Page 324 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

work adopted by the Japanese Tensho Shubun in in 1923) Chinda Waterfall of 1476 —already
Suishoku Rankd and in the other late work, showed the master's characteristic mature style.
Reading in a Thatched Hut, now in the Tokyo In the 1474 work we find the styles of Dai Jin
National Museum. The Korean contribution to (cat. 288) and Shen Chou (cat. 313-315)
the early Japanese ink landscape tradition has refracted through the artistic personality of
been underestimated and will repay further Sesshu. The 1476 work is pure Sesshu. Still
study. But Tensho Shubun was the master who later works (cat. 232, 233) clearly demonstrate
transmuted these elements into a Japanese style, the artist's unique position within Muromachi
in which his most famous pupil, Sesshu, was ink painting. In contrast to the "pictorial" and
undoubtedly trained (though he later abandoned nervous brush of the Shubun school and the
it), and in which other artists following Shubun, formal decorative qualities of the Kano school
such as Gakuo Zokyu (cat. 229), produced major (cat. 236) in the sixteenth century, Sesshu, and
pictorial accomplishments. to a limited extent his companion and follower
Shugetsu (cat. 227), emphasized the single
brush stroke, following the Chinese concepts of
Sesshu
brush handling. Theirs was not a Chinese
Sesshu Toyo (1420-1506), pupil of Shubun and stroke, however; it was more uniform in width,
monk of Shokoku-ji, would seem the logical more firmly defined in silhouette, and more
successor to the position of painter to the geometric, angular in application and grouping.
shogun, but this remarkable individualist left Japanese painting had been, was, and is contin-
the temple in 1464 (just one year after Sotan of ually denigrated by Chinese critics; but
Daitoku-ji assumed Shubun's stipend), perhaps Sesshu's painting for the Board of Rites in Bei-
out of pique but more likely to pursue his own jing had elicited his hosts' praise. Perhaps it was
way, avoiding the Onin War and the artistic because he had already modified an unknown
postulates of the Shokoku-ji "academy" at one early manner in the direction of "bone struc-
stroke. The Ouchi daimyo clan provided him ture," the prime desideratum of Chinese paint-
with a studio and patronage in western Honshu, ing, even if Sesshu's "bones" were differently
relatively far from the tensions (leading to the shaped than those created by Chinese painters.
outbreak of open warfare in 1467) of the capital, In any case, as has been indicated in our com-
and also with access to their diplomatic-cum- parison of Sesshu with Shen Zhou, the Japanese
trading missions to China. Sesshu's trip to artist was a singular individual within the main-
China in 1468-1469, as a member of one such stream of fifteenth-century ink painting, able
mission, was a crucial event in his artistic to do what other painters could or would not —
career. It was by no means unusual for Zen produce major landscapes of Chinese and
monks, acting as highly placed servants of the Japanese subjects and figure paintings as well.
shogunate and the daimyo clans as well as the Daruma and Eka is undoubtedly the greatest
major temples, to accompany these missions, icon of Zen ink painting; Ama no Hashidate
but Sesshu was apparently received in China as (cat. 232) is the great Japanese ink landscape of
a major figure, both as priest and painter. He the Muromachi period; and the Hatsuboku
certainly encountered the paintings, and prob- Landscape of 1495 is the finest of all Japanese
ably some of the painters, of the imperial essays in that extreme mode.
court—he mentioned Li Zai, and he painted a The painters remaining at Kyoto after the
decoration for a pavilion in the Imperial Palace Onin War (1467-1477) were either hereditary
in Beijing. But in the judgment of this author, Tosa masters working for the court aristocracy
China's most important contribution to Sesshu's (see "Traditional Painting") or "new manner"
art was the native artist-scholar-professional artists patronized by the shoguns who followed
emphasis on the supreme importance of brush- Yoshimitsu and Yoshimochi, especially Yoshi-
work in the production of paintings. Scholars masa (1436-1490, r. 1443-1474). The years of
have been justifiably puzzled by the lack of any Yoshimasa's retirement, fruitfully devoted to
works by Sesshu antedating 1467, the year of patronage and connoisseurship, were spent
his departure for China. Toyo, the name he almost entirely at his villa in the eastern part of
used before adopting the name Sesshu (Snow Kyoto known as Higashiyama, the name that
Boat) about 1463, has led to several hypo- has come to designate Yoshimasa's cultural
thetical attributions, not widely credited. What achievement. For his inability to control poli-
is certain is that the paintings he produced tical events or even to mitigate the catastrophic
immediately after his return from China (cat. effects of civil war, Yoshimasa compensated by
230) do not look like any Japanese or Korean building and perfecting his personal envi-
landscapes of the period. Further, the only two ronment—residence, collection, literature,
paintings dated in the seventies — the "short" drama and, not least, the doboshu (compan- fig. 6. Sesshu Toyo (1420-1506). Splashed-Ink
Landscape.
(Hatsuboku)
Dated to 1495. Japanese.
landscape handscroll of 1474 and the (destroyed ions), whose aesthetic discernment and knowl- Hanging scroll; ink on paper. Tokyo National Museum
TOWARD CATHAY 323