Page 391 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

the tree foliage and broad ink wash plane of the
slanting plateau are equally pure Xia Gui. The
strongly one-cornered composition is a Ma-Xia
characteristic, as are the forced-edge washes of the
distant mountains. "Summer" is a well-under-
stood essay in the style of the fourteenth-century
Ma-Xia follower Sun Junze except in its composi-
tion: the centrally placed mountain mass echoes
earlier traditions of monumental landscape.
The skillful use of "palpable" mist and broad ink
washes paling into exposed silk has much in
common with such conservative Chinese masters
as Zhou Chen (d. c. 1536) and Tang Yin (1470-
1523). The resonant summer calm evoked with
bare silk or light washes of ink provides a startling
counterpoint to the angular and energetic thrusts
of rocks, pine branches, and mountain ridges and
paths. "Autumn" is thoroughly dominated by the
ways of Xia Gui, save again for the dominant
centrality and symmetry of the landscape ele-
ments. "Winter" rivals "Summer" in its success-
ful evocation of a snowy landscape by means of
large areas of untreated or only lightly washed
silk defined by sharp, crystalline, "icy" brush
strokes. The curious clovelike representation of
mountain tree and bush foliage ultimately derives
from the tenth-century monumental master Fan
Kuan. But Sesshu assumed the convention to
come from Xia Gui, as he indicates in an inscrip-
tion on one of his many free copies after South-
ern Song landscapes on fans. By Southern Song
Fan Kuan's style had been adopted as a norm for
rendering winter landscape. This work is one of some nine fan-shaped pictures witness Yu-Jian. But the paintings are closely
It is assumed, probably rightly, that the after Southern Song fan paintings by such classic associated with late Southern Song Buddhism,
Four Seasons scrolls were painted during or just Chinese masters as Xia Gui, Liang Kai, Li Tang, and their appearance, manner of making, and
after Sesshu's China trip. The mastery of Chi- and Yu-Jian. Though often called "copies," none association by inscription with well-known
nese painting traditions is patent; the identifi- of these paintings can be closely related to any priests, principally Chan, make it possible to
cation "Japanese Zen-Man" in his signature extant works by those Chinese artists in Japanese describe them generically as congruent with Chan
would hardly seem necessary if he had remained temples and collections. Their manner is that of methods of meditation and elucidation — silence
at home; the name "Toyo" implies an early Sesshu in his later works, well after his return often interrupted by terse, sometimes rude, and
date, since in later years he more commonly from China. It seems more likely that these fan- always enigmatic and problematic explanation.
used Sesshu. S.E.L. shaped pictures are small essays in the style of the Further, in Japan hatsuboku is almost exclusively
masters whose names are inscribed outside the associated with Zen priest-painters like Sesshu, or
"frame." The real originator is surely Sesshu, with lay priest-warrior painters like Kaiho Yusho
whose name is proudly placed within the frame. (1533-1615).
These fans lie within the mainstream of Ming and This hatsuboku essay by Sesshu is a relatively
Qing aesthetics, in which the theme-and-variation quiet and understated "meditation" in ink as
2 3 1 mode was commonplace: a style or manner compared with the same artist's dramatic master-
handed down from the past was used as a starting piece of 1495. Here the darkest and sharpest
Sesshu Toyo point to display the knowledge and virtuosity of strokes define a distant two-storied structure,
1420-1506 the executant. probably an inn, on a high bluff with trees over-
SPLASHED-INK (HATSUBOKU) In this present work the manner, called by the hanging its edge. The foregound is half-toned,
LANDSCAPE Japanese "splashed ink" (J: hatsuboku; C: po and the rock (?) in the center of this spit of land
mo), was associated with two late Southern Song seems overly large in relation to the hill and
c. 1490 painters represented in the shoguns' collections: building. At the left, balancing the signature
Japanese Mu Qi (or Fa-Chang) and Yu-Jian (or Ruo-Fen). Sesshu on the right, a fisherman or ferryman
fan painting mounted as a hanging scroll; Mu was a Chan (Zen) abbot-painter of Hangzhou; huddles in his boat. The overlapping of the large
ink on paper Yu-Jian was perhaps a priest of the Buddhist Tian- rock and the equal-toned wash of the central point
3
30 X }0.6 (l! /4 X 12) tai (J: Tendai) sect. The hatsuboku works attrib- of land is a little heavy and uncertain. But what
inscribed (by the artist): Yu-Jian; signed: Sesshu uted to Mu Qi are not signed or reliably sealed, counts is the overall gestalt, the total image, soft,
references: Covell 1941, 1974, 94-96; Tanaka 1972, but those by Yu-Jian are. Splashed-ink painting wet, suggesting patchy mist and rain covering
125-129 has been considered the exclusive province of parts of a relatively near view. S.E.L.
Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art Chan Buddhists, but there seem to be exceptions,

390 CIRCA 1492