Page 382 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

mind to mind —from master to disciple. Followers in China and India conjure 222-223
Images of Daruma, like this one, usually por- your spirit;
tray him with Indian features, including full lips Half the figure, a portrait, reveals your attributed to Kano Motonobu
and prominent nose. His princely status is signi- entire body; 1476-1559
fied by the ear lobe, elongated from the weight of What did the grass mat at Shaolin accomplish? FLIGHT OF THE SIXTH PATRIARCH
the ring. The long fingernail of the left thumb At the Palace of King Xiangzhi, spring of
marks him as an ascetic. Sometimes he is shown plums and willows. XIANGYAN ATTAINING ENLIGHTENMENT
full length, standing on a reed, as he did for his (Translation from Washington 1988, no. 81.)
miraculous crossing of the Yangzi River on his c. 1513
now mounted
"The
journey to Shaolin Si. Yet other paintings show father Palace of King Xiangzhi" refers to Daruma's originally sliding screens ffusuma-ej, paper
and
color on
as hanging scrolls;
ink
and to
a life of privilege abandoned. Regal
him seated in meditation, either within a natural Indian origin and its rejection suggest for Daruma, 175.2 x 137.4 (69 x 54 /sj each
2
landscape setting or without any context. All
three of these image types were rendered both in and thus for Zen, a lineage much resembling that Tokyo National Museum
ink monochrome and in polychrome, the latter of Sakyamuni Buddha. Ikkyu's inscription is a Important Cultural Property
version showing Daruma clothed in a red robe. reflection on latter-day distortions of original
At the figure's left elbow are two seals of the teachings and on the efficacy of austerities. These two paintings, along with four others not
artist, Bokkei Saiyo. The inscription is signed and Two portraits of Ikkyu by Bokkei are known shown here, were originally part of a fusuma-e
sealed by the famous monk-poet and abbot of Dai- (dated to 1452 and 1453). Bokkei is recorded as composition (paintings on interior sliding screens)
toku-ji, Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481), and dated to Ikkyu's disciple as well as portraitist. Apparently, commissioned for the Iho no ma, a room in the
the sixth year of Kansei (1465). In the inscription like Ikkyu, he enjoyed the patronage of the Asa- guest quarters of Daisen-in at Daitoku-ji. Since
Ikkyu identifies himself as "former abbot" of kura warrior clan of Echizen, the first of a group the building program was completed in 1513, that
Tokuzen-ji, a subtemple of Daitoku-ji to which he of painters serving the Asakura and using the is the date assigned to the paintings. Although
had been appointed abbot in about 1459. While family name Soga. Bold and highly individual they are unsigned, both temple tradition and sty-
abbacies were often brief, the short tenure indi- brushwork is characteristic of this lineage of listic analysis point convincingly to Kano Moto-
The Soga
painters through the sixteenth century.
cated by this inscription may also reflect Ikkyu's style is one of several significant artistic develop- nobu as the painter. These two scenes were on the
volatile relationship with the Daitoku-ji hierarchy ments of the fifteenth century, when political eastern wall, Flight of the Sixth Patriarch to the
(see cat. 238). instability at the capital and sophisticated provin- left and Xiangyan Attaining Enlightenment to the
The inscription reads: right. The four remaining scenes were on the
cial patronage combined to stimulate innovation southern wall.
and stylistic variation in the arts. j.u.

TOWARD CATHAY 381