Page 175 - JAPAN THE SHAPING OFDAIMYO CULTURE 1185-1868

that extends through the middle sections'
of the first four scrolls from the right, and
a Buddhist temple said to be Seikenji, in
the bottom section of the last scroll on the
left. Behind the pine grove stretches the
mist-filled Suruga Bay, which merges with
the sky above the horizon.
Since the Heian period, meisho, or fa-
mous sites, have been used as both literary
and pictorial themes. The earliest extant
view of Miho no Matsubara dates from the
late thirteenth century. Because most
views of this site would include Mount
Fuji either alongside the pine grove or be-
hind it, it is generally thought that this
work originally must have been accompa-
nied by another screen, now lost, repre-
senting the sacred mountain.
The painting is unsigned and without
seals, but has traditionally been attributed
to Nôami (1397-1471), a distinguished renga
(linked verse) poet, connoisseur of art, ad-
visor to the Ashikaga shogunate in cultural
affairs, and painter. Only one painting, a
White-Robed Kannon (private collection,
Japan), is firmly accepted as by Nóami. De-
spite its evocative ink washes and gener-
ally soft brushwork, reflecting the style
associated with the Ami school of painters
around Nôami, his son Geiami (1431-1485),
and grandson Sóami (d. 1525), this work
cannot be attributed to Nôami on either
stylistic or documentary grounds. How-
ever, Sóami's remarkable ink painting
Eight Views of Xiao and Xiang, 1513, on
sliding door panels at Daisen'in in Kyoto,
is the stylistic source of this view of Miho
no Matsubara. Seikenji, a walled Buddhist
temple complex, is visible in the lower left
corner, buried in thick mist and sur-
rounded by-trees; it has been borrowed
from Sôami's Evening Bells from a Temple
in Mist, one of the Eight Views mentioned
above. The scalloped forms of the floating
distant clouds, painted in gold, also have
a precedent in the Daisen'in panels.
The painting thus must postdate Sóami;
a mid-sixteenth-century date is a likely
possibility. YS

99 Budai
Zhiweng Ruojing (fl. mid-i3th century)
hanging scroll; ink on paper
1
91.8 X 29.0 (30 /8 X 113/8)
Southern Song, c. 1256-1263
Umezawa Kinenkan, Tokyo
Important Cultural Property

Budai (J: Hotei) is a semi-legendary figure
from the pantheon of Zen Buddhist saints
and sages. The artist of this work is Zhi-
weng Ruojing, whose two seals appear at
the lower left. Although unrecorded in
Chinese painting history, Zhiweng is
known in Japan through a handful of
paintings of Zen Buddhist subjects dated
in the mid-thirteenth century. In this
painting Budai is depicted without a back- 99

162