Page 459 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

scholars. From the tradition of Chinese Buddhist period (222-589) and Tang dynasty (618-907), 309
painting centered in Ningbo since the Song but filtered through the archaizing styles prac-
dynasty (960-1279) comes the representation of ticed by Qiu Ying (cat. 302) and his imitators and THE LUOHAN CUDAPANTHAKA
peacocks and peonies, as well as the experienced fashionable in the early sixteenth century. Qiu in
ease in the handling of the twisting trunk and turn was aware of the archaistic landscapes occa- i$th century
branches. In the famous set of Five Hundred sionally painted even by such literati paragons of eastern Tibetan or Chinese
Luohan, one hundred paintings by Zhou Jichang the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) as Zhao Mengfu, thangka (icon in hanging scroll format),
and Lin Tinggui painted some time in the late Qian Xuan, and Chen Ruyan. The manner was now mounted as a panel; gouache on cotton
twelfth century, which are now divided among sensuous, decorative, and appealing to popular 797 x 50.9 (3^ x 20) 1975, 25, 42
reference:
Tseng
Pal and
Daitoku-ji in Kyoto (88?), the Museum of Fine taste, and it became a staple way of representing
Arts in Boston (10), and the Freer Gallery in landscape in thangkas made for Lamaist tem- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Washington (2), there are numerous figures ples—whether in China or Tibet and whether
whose heads prefigure that of Vajriputa. An even painted by Chinese professionals or skillful priest- Compared with the painting of luohan Vajriputa
closer prototype is The Fourteenth Luohan with painters in eastern Tibet. (cat. 308), this image of a disciple of the Buddha
Attendant, by Lu Xinzhong (act. mid-late i3th This luohan has previously been identified as who has attained Enlightenment seems deliber-
century) (also in the Boston Museum of Fine Vanavasi, the third in the Lamaist canon of Six- ately obscured, even camouflaged by the rich sur-
Arts), but quieter and simpler than the present teen Luohan. Clearly, however, the figure here face patterns of the composition and the crowding
work, reflecting Song taste. is making the gesture of teaching (S: vitarka and complexity of the staffage, with landscape
The mountain landscape is even more tradi- mudrd) with his right hand while his left holds background, throne, implements, and variously
tional, harking back to the blue, green, and gold a fly whisk (S: camara), so he must be the fifth patterned textiles packed into relatively modest
mode of the landscapes of the late Six Dynasties luohan, Vajriputa, reputedly from Sri Lanka. S.E.L. dimensions. The painting affords almost a sum-

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