Page 91 - Designing_Nature_The_Rinpa_Aesthetic_in_Japanese_Art Metropolitan Museum PUB

Japanese art — draw on a tradition established in the fourteenth century by
Chinese painters such as Mu Qi (ca. 1200–1270) and by the Japanese monk-painters
who either went to China or were directly inspired by continental models.

Among the latter masters are Mokuan, Sesshū, and Sesson, whose economic
yet suggestive brushwork reflected the tastes of Zen monasteries and provided a
model for the innovations of the Sōtatsu studio. Sōtatsu’s own Four Sleepers

(cat. 24), for example, depicts a group of well-known Zen personages: Kanzan
and Jittoku (Ch: Hanshan and Shide), the madcap Tang dynasty poet and his loyal
friend, together with Bukan (Ch: Fenggan), the monk who was their master and
who is shown sleeping alongside his pet tiger. The painting gives the impression
that instead of aloof holy men, the four are accessible, auspicious characters who

are relaxed and in harmony with nature. The tiger, also seen in a leaf from a
Kōrin painting album (cat. 25), similarly appears to be not ferocious but an animal
with a playful, kittenlike disposition.

Ogata Kōrin carried on this tradition in his jubilant image of the monk Hotei,
rendered in impeccable ink outline (cat. 26). Hotei, who had his beginnings in
China as the Chan (Zen) monk Budai, is often depicted pointing at an unseen
moon, representing the religious goal of satori, or enlightenment. When he
reached Japanese shores, Hotei became a more rotund and jovial figure and

eventually was counted as one of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune; he is also
revered as the god of happiness and laughter. In Sakai Hōitsu’s One Hundred
Paintings by Kōrin (Kōrin hyakuzu), we see an image of Hotei taking a break

from lugging his commodious sack — said to contain either riches or an endless
supply of rice — to frolic about on a horse, his arms spread with an almost
childlike glee (cat. 27).
In the early nineteenth century, drawing manuals recorded the designs of

Kōrin and his followers and copyists. In addition to One Hundred Paintings by
Kōrin, for example, there was also Kōrin’s Painting Style (Kōrin gashiki ), pub-
lished by Aikawa Minwa in 1818, which provided professionals and amateurs
alike with models on the standard themes of the Rinpa repertoire, including

sages (cat. 29). Jurōjin, originally a Daoist sage, was eventually deified (like
Hotei) as one of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune. He is traditionally depicted as
having an elongated forehead, symbolizing great wisdom, a characteristic he
shares with Fukurokuju, another of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune whom
sages

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