Page 400 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

perhaps personal as well as artistic. Of the Kei
school sculptors, the greatest are considered to be
Kaikei (active c. 1185-1223) and Unkei (active
1163-1223). The sculptor of this Amida claimed
to be the ninth of Unkei's line.
The image was made for a temple no longer in
existence, Daisan-ji, near Matsuyama on Shikoku.
Until the fifteenth century this was an isolated
locale, which would account for the conservative
fashion of the image, whose conformation recalls
the often massive proportions of Unkei's images.
The inlaid crystal eyes are characteristic for
images in this tradition from the early Kamakura
period (1185-1333).
Observing the contrast in effect between this
powerful yet benign image and the horrific
Datsueba (cat. 240) is an effective lesson in the
relation between iconographic purpose and the
appearance of images. Both icons pertain to the
Jodo, or Pure Land, school of Buddhism, but one
presides over the Western Paradise, a world of
salvation and compassion, while the other prowls
the River of the Three Currents (Sanzu no Kawa)
at the gates of hell. S.E.L.

240

Koen
active 14805-early i6th century
DATSUEBA

dated to 1514
Japanese
wood with traces of polychromy
7
height 91 (35 /sJ
En'o-ji, Kamakura

Datsueba is the demon-hag who acts as greeter to
souls of the damned on the far side of the Sanzu
River at the entrance to hell. This monstrous fig-
ure, clad only in loincloth, strips the newcomers,
hanging their garments on a barren tree before
they proceed to alloted punishments. The iconog-
raphy of the Kings (or Judges) of Hell places
Datsueba in the precinct of Shinko-0, the judge
of the first memorial day (the seventh day after
death). Usually she is depicted as horned, claw-
toed, and brandishing a club, her pendulous, sag-
ging breasts providing the only hint of gender
(see cat. 212).
It is all the more startling, therefore, to find
this fiend now robed and seated apparently in the
posture of meditation or prayer. The image suc-
ceeds in suggesting the power of Buddhism over
all creatures — even demons —and in jarring the
viewer from complacent stereotypes. Dated to the
year 1514 (Eisho 11) and signed by the sculptor
Koen, this work displays the mannered and some-

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