Page 43 - japanese and korean art Utterberg Collection Christie's March 22 2022

涅槃寂静 | THE COLLECTION OF DAVID AND NAYDA UTTERBERG (LOTs 1-20)

The following essay describing the Utterberg painting is by Yukio
Lippit, Jeffrey T. Chambers and Andrea Okamura Professor of
History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. First
published in the Japan Society catalogue Awakenings: Zen Figure
Painting in Medieval Japan in 2007, it is republished here with
permission of the author and of Japan Society, Inc., New York:
The theme Tenjin Visiting China is one of the most complex
and revealing subjects in the Chan/Zen figural canon. Tenjin, an
indigenous Japanese kami (sacred spirit), was imagined by medieval
Japanese communities to have visited the Chinese Chan master
Wuzhun Shifan (1177–1249), becoming the recipient of his
authentic dharma transmission. The painting Tenjin Visiting China
seen here is one of many dozens of examples that depict the deity
in accordance with this popular legend. Usually depicted against a
blank background, Tenjin is dressed in Daoist robes, with his hands
folded together and a flowering plum branch in his arms; a Chinese
scholar’s headgear and a shoulder bag complete the ensemble.
The plum branch refers to a famous episode in Tenjin’s legendary
biography, while the bag is understood to hold the mantle (kesa)
that the deity received from Wuhzun as a symbol of his dharma
transmission.

This iconography, which is found in the overwhelming majority
of Tenjin Visiting China paintings, exhibits occasional variations.
In Japan, professional painters of the Kano school tended to depict
Tenjin with a slightly curving posture, his arms folded to one side;
and monk-painters of the northeastern Kanto region (near present-
day Tokyo) often portrayed the deity standing in three-quarter
view, leaning slightly forward as if bowing. Professional Chinese
painters of the Ningbo region, who produced examples of the
paintings for members of Japanese diplomatic and trade missions,
depicted Tenjin according to contemporary norms of Chinese
portraiture, with sartorial additions such as ornate footwear and a
long white sash; and in at least one example, Tenjin wears his kesa
instead of keeping it in his bag. The most significant variation,
however, is found in the version illustrated here: in a circular frame
above Tenjin’s head, the eleven-headed form of the bodhisattva
Avalokiteshvara (C: Guanyin; J: Kannon) appears, seated in the
lotus position. This painting is the only known example of this
particular iconographic configuration.

Eleven-headed Avalokiteshvara (J: Juichimen Kannon) represents
one of many manifestations of the bodhisattva, and signifies here
the “original” Buddhist counterpart (honjibutsu) of a local Japanese
divinity (suijaku). By the late twelfth century, many Japanese kami
had been linked to specific Buddhist deities in order to form a
cohesive system of correspondences between the divinities of the