Page 379 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

tic strengths into a somewhat moribund format. during his pilgrimage to Kumano in 938. When A colophon at the end of the second scroll
Other portraits perhaps forming a stylistic lineage he left the inn, she continued to pursue him, the
with the Kiko portrait are found in Kamakura: power of her obsession causing her to metamor- records that the shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki (1537-
one of the monk Zaichu Koen, dated to 1388, at phose into a dragon. Scroll two opens with a long 1597) viewed the scroll in December 1573 and
H6koku-ji, another of Donho Shuo, dated to 1401, inscription recounting this tale, then depicts its consequently made donations to Dojo-ji. Eliciting
scrolls,
donations was indeed the purpose of these
at the Butsunichi-an retreat of Enkaku-ji. j.u. climax in two illustrations. In the first, the fleeing visual sermons designed to persuade the viewer
young monk appealed to the monks of Dqjo-ji for of the virtues of Pure Land Buddhism and of the
sanctuary. Skeptical at first, they agreed at last specific efficacy of benefaction to Dojo-ji.
2*9 to help, and hid the fugitive under the massive In style the illustrations are halfway between
LEGENDS OF THE FOUNDING OF bronze bell of the temple. The pursuing dragon- the skilled professionalism of early narrative
bell and engulfed it in flames,
lady embraced the
Dojo TEMPLE (D6jo-ji ENGI) reducing the youth to a carbonized and shrunken handscrolls of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
folk
turies and the
and semifolk paintings of the
corpse. Then both protagonists, reborn as snakes,
early i6th century fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. What it lacks
Japanese appeared in a dream to the abbot of Dojo-ji, plead- in polish the Dojo-ji Engi makes up in full in
two handscrolls; ink and color on paper ing with him to copy the Lotus Sutra (associated pungency and clarity —both graphic and literary.
2
31.52 x 1038.5 (i2 / 5 x 409) with Amida Buddha, the compassionate Lord of For here the prosaic narrative is supplemented by
references: Okudaira 1962, 108, 109, 135,.202, 203; the Western Paradise) as a pious offering to running comments and quotations akin to those
New York 19^3, 162-164 deliver them from this terrible rebirth. The abbot furnished by comic strip "balloons/ expressed in a
Dojo-ji, Wakayama Prefecture and priests did so over a period of days, then con- lively vernacular. This derives from the oral tradi-
Important Cultural Property secrated the text. Forthwith two angels appeared tion of story-telling professionals (etoki) whose
in the abbot's dream, informing him that the stock of tales, both saintly and ribald, influenced
young monk was now in the Paradise of the a whole group of Muromachi period narrative
Viewed as usual from right to left, the moral tale Buddha of the Future (Miroku), and the lady in scrolls called otogi-zoshi. Such plebeian tang and
associated with Dojo Temple unfolds in a lively, the lesser Paradise of Indra (Taishakuten). Finally
graphic, and easily understood fashion. A young we see three monks chanting the Lotus Sutra vigor can well seem a delightful relief from the
formalities and protocol inherent
priest rejected the advances of a woman at an inn in unison. the court tradition (cat. 217). The in the scrolls of
otogi-zoshi
378 CIRCA 1492