Zen Buddhism 9

Introduction: Playing with Words and Images

This book explores the free attitude and the playfulness reflected in the artwork of the two prominent Japanese Zen monk-painters from the Edo period (1600–1868)—Hakuin Ekaku 白隠慧鶴 (1685–1768) and Sengai Gibon 仙厓義梵 (1750–1837). The particular evolution of Zen paintings during the Edo period, including the artwork of Hakuin and Sengai, is usually referred to as Zenga (禅画; lit. Zen paintings). These paintings are in fact part of a long tradition of Zen ink painting that began following the importation of Zen Buddhism from China at the beginning of the Kamakura period (1185–1333). Zenga is usually referred to as the revival of the early Zen painting of the Kamakura and early Muromachi periods (1333–1573), though in some aspects Zenga differs from those paintings, particularly from those of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The free attitude reflected in the paintings is one of the qualities that distinguish Zenga from Zen paintings of earlier periods. This book strives to understand the nature of this particular expression and to identify its sources, focusing on the lives of the monk-painters and their artwork. The emphasis is on the powerful interaction and the close collaboration that exists between words and images in the paintings.

The aim of the book, thus, is not primarily philosophical or religious discussion of freedom, but rather an exploration of this expression in the artwork through a multifaceted approach, one that combines a holistic analysis of the paintings—i.e. as interrelated combination of text and image—with a contextualization of the works within the specific historical, art historical, cultural, social and political environments in which they were created.

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Freedom In Context

The word freedom is a highly charged word with various meanings, depending on the cultural and historical context in which it is used. Hence it is important to clarify the specific meaning and context of the word in this book. When I speak of freedom I point to a fundamental notion in the Chan/Zen Buddhist traditions. It is important to specify this particular notion precisely due to the specific meaning it carries in the Chan and Zen traditions and as opposed to the way it was understood by early Western interpreters of Zen. Being part of the critical scrutiny against the idealized images of Chan/Zen Buddhism, Dale Wright in his book Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism1 dedicates a whole chapter to the concept of freedom, including the way it was misinterpreted by early Western scholars and students of Zen. As Wright argues, in accordance with the modern Western version of “freedom” and through the eyes and spirit of the time of early Western interpreters, freedom was regarded and understood as the absence of constraint, presupposing a tension between freedom and authority. As Wright puts it, “Modern western thought has tended to place freedom and obedience in a dichotomous relation.”2 Although Wright focuses mostly on John Blofeld’s (1913–1987) writings on Zen, he speaks about the general tendency in early western Zen literature “from the ‘Beat Zen’ of Jack Kerouac to the more academic style of [Alan] Watts and [Erich] Fromm, but also, and more influentially, in the English language writings of D.T Suzuki who drew upon Western proclivities in introducing Zen to the west.”3 Below I will return to the “romantic” approach to Chan/Zen traditions and its influence on modern research on Zenga. A fuller discussion of Western interpretations of freedom in contrast to the Chan/Zen notion, based largely on the formulation provided by Dale Wright, will be conducted in chapter three of the book. At this point, it is important to emphasize that “freedom” in Chan/Zen traditions is referred to in various ways: liberation of mind, emancipation, “letting go,” enlightenment and so on, terms which all attempt to transmit a broad view that I will refer to in this book as an attitude or even mentality of freedom.

As mentioned above, while philosophical and religious discussions of the concept of freedom are not the main concern of this book, these will serve as a background and a means to deepen our understanding of the expression of freedom as reflected in the artwork discussed herein.

Thus, when I speak of the expression of freedom and playfulness in the paintings of Hakuin and Sengai, I refer to the way this is reflected in both the formalistic aspects of the paintings and in their content. In other words, I focus on the looseness of the lines, composition, strokes and so on, together with exploring the themes, texts and narratives of the paintings that express the notion of freedom.

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My claim is that this expression is not merely a reflection of the artistic style of the monk-painters, but it is in fact part of an entire outlook on freedom deeply rooted in the thought of Zen Buddhism. This general attitude significantly affected both the lives and the artwork of the monk-painters, and it is imbued in the artwork in a way that it is expressed through both text and image.

At the base of the attitude of freedom stands the breaking of rules, conventions and conceptions. For Hakuin and Sengai, Zen practitioners who were both monks and painters, this breaking of rules is expressed in both aspects of their lives, the religious and artistic worlds. Thus, when I speak of freedom of expression in their artwork, I mostly refer to the breaking of the rules and conventions of Zen Buddhist tradition, which includes the Zen ink painting tradition. However, as I will show, this free attitude at times transcends the specific context of the Zen Buddhist world, and is manifested also through breaking the rules and conventions of the general artistic standards that dominated during the Edo period. This occasionally included the breaking of political rules and standards of this period. When I speak of “expression of freedom,” therefore, I mean a breaking of the religious, artistic, social and even political rules, conventions and conceptions dominant during the Edo period.

As Zen monks, Hakuin and Sengai were part of the Rinzai Zen Buddhist tradition and were obviously familiar with Rinzai Zen texts and stories. Many of the stories and sayings of this tradition were transferred orally by Zen masters to their disciples while others were written down. In either case these stories became part of the tradition and undoubtedly influenced the artwork of both Hakuin and Sengai.

Several prominent Rinzai Zen texts that present the attitude of freedom most clearly will be presented here. Rather than discuss the contents of these texts separately, I have integrated this discussion with an analysis of the artwork. This will allow a close identification of the concept of freedom in Rinzai Zen Buddhism with the artwork of both Hakuin and Sengai.

The main and most important source of this book, however, is the artwork of Hakuin and Sengai. With three exceptions, where I use pieces of their calligraphy to support my ideas, I base my analyses on paintings that include both an image and an inscription within the painting.

Both Hakuin and Sengai at some point in their lives were engaged in artistic activities; nevertheless, they were not professional artists. From a young age they devoted themselves to the religious path—they were primarily monks. Indeed, both became abbots of famous Rinzai Zen temples. Their true painting period began only at a late age, in their sixties, and they continued to paint until their deaths. The viewers of Hakuin and Sengai’s paintings were Zen monks, disciples, laymen and common people who were in contact with the

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monk-painters. often the paintings were given by them as presents. This fact that the viewers of the artwork were not anonymous but were all related in some way, religiously or secularly, to the world of the Zen temple, had an effect on the creations of these monk-painters. When Hakuin and Sengai painted they often knew, or could assume, who their target viewers were: a small circle of people who were familiar with the world of Zen in one way or another, and therefore their paintings were created accordingly.

Among Zenga painters, Hakuin and Sengai’s works are particularly eminent. Their artwork constitutes the largest and the most representative collection of Zenga from the Edo period. It has also been the most influential both among other Zenga painters in Japan and in the West. The themes of their paintings are often traditional, similar to those of early Zen paintings of the Kamakura and Muromachi periods. At the same time, secular themes also appear, as do those which are the monk-painters’ own creations.

The works of art presented in this book are the paintings that I consider to best represent the Hakuin and Sengai’s expression of freedom, even though we can generally say that the expression of freedom characterizes most of their paintings. The paintings I have selected display a variety of themes, from traditional to completely original. Some are secular in theme and strongly connected with the social, cultural and political contexts of the Edo period, while others are more religious and more closely connected with Rinzai Zen Buddhist thought and traditions.

Hakuin and Sengai’s biographies serve as a significant source of information for this book, as well. I have used their biographies, first of all, as the foundation for understanding their religious and artistic worlds, together with an understanding of the role each world played in their lives. They are also used as sources of information on the monk-painters’ personalities via stories, important events and significant decisions they made during their lives. The biographies also provide us with some poems and other writings created by the monk-painters.4

new Perspectives in Research on Zenga

The critical approach to Chan/Zen Buddhist studies of scholars such as Dale Wright, Bernard Faure, Robert H. Sharf, T. Griffith Foulk and so forth,5 which has questioned the traditional understanding of Chan/Zen and criticized the romanticized and idealized images of these traditions, includes criticism on the way the “Zen Arts” have been presented and approached, especially by Suzuki Daisetsu and Hisamatsu Shinichi. Sharf, for example, criticizes the way in which the “Zen Arts” were put under one category: “Hisamatsu shares with Suzuki the dubious honor of popularizing the notion that Zen is the foundation of virtually all of the Japanese fine arts … everything from

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Chinese landscape painting and calligraphy to garden design and Noh drama are expressions of the Zen experience.”6 Levine adds an art historical critique of the mystical readings of visual forms that characterized Suzuki’s “Zen Art” and goes on to criticize Hisamatsu’s approach, which grants exclusivity to those who have attained Zen religious realization in seeing and understanding “Zen Art.”7

This general tendency, presented above, to “romanticize” Zen and “Zen Art” had an effect also on the research of Zenga. The important questions need to be raised here: How did this approach affect the way in which the paintings were treated? Even more, were there other voices that brought new perspectives to this research?

Significant interest in Zenga in the United States and Europe began after the Second World War. This was part of a general wave of interest in Japan and in Zen Buddhism in particular. In Japan at that time, Zenga were still not honored and appreciated as much as the early Zen ink painting of the Muromachi period, which was greatly admired for its highly skilled artists. Zenga, it seems, was considered to be outside the mainstream of Japanese paintings during the Edo period. Starting from the 1960s and 1970s, the growing interest in Zen in the United States and in Europe led to an increasing number of books on Zen, Zen art and Zen culture, including Zenga, written by both Japanese and non-Japanese authors.8

This new wave of works on Zenga is highly valuable for having opened a new window for an understanding of Zenga and for expanding the knowledge and appreciation of this art form in Japan, the United States and Europe. At the same time, it is important to recognize, as I argue, that the circumstances in which research on Zenga first developed greatly affected the nature of research in later years, and led to its being shaped in a limited way. Due to the fact that in many cases the paintings were approached merely as a means to deepen an understanding of Zen Buddhism and its principles, they were analyzed mostly iconographically. Furthermore, in many cases the work done on Zenga took the form of exhibition catalogues, which naturally did not allow for in-depth discussion of the paintings, and which caused some paintings to remained virtually untouched by analysis, simply appearing in catalogues with no further treatment.

It is generally acknowledged that one of the pioneers in dealing with Zenga was Kurt Brasch, a Swiss scholar who was born in Japan and wrote two books, published in German and in Japanese: Hakuin and Zenga (1957) and Zenga (1962).9 Around the time of publication of these works Brasch organized a traveling exhibition on Zenga, which was shown for a year (1959– 60) in several European cities. It is important to note, however, that the term “Zenga” had been used several decades earlier in an article on Hakuin and his works published by the Japanese writer and Buddhist scholar okamoto Kanoko 岡本かの子(1889–1939).10 Thus, while Kurt Brasch is certainly one of

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the pioneers of Zenga scholarship in the West, the term itself existed prior to his works.

During the 1960s and 1970s, several important works were published on Zenga. In addition to being one of the first works to reclaim the term Zenga, Kurt Brasch’s work is also significant for the criticism it aroused, mainly concerning the usage of the term itself.11 This criticism was frequent, especially among Japanese authors. Takeuchi Naoji’s criticism, for example, focuses on the term Zenga, which he argues had served the paintings poorly by treating them as a popular product. Instead, he suggested calling them “the art of the Zen sect” or “the ink painting of the Zen sect” and not “the paintings of Zen,”12 as Zen in fact has no paintings. At the same time, Kurt Brasch’s work can also be viewed as stimulating other Japanese authors to write on Zen paintings, while embracing the new interest in Zen paintings coming from outside Japan. Works such as Awakawa Yasuichi’s Zen Painting, Hisamatsu Shinichi’s Zen and the Fine Arts, and Suzuki Daisetsu’s Sengai: The Zen Master, are some of the most prominent examples.13 Whatever the reaction of Japanese scholars described above, there was no major change in perspective. Research still focused on the iconography of the paintings, out of a single-minded attempt to understand their religious meaning, while giving importance to questions that deal with the essence of Zen through these paintings, such as What are Zen paintings? Is “Zenga” a proper term? and so forth. Furthermore, these last works, present in many ways the idealized, romantic and “pure” view of Zen Buddhism mentioned above. The paintings, as a result, were treated from a one-sided angle: out of the single attempt to promote the spirit and thought of Zen. Borrowing Levine’s critique of Suzuki’s approach to the Zen art of painting: “Suzuki didn’t do the hard looking and archival digging needed to sense the visual and historical warp and weft of specific paintings, styles, and painters. Instead of letting the paintings recount their own stories, Suzuki gave them all the same tale to tell.”14

Interest in Zenga continued during the 1980s until the mid-1990s.15 A real change in perspective towards an art historical approach, however, began to take place with the publication in 1989 of the important book The Art of Zen, written by Stephen Addiss.16 In 1995, Izumi Takeo and Mizukami Tsutomu published a volume dedicated solely to Hakuin and Sengai’s artwork, as part of a series on ink painting masters called Suibokuga no kyoshō. This later research on Zenga began to put the paintings and the monk-painters at the center of its attention. It also allowed, at least in some cases, for the integration of a discussion of form and content.

This beginning of a change in perspective did not, however, continue to develop and remained confined largely to exhibition catalogues and introductory textbooks—formats that limited the ability to offer in-depth discussion of the paintings. From the mid-1990s until the present the number of books written on Zenga has decreased.17

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The most recent significant book on Hakuin’s artwork was Yoshizawa Katsuhiro’s Hakuin—Zenga no sekai, published in 2005 and translated into English in 2009 under the title The Religious Art of Zen Master Hakuin.18 Although the book explores the religious meaning of Hakuin’s artwork and therefore does not utilize an art historical perspective, it analyzes the paintings through the innovative approach of taking into consideration the historical and cultural contexts of the Edo period in which the paintings were created.19

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As shown, a great need to study Zenga from different perspectives still remains. The lacuna, however, is not merely methodological; although the concept of freedom is an issue of considerable importance in Zen Buddhism, no in-depth research has yet been undertaken on the reflection of this free attitude in the lives and artwork of Edo period Zen monk-painters, such as Hakuin and Sengai. It is hard to tell why the visual expression of this fundamental attitude of freedom was never profoundly examined; perhaps it is connected to the early approach of the research which regarded the paintings as expressions of the “Zen thought” as a whole, without the attempt to unravel this idea through the option of isolating one notion and examine it profoundly, as I suggest in this book.

This book thus undertakes an in-depth investigation into varied manifestations of the visual expression of freedom from a multitude of perspectives: by focusing on the paintings, especially the interconnection of texts and images, as well as the biographies and writings of the monk-painters themselves—all set against the historical, social and cultural background of the Edo period.

To build an investigation that tackles the expression of freedom from different angles, I have organized the present study into six chapters that build the discussion gradually. Chapter 1, “Evolution Towards Zen Paintings in the Edo Period,” covers first the historical development of Zen paintings and later examines Hakuin and Sengai’s paintings and the expression of freedom in the specific historical context in which these paintings were created during the Edo period. I review the historical evolution of Zen painting from its early stages during the Kamakura and the Muromachi periods up to the specific emergence of Zenga during the Edo period, followed by a short review of the lives of the monk-painters. Chapter 2, “An Independent Artistic Language,” focuses on the expression of freedom in the paintings of Hakuin and Sengai solely through analysis of the visual components and the formal aspects of the paintings. The first part deals with the development and change that Hakuin and Sengai’s artwork underwent, showing how the expression of freedom in their paintings changed as they aged. The second part examines

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the relationship of Hakuin and Sengai’s artwork with the tradition of Zen ink painting, showing in what ways the monk-painters continue the tradition and in what ways they are free and independent of it.

The next chapters of the book analyze the expression of freedom and its manifestations, via both text and image, approaching these through a synthesis of all aspects, including historical, cultural and art historical ones. Chapter 3, “Liberation from Rules,” begins by tracing the roots of the concept of freedom in the thought of Rinzai Zen Buddhism through various related Zen texts and continues with an analysis of selected paintings by Hakuin and Sengai that express this notion of freedom. Chapter 4, “Letting Go of Common Conceptions,” deals with the expression of freedom through the liberated approach of Hakuin and Sengai towards some of our common conceptions. Chapter 5, “Emancipation from Social Conventions,” deals with the freedom towards social conventions Hakuin and Sengai expressed in their paintings. In both chapters 4 and 5, matters that at first glance seem unrelated to freedom are revealed to be alternative manifestations of this attitude. In chapter 6, “Humor as an Expression of Freedom,” the last and concluding chapter, I focus on humor in the paintings and on its relation to the attitude of freedom. Humor is shown to be an artistic tool or an artistic style but at the same time an expression and a manifestation of freedom itself.

notes

1 The chapter is entitled “Freedom: the Practice of Constraint”; Wright, Philosophical Meditations, 119–38. For a fuller discussion of this topic see chapter 3 of the present work. See also Wright, “Concept of Freedom,” 113–24. See also Faure, “Chan and Zen Studies,” 1–35.

2 Wright, Philosophical Meditations, 128.

3 Wright, Philosophical Meditations, 124 fn. 18.

4 For short biographies of the monk-painters, see chapter 1.

5 For state-of-the-field reports see Faure, “Chan and Zen Studies,” 1–35; Robson “Formation and Fabrication,” 311–49. on critical Buddhism see also Shields, Critical Buddhism, 1–16.

6 Sharf, “Zen of Japanese Nationalism,” 107–60. For another critical scrutiny by Robert Sharf with T. Griffith Foulk on chinzō see Sharf and Foulk, “Ritual Use of Ch’an Portraiture,” 74–150.

7 Levine, “Two (or More) Truths,” 52–61. For a critical scrutiny of other forms of art related to Zen in Japan see: Yamada, Shots in the Dark. See also Elkins, “Conceptual Analysis of Gardens,” 189–98. See also Sharf, “Zen of Japanese Nationalism,” 107–60 on Brinker, Zen in the Art of Painting.

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8 See Addiss, “Reflections on Zenga,” 14–18. See also Guth, “Nanga and Zenga,” 203–11.

9 See Yamashita, “Reconsidering ‘Zenga,’” 19–28. See also Brasch, “Zenga, Zen Buddhist Paintings,” 58–63.

10 okamoto, “Hakuin no Gazen ni Tsuite,” 465–72. See also Yoshizawa, Hakuin— Zenga no sekai, 17.

11 See also the exhibition catalogue Addiss, Zenga and Nanga.

12 In Japanese, zenrin bijutsu (禅林美術 ; arts of the Zen sect) or zenrin suibokuga (禅林水墨画 ; Zen sect ink painting). Takeuchi, Nihon bijutsu, 14.

13 For full details, see bibliography. See also Suzuki—Zen and Japanese Culture. Tsuji Nobuo’s book from this same period, Edo no shūkyō bijutsu, is notable for its art historical approach, studying both form and content equally. It should therefore be regarded as exceptional in relation to previous research.

14 Levine, “Two (or More) Truths,” 55–6.

15 In the early eighties the collected works of Furuta Shōkin were published; they included essays on Zen art and on Hakuin and Sengai. He also wrote Sengai— Master of Zen Paintings, which follows the earlier approach. For full details, see bibliography.

16 A year later, an exhibition catalogue of the important Gitter-Yelen collection, with introduction and commentaries by John Stevens, Zenga Brushstrokes of Enlightenment, was published. See also Nakayama Kiichirō’s book Sengai—sono shōgai to geijutsu. For full details, see bibliography.

17 There were several exhibition catalogues: the catalogues Zenga—The Return from America (2000), which presents some critical views on the field such as Yamashita Yuji’s article “Reconsidering ‘Zenga’–In Terms of America, in Terms of Japanese Art History.” For another catalogue exhibition see: Hakuin: Zen to Shouga (2004). A recent exhibition catalogue on Hakuin’s paintings in English is The sound of one hand (2010) written by Addiss and Yoshiko Seo. A recent exhibition catalogue on Hakuin’s paintings in Japanese written by Yamashita and Yoshizawa is: Hakuin—The Hidden Message of Zen Art (2012); see bibliography.

18 The translation is by Norman Waddell. For full details see bibliography.

19 A recent paper by Yoshizawa is published in Kokka 1379 (2010), in a special issue dedicated to Hakuin; see bibliography.