Page 148 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

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Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645)
Shrike

Hanging scroll; ink on paper
5
7
126.2 x 54.6 (49 /s x i2 /s)
Kuboso Memorial Museum of Arts,
Izumi, Osaka
Important Cultural Property

• Miyamoto Musashi was in his prime
when Tokugawa leyasu established
his government at Edo. As one of the
early Edo-period rônin, or masterless 147
samurai, he lived a violent life devoted
to the practice of kendo, the Way of
the Sword. His treatise on swordplay
A Book of Five Rings (Go n'n no sho),
written just one week before his
death in 1645, states that he had killed
sixty swordsmen in single combat
by the time he was twenty-nine. Real-
izing that he was invincible, he used
only wooden swords from then on, as
he roamed Japan in a quest for under-
standing. At about the age of fifty he
became enlightened, and of the years
after that he said, "Since then I have
lived without following any particular
Way. Thus with the virtue of strategy
I practice many arts and abilities —
all things with no teacher."

Musashi, who used a seal inscribed
"Niten," produced wooden sculpture,
metalwork, paintings, and calligraphy,
all in a distinctive style. His master-
ful ink painting has been compared
with the best Chinese southern
Song-period work, but his treatment
of even standard Buddhist themes
declares his absolute individuality.
This is perhaps the best known of
all Musashi's paintings. The shrike
appears to rest nonchalantly, but
a second glance shows that he sits
back to maintain the branch in a
tense curve along which a caterpillar
approaches. Our attention shifts
from the foliage in the lower corner
to the bird and then to what is not
immediately evident: the shrike's
prey. We are invited to consider how
the world of the shrike transcends
that of the caterpillar in an allusion
to the stages of Buddhist enlighten-
ment. VH

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