景
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/潇湘八景
has a map, which is the best but still somewhat fuzzy – the simplified Chinese is out of focus. But online I fail to find a better map, as all others are even worse, more out of focus.
Flowing straight north up to 永州市, 潇水 is upstream of 湘江.

choi

—--------------WSJ text
From the upper reaches of a hanging scroll, a dragon swoops down to rest its head on the lap of a haloed man, pinned into submission by the man’s stare. Time has muted the pigments, but a close look reveals flames bursting along the dragon’s spine, while gilded motifs edge the sitter’s robe and a deep-blue lining peeks through its folds. This 14th-century depiction of an enlightened arhat subduing the cosmic forces of a dragon is not what you might expect to see in a show about Zen Buddhism. In the U.S. today, Zen more typically conjures images of rock gardens with meticulously raked pebbles or ink circles drawn in a single brushstroke lasting the length of a breath.

No such works feature in "Mind Over Matter: Zen in Medieval Japan" at the Freer Gallery of Art, part of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art. Instead, the show's curators -- Frank Feltens, the museum's associate curator of Japanese art, and Yukio Lippit [who looks like a man with mixed white and Japanese descent; In Japan, his name was spelled in katakana], who teaches at Harvard University -- use the museum's impressive collection to upend current stereotypes and illustrate the impact Zen had on Japan's art and culture.

The show focuses on the 13th to early 17th centuries, when the chan (or meditation) school took root and its approach to Buddhism flourished in Japan as Zen. While depictions of arhats other semi-devine beings attest to the fact that traditionally revered Buddhist figures persisted, a dozen or so works highlight some of Zen's distinctiveness. In a 13th-century portrait attributed to the Chinese monkl Hu Zhifu, for example, am an displays the marks of enlightenment: the small circle on his forehead, hair in tight curls, the protrusion at the apex of the skull. But the newly enlightened Buddha is not sitting under a bodhi tree, as tradition has it, He stands clad in a simple cloth, bony and so unkempt that his toenails curve to the ground like claws. His eyes are not lowered; as he leans forward, they squint as though to grasp the full measure of what he is seeing, which is nothing less than [an idiom that is followed by an adjective or a noun] the the true nature of reality.

Anyone, Zen adherents believe, can experience enlightenment suddenly and unexpectedly, and portraits here range from serious abbots to flagrant rule-breakers. The selection of paintings also gives us a sense of variety among Zen practices. The ink portrait of Linji Yixuan by an unidentified 15th- or 16th-century Japanese monk captures the sometimes violent intensity of the Rinzai [pronunciation of in Japan, both kanji in Chinese pronunciations; recall that Japanese romanization has letter r, not l; also recall 経済 (pay attention to 済)  is pronounced keizai, where ei signifies a long vowel of ke] sect's approach. It depicts the ninth-century Chinese patriarch sitting in a meditation that is anything but peaceful: Hands clamp into fists, mouth stretches over bared teeth, forehead creases. By contrast, a charming early 15thcentury ink painting by Sekkyakushi suggests a gentler approach: A boy astride a water buffalo appears to be steering a beast that is as wayward as the mind -- not by yanking on the reins, but with a gentle prod.

The inaugural show of "The Arts of Devotion," a series of four exhibition that will explore the intersection of religion and art, "Mind Over Matter" (which is to say Mind Over Matter is the first of four exhibitions billed as The Arts of Devotion)achieves a good balance. Cases with ceramics and lacquer wares show that Zen also introduced more worldly predilections. One was tea drinking, which spurred the creation of tea accessories and, over time, gave rise to the tea ceremony. Another was the art of Chinese ink painting. Monks acquired works they kept in monasteries, copying and adapting their compositions and brushstrokes.

Particularly cherished were scholar-artists' landscapes. In one gallery, five-and six-foot-tall landscapes stretch across six-panel screens, illustrating how Japanese monks moved the ink tradition forward. In painting attributed to Sesshū Tōyō (1420-c 1506), for instance, broken lines, dashes and washes texture [a verb here] a rocky peninsula. In 'Autumn and Winter Landscape' by Sesson Shūkei (c 1492-1577), long brushstrokes form boulders that variously arc, plummet and cascade, as waves, rushing up against the shoreline, splintering into curling tendrils. In contrast, Ukoku Toeki (1591-1644) imbued mountains with the softness of clouds in "Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers."  

Elsewhere in the show, Ikkyū Sōjun (1394-1481) brings to life in calligraphy eth tone and emotions of a conversation he recounts between a Zen master known as Bird Nestand a governor; the fluid brushstrokes of 15th-century monk painter Geiai turns a willow tree with birds into a soothing vision; and borrowing a splashed-ink technique from earlier Chinese painters, Josui Soen [sic; elsewhere the review uses correct romanization, so it is unclear why Sōen is not used here] merges controlled strokes and accidental drips into an abstracted scene (aksi 15th century) of a hut tucked into the base of a mountain, the perfect place for a meditation retreat.

Soen's is also one of the works about which curators included outside perspectives, among them the personal reflections of Inryū Bobbi Poncé-Barger, a Zen teacher in Washington, and the reactions of a high school student. The latter had not associated Zeb with a minimalist aesthetic, thereby proving that even stereotypes are not universal; and the former, a female Zen Priest, underscores a central premise of the show and of Buddhism itself: impermanence and change.