Page 420 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

posed to have set out over the Ba Bridge in search
of the first plum blossoms.
The scroll opens on the right with a large hill
nearly the height of the painting surface. Trees
clinging to its slope lead the viewer into the paint-
ing. Using a series of contrasts, Sin divided his
composition roughly into balanced halves: the
empty space forming the background on the right
contrasts sharply with the mountain forms that
fill the background on the left; the road parallel-
ing the pictorial frame on the right contrasts
with the bridge on the left; and a repoussoir in
the form of hillocks with two large trees on
the right contrasts with the absence of repoussoir
on the left.
Mountains, hills, and trees show unusual solid-
ity and monumentality, which Sin created by
unobtrusive outlining with long, even strokes
and by shading his forms with broad wet brush
strokes. In the early sixteenth century Korean
painting was dominated by the followers of An
Kyon (i4i8-after 1464), whose works were
characterized by vigorous brush strokes, variable
"calligraphic" outlines, and a sense of vast space.
Sin's departure from this style is striking, and
appears as well in his abrupt cutting off of the
tops of the tree branches as well as the sides of
the landmasses that begin and end the scroll. At
the beginning and end of the scroll blossoming
branches of the old plum trees allude to Meng
Haoran's romantic preoccupation with plum
blossoms. K.P.K.

270 found in southern and southeastern Asia. Like

Yi Sangjwa bodhisattvas, arhats are fully Enlightened beings,
active i6th century free forever of passions and defilements and
therefore capable of entering Nirvana, or extinc-
SEATED ARHAT WITH GOAT tion, at the end of their current life. Arhats differ
from bodhisattvas in concentrating their efforts
hanging scroll; ink on silk on their personal salvation, while bodhisattvas are
l
3
138.6 x 78.2 ($4 /2 x 30 /4J dedicated to freeing all beings from the cycle of
signature and seal of the artist
rebirth. Arhats, who were, historically, Indian, are
Tokyo University of Fine Arts usually represented in assemblages of sixteen,
sometimes eighteen, early holy men who indeed
Arhats (C: luohan) are the ideal figures of early attained Enlightenment and freedom from the
Buddhism, the Theravadin tradition, which is cycle of rebirth. Though Zen (K: Son) springs
sometimes referred to as the Southern tradition from the Northern, or Mahayana, tradition of
because its present-day adherents are mostly Buddhism, the individualistic and focused nature
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