Page 378 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

218 master to disciple to certify authenticity of teach-
painting attributed to Kenko Shokei ing. In this portrait of Lanqi Daolong Japanese
active c. 1478-1506 innovations on the Song Chinese prototypes are
already apparent: delicate rather than vivid color,
calligraphy by Gyokuin Eiyo pale ink wash, and thin ink lines.
1431-1524 On the upper third of Kiko's portrait is an
inscription signed by the eminent Zen monk
PORTRAIT OF ZEN MASTER Gyokuin Eiyo, whose dated inscriptions occur also
KIKO ZENSHI on two landscape paintings by Kenko Shokei, the
Sosetsusai Zu (1499, in the Seikado Foundation,
c. 1500 Tokyo) and the Shoshusai Zu (1506, in the Ueno
Japanese
hanging scroll; ink on paper collection, Hyogo Pref.). Other sources record
3
84.9x35.5 (33 /sx 14) Eiyo's death at the age of ninety-three in 1524,
making him sixty-nine in 1500. Much of the
Kencho-ji, Kamakura available biographical information about Kiko
Zenshi is gleaned from Eiyo's inscription, which
Implicit in this inscribed portrait of the monk states that Kiko was abbot of Kencho-ji, residing
Kiko Zenshi is the central role of Kencho-ji in at Kotoku-an within that complex. He traced
the establishment of Japanese Zen and in the con- his lineage to the early Yuan dynasty Chinese
tinuing Zen tradition of innovative portraiture. monk Zhongfeng Mingben (J: Chupo Minpon),
Kencho-ji was founded in 1253 under the patron- his most immediate predecessor being Chuwa
age of the powerful regent Hojo Tokiyori (1227- Toboku. From somewhat fragmentary documents
1263), who invited the emigre Chinese monk Kiko was calculated to be about eighty years old at
Lanqi Daolong (J: Rankei Doryu, posth. title Dai- the time of this portrait. He and Eiyo were both
kaku Zenji, 1213-1278) to become its first abbot. originally from Shinano Province (present-day
Lanqi Daolong with several disciples had come Nagano Pref.), where Kiko returned toward the
to Japan in 1246, to escape the invading Mongols end of his life to live in seclusion.
or to spread Chan (J: Zen) teachings (or both), Although this portrait bears no artist's seal or
bringing with him the unmixed and rigorous form signature, it has long been attributed to Kenko
of Chan then current in Song dynasty China. He Shokei, based not only on the superior quality of
quickly attracted strong support from both the the dense and skillfully modulated monochrome
military regency in Kamakura and the imperial ink painting but also on circumstantial evidence.
court in Kyoto, and was instrumental in the The tradition of ink monochrome chinso seems to
flourishing of Japanese Zen. be distinctive to the Kamakura painters, the more
In 1271 a formal Zen portrait (chinso) was orthodox polychrome portraits having by the six-
painted of Lanqi Daolong, posed in the orthodox teenth century lapsed into a rigid formalism. It is
fashion for such portraits: seated with legs pen- altogether likely that the portrait of an abbot of
dent and feet resting on a footstool, in a high- Kencho-ji, inscribed by a distinguished chronicler,
backed Chinese style chair draped with fabric so would have been executed by the best of the
that only the legs of the chair are visible. Such Kamakura Zen painters.
portraits functioned as a kind of certificate of This portrait and others like it in ink mono-
spiritual inheritance, and were passed on from chrome seem a logical infusion of particular artis-

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