Hojo Tokimune - The Lions' Roar

Kamakura Period (the time of Hojo Tokimune

and the Mongol Invasions) kara shishi (courtesy
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The lion, of course, is not native to Japan, or anywhere in East Asia, come to that. The stories and imagery were brought along the Silk Road from western Asia, and preserved (principally) in the teachings of Buddhism.

It seems that the aspects of strength, courage and righteousness, in particular, came to be the defining aspects of the lion in Japan – similar, indeed, to how lions were viewed in the west. Rather than being associated chiefly with the ruling powers (eagles and tigers have that distinction) it kept its associations with Buddhism. There is some crossover, however. Most notable is the case of Hojo Tokimune, the defacto ruler of Japan at the time of the Mongol invasions.

Hojo Tokimune, depicted as a Zen Abbot

Tokimune was an early adherent and supporter of Zen - an influential one, given his position – despite the fact that he died quite young. On hearing of the second Mongol invasion, he went for an audience with his teacher, the Chinese priest Mugaku Sogen (posthumously awarded the title Bukko Kokushi).

'The hour of my trial is now at hand,' declared Tokimune.

'How will you respond?' replied Sogen, at which Tokimune replied with a mighty 'Katsu!' (the shout used in Rinzai Zen to demonstrate understanding, and also, if taken literally, the Japanese for victory or 'I will win'.

Sogen replied, 'It is true that the son of a lion roars as a lion.'

D.T. Suzuki says more about Tokimune, comparing him to Yunmen's golden haired lion, directing operations against the Mongol invasions from Kamakura, hundreds of miles from the action. He expresses his admiration for his ability as a leader during this time of crisis (which lasted over 10 years), and his ability to take upon his shoulders the responsibility for the whole country. This not only required great understanding, but also great application, and was a demonstration of his spirituality (whatever that is), as that is the characteristic that underlies understanding. Suzuki had a tendency to hagiography and was a tireless proselytizer for Zen – his writing was very much of his time, but it contains points of interest, too.

Manjusri riding the Golden-Haired Lion
(Muromachi period)

The golden-haired lion was an image used by Fazang, a patriarch of the Hua Yen school of Buddhism, to illustrate the relationship of form (a lion statue) to principle (the gold from which it is made). The lion's body is embodied in each hair - an infinity of infinities. Suzuki, as he often did, neglects to mention the origin, but relates it directly to Zen -Yunmen (J. Ummon) referred to the golden lion in one of his koans. (Fazang predated Yunmen by 200 years).

Suzuki's point, I suppose, is that Tokimune's complete awareness was present in each of his duties. To be realistic, it is worth pointing out that commentators have noted that Tokimune's role was probably much less vital than is often made out - several of his advisors played crucial roles, but we must give Suzuki credit here, as he was probably not aware of this.

More on Mugaku Sogen


An example of Sogen's calligraphy (Courtesy of Tokiwayama
Bunko Foundation)

Sogen was a man of parts, an accomplished calligrapher and painter, known for his courage and self-possession, which seems to have matched well with the spirit of the bushi.

He was 'head-hunted' from China after the first Mongol invasion, and it is quite possible that he was chosen as a result of the famous incident in which he outfaced the Mongols who came to his temple to slaughter the priests. He was found alone by a Mongol warrior. According to the story, he either composed a four line poem or calmly wrote it as the warrior stood, sword ready. Impressed, the warrior left him alone.

The poem has become quite well known, and the last line, 'A flash of lightning in the shadows, a sword cutting the spring wind' became associated with an indifference to death. Yamaoka Tesshu chose it as a name for his dojo, Shumpukan (shumpu is spring wind; kan is hall), and I have also seen it written on a flag of a kamikaze pilot - the historical connection being very appropriate, I suppose.

The poem in full goes:
   

  Throughout heaven and earth there is not a piece of ground where a single stick could be inserted;

  I am glad that all things are void, myself and the world:

  Honored be the sword, three feet long, wielded by the great Yüan swordsmen;

  For it is like cutting a spring breeze in a flash of lightning.


(It may be noted in passing that this was a reworking of a much earlier poem (c.414 C.E.) by Seng Chao, who composed the poem below while in jail, waiting for execution.
He was, indeed, executed:

The four elements essentially have no master.
The five shadows are fundamentally empty.
The naked sword will sever my head
as though cutting the spring breeze. 


This takes nothing away from Mugaku's work, as Chinese poetry was an art that made much use of borrowing from older works. Mugaku's poem was, in turn, used by the noted monk and poet Sesson Yubai as the basis for a poem when he found himself in extremis.

Tokimune was particularly concerned with the question of fear, and Sogen set him the question 'Where is my fear located?' as a koan. His response, as Sogen indicated may be seen as a kind of 'Lion's Roar', a term which goes back to the very origins of Buddhism, denoting the truth of the teachings of the Buddha and his disciples. Sogen was to use the image of the roaring lion again in his death poem:

A lion appears before ten billion ignorant fools
The lion roars before the ten billion ignorant fools

Torei Enji
Hossu with the
verse mentioned
above

Once again, this provided fodder for at least one later poet, the monk Torei Enji (1721-1792), a pupil of Hakuin. His rather witty take was this:

A million ignorant fools
A million lions appear 








But of all Sogens's verse, I like the following best:

The bow is shattered; the arrows are all gone.
At this critical moment 
Cast aside all doubt.
Shoot without the slightest delay.
 

Masterpieces of Chinese Painting at the V&A

The Victoria and Albert Museum's exhibition, Masterpieces of Chinese Painting 700-1900, is an amazing opportunity to see some of the most distinguished masterpieces of Chinese art lent by collections from around the world... and they really are masterpieces.

I was expecting a lot from this exhibition, and although the quality of the individual works was extremely high, I was left feeling a little unfulfilled by the exhibition as a whole – perhaps it was that most artists were represented by only a single work, or maybe I missed something of the bombast and quirkiness of the Japanese artists I am familiar with.

Taken overall, Chinese art of this period has a smoothness and balance that distinguishes it from Japanese art. Although some of the artists displayed great flair and originality, not to say dynamism, it is probably safe to say that there is a greater regularity in brushwork and tone in the work of Chinese painters than their Japanese counterparts.

But on to the works themselves – there were several that really stood out for me – two of which I had known for many years, but had only seen as reproductions, once again reminding me of the value of seeing art in the original.

The first piece that really struck me was one I hadn't seen before – The Summer Palace of Emperor Minghuang , traditionally ascribed to Guo Zhongshu, a 10th century painter of the Northern Sung, but actually thought to date somewhere between 1350-1400. Gorgeously mounted (as such paintings in Japanese museums often are – this one was on loan from the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, which still describes it quite confusingly as a work by Guo, while at the same time faulting the brushwork of the copyist and placing it as a late Yuan work), it shows the height of technique of late Yuan/early Ming Dynasty painters.

Looking at a painting like this, one can understand why academic painters sought to reproduce the skills of their forebears, especially the painters of the Song Dynasty. Superbly painted in line, the detail and modulation of tone seemed faultless; the dim light and glass in front of the work may have prevented me from seeing the way in which 'the fine details have been somewhat corrupted' - I think I need to see a real work by Guo to assess that. As far as I was concerned, the finesse of the detail goes down as far as the eye can take it, yet it never threatening to overwhelm the larger dynamics of the composition.

The highlight of the exhibition was the Nine Dragon Scroll (1244) painted some 100 years earlier, by Chen Rong (1189-1268). It was displayed to show its full length, some five metres or so. I suppose the thing that first struck me  was its size – or more particularly, the size of the dragons. Having only seen fairly small reproductions, I had imagined it was somewhat smaller than it actually was.

Size is actually quite an interesting element of Chinese art. Chinese books often failed to print the dimensions of works, and this is, in many cases, a deliberate policy to prevent accurate copies being made. Likewise, colours are often misreproduced, once again making accurate copying impossible. Artistic legitimacy and secrecy for its own sake are deeply embedded in the culture.

For me, as usual, the chance to see the way the artist had painted the work was what was most interesting. Chen had  employed a dry brush technique – something I hadn't seen used to this degree before – with great skill, combining it with darker and lighter lines in wet ink for most of the 'drawn' features. The painting of the waves allowed quite a degree of insight into Chen's painting methods. He used dabbing strokes, almost like a dotted line, rather than the single flourish non-painters often imagine is employed. The lines on the torrent as it rushes forth from the rock are more forceful – here, too, they were painted with light ink first, sometimes over-brushed with darker ink.

These two details show some of the techniques used in these paintings.

This was clearly a painting that required some degree of planning and careful attention to detail through much of its execution, and yet Chen Rong himself wrote about receiving inspiration through drink, and his contemporaries wrote of how he spattered ink and would even sometimes use his hat to scrub at the ink, sometimes tearing the paper – evidence of both these can be seen in this scroll – but it is far from being 'dashed off'. This is the result of many hours of concentration: each individual dragon displays meticulous brushwork in the delineation of the scales. Some of the effects, certainly, require a degree of abandonment, and this may have been of a more spiritual variety rather than alcohol induced; it is quite possible that he planned the work or made initial sketches for it in such a state, and the theme of 'Bohemian' habits among artists is often commented upon in Chinese and Japanese artistic traditions – the Chinese tradition stretched back to painters such as Wang Mo, who painted with his head, feet and hands, as well as his brush, creating a semi-abstract underlay upon which he apparently built his paintings (none survive today).

Another work that grabbed my attention was Chen Patriarch Harmonising his Mind (13th century), one of a pair traditionally attributed to Shi-ke, a painter of the 10th century. This is an often reproduced painting, and one I had seen on many occasions in books – to be honest, I had not been particularly struck by it. Seeing the actual work was a very different experience. The ink had a particular rich and vibrant quality to it, and though it was powerful and dynamic, like Chen Rong's painting, it had not simply been dashed off on the spur of the moment – a powerful artistic intelligence was at work here. The strong black accents jump out against the saturated grey of the robe; while the contrast of the delicate features of the face and the pale head against the light wash of the background give it an unexpected subtlety.

I was not the only one who was impressed: Brian Sewell, the acerbic critic of the London Evening Standard commented on this painting:
"...I saw brushwork of such freedom and certainty that it far outdoes Rembrandt and did not become the language of draughtsmanship in Europe until the 20th century."
It is probably the finest example of 'Zen' style painting I have seen, with all the elements that are typical of later Japanese 'Zen painting', especially the powerful, 'spontaneous' brushwork and it is not surprising that this style became emblematic of Zen painting in Japan. Perhaps what I find most inspiring is that this style, this approach, is not solely aesthetic. It has spiritual and philosophic dimensions. Abstract expressionism in the 20th century explored some of the same ground, and sometimes with conscious reference to east-Asian traditions; here, in a small work some 700 years old was a power and vibrancy those painters would have been proud to achieve.

There was much more in the exhibition, and I am sure that others with different interests would have highlighted a different selection of works. Many of the works speak to more recent preoccupations of artists, yet often deriving from very different histories or concerns. Yet for any lover of painting, there should be something to give food for thought.

A Deeper Reading of Musashi's Painting

I always say, if anyone asks me, that in order to appreciate art, you should try and see work in the flesh. It took me quite a while to come to this conclusion, until after my time at university anyway, when I started travelling to a few different countries and seeing what had, until then, been simply pictures in a book. The difference is startling - some works really grew in stature, others diminished. The most disappointing are those which look exactly like their reproductions. You wonder why you bothered to come to a museum to see them. Then there is the problem of over familiarity. If you have stared at an image for long enough, it can sometimes be quite difficult to see anything new in it.  There are also certain venues which add an incredible amount to the whole experience.

Of course, this is not limited to any one genre or regional style of art, and I dare say that every type benefits in its own way.

Japanese sumi-e painting benefits immensely from seeing it for real. It has its own atmosphere and sense of physicality which rarely comes across in reproductions. Although it's only ink on paper, it has texture and three-dimensionality (which is occasionally lacking in heavily restored works where the original paper is little more than a thin veneer on the backing paper).



One of Hakuin's
gibbons. It's not really
possible to tell from this
if the arms were painted in
one stroke or not.



One aspect I find particularly interesting is seeing the way the artist used the brush. It is not all that difficult, once you are tuned into it, to see the different kinds of strokes, and find where the stroke was broken or paused, and which strokes were laid over which. naturally, this has far greater relevance if you are practicing the same kind of art yourself.

Sumi-e suffers from a fair amount of nonsense being written about it. Perhaps most common is the idea of a single stroke. This is very far from the truth. Even (or perhaps especially?) an old Zen hand such as Hakuin often painted in pale ink before going over it in darker, stronger strokes, and the longer strokes are usually made up of a series of smaller ones. In one of his paintings of the monkey reaching for the moon which I saw recently, the long arms of the gibbon were each clearly painted in several strokes.

The same is true of Musashi's paintings. I was lucky enough to see his triptych of Bodhidarma flanked by a couple of ducks at an exhibition of the Matsui Collection just over a week ago. They are striking paintings, and if you let your mind wander over the possibilities, I think it is very likely that Musashi was  playing some quite complex visual games. Many painters, especially those towards the literati end of the spectrum included layers of meaning and reference in their work. Some of these were symbolic, while others were connected with the technical means employed by an artist within a work.

The type of stroke an artist uses - wet or dry, for example - can be linked to the subject. A wet stroke might be suggestive of spring or summer, while dry one might be used to indicate autumn or winter. Although the idea is simple, the nuances can be extremely sophisticated and are often linked to a deeper awareness of the subject, especially in further cultural and literary references. Likewise, a broader, wetter stroke can indicate ease and fullness, while a drier one suggests astringency and sensitivity. Some of this is aesthetic, but some of it is linked to an appreciation of the physical qualities, especially those concerning fluidity, of the medium.

In the case of Musashi's ducks, several of these kinds of references can be observed. It it exhibits the tensile, energetic strength so characteristic of his mature work, while using the brush and ink in several distinct ways.

Looking at the composition of the picture, there is a dynamic contrast between the tall figure of Daruma, and the ducks who are low down, close to the water-line. Daruma is painted as light and insubstantial (as befits someone balancing on a floating reed), his robes swirling around an empty centre, while the ducks are solid and assured in their duckiness. Wet, as well, which also suits their affinity to the water; and while they look happy, Daruma is all scowls and worry, his life's work many years from completion.

And these ducks are supposed to look happy - the one on the right features in another painting, together with the following verse:

It's soaring flight

Forgotten,

The duck

Delights in the ripples

Of a mountain stream.

It is hard not to see evidence of a personal comment on Musashi's life in this work. He had, after all, finally settled down in a position of relative ease and favour as a guest of Lord Hosokawa Tadatoshi in Kumamoto after a life of hard work and wandering. Perhaps he saw himself as being in the same position as the ducks, thoughts of his former life forgotten, perfectly adapted to his new role. At the same time, a student of the bugei, not to mention someone who had gained such a degree of mastery as Musashi, is inevitably marked by the long years of hard training. That hard seriousness is not negotiable - it is part of the personality that training has forged.

Although it may not be possible to offer a precise interpretation with any assurance of its accuracy, I think it is safe to say that the paintings are concerned with these issues, and thus help us to see deeper into the character of this man than his most famous work, the sharp-eyed shrike, will allow.

The Prince and the Greengrocer

This is the poster from the current exhibition at the Kyoto Sen-Oku Hakuko-kan, the home of the Sumitomo Collection in Kyoto (They have a Tokyo branch, too). The show consists mainly of paintings from the Ming and early Ching dynasties, although you might be forgiven for thinking that the image on the poster had slipped in from elsewhere. What were the Chinese literati doing painting cute puppies anyway?

Despite it's amazingly contemporary look, it was actually painted over 400 years ago by the painter known as Bada Shanren. An album of his smaller paintings is one of the treasures of the collection, and is usually exhibited in the early autumn, with a different painting being on show every few weeks as the leaves in the album are turned over.

Bada Shanren is classified as an eccentric (at the very least), and was regarded as certifiably crazy by his contemporaries. Whether he genuinely suffered from mental illness or was just faking it to avoid persecution from the incoming Manchu rulers (he was a member of the Ming royal family) is something tht we cannot know for sure, although modern opinion seems to tend more to the latter view. He entered a monastery, where he lived for more than forty years, before emerging to live as a wandering painter.

Bada Shanren - Sumitomo Collection

His work is characterized by the simplicity of its elements, coupled with a strong expressiveness and, to our modern eyes, a certain cuteness and whimsical humour which perhaps served to cover, as well as express, the bitterness he is known to have felt towards the new rulers of China.

In Japan, he is best known for these simple compositions, but other collections have works that are larger and more complex, and which give a better idea of the range of his abilities.

It is hard not to be struck by the similarities to works by Ito Jakuchu, a Japanese painter also labelled as an eccentric, but with a very different background. Jakuchu was the son and heir of a prosperous greengrocer in Kyoto, but found little sense of achievment in his work and gave it up to his brother to become a full-time painter. It was his love of the natural world which inspired him, not hate of an invading regime.

Comparing works such as Bada Shanren's Two Eagles (above) with many of Jakuchu's paintings of chickens (a typical example below, but here are others where the composition is much closer),  the similarities, both in the composition and brush use are inescapable. Bada Shanren characteristically made extensive use of short, choppy horizontal brushstrokes - I had long noticed the slightly jarring effect of these in Jakuchu's work - but whether or not he was familiar with the Chinese painter's work, I don't know. I have never seen any mention of it, but given that he lived in Kyoto, the capital, and was well-connected in the art world, particularly with centres of artistic connisseurship such as Shokoku-ji, make it possible.

Another painting on display, by Niu Shihui (1625-1672) bore even more Jakuchuesque qualities - this was less surprising after I discovered he was Bada Shanren's brother, who shared his monastic life, and hatred of the Qing. Interestingly, he signed his name so it looked like 'Never bowing down in my lifetime'. This is, of course, taking nothing away from Jakuchu's stature as a painter - the use of models was standard practice in all schools of painting of the time.

A typical Jakuchu cockerel

Looking at works by Jakuchu, and later, the larger ones by Bada Shanren, a couple of points struck me as particularly interesting. As always with art, viewing the actual pieces is a very different experience from seeing reproductions in books. Over the years, I have seen pieces by Jakuchu many times. perhaps to the point of becoming slightly blasé about them.

This time, however, I had been looking at a room of exquisite sumi-e landscapes, mainly from the Muromachi period, mostly small in scale, but including a 6 panel screen by Kano Masanobu, founder of the Kano School. I had left the Jakuchu pieces, till last, so as not to interfere with my appreciation of the other pieces.

When I got to them, I was surprised to find they displayed an invisible depth that I hadn't appreciated before. It was an odd sensation, almost like an optical illusion, like the after image you get from looking at something bright for a while and then shifting your gaze to something darker. But it was not a sensation of the eyes, but of the mind. In that white space behind the clear graphic images of rocks, birds, insects and plants was a definite sense of the subtle, modulated greys of a traditional sumi-e landscape. Not really visible, but a definite sense of possibilities, rather like the sense of an unknown but present world you get when reading a fantasy novel, before the author fully fleshes out the world for you.

It was a pleasant surprise for me, because a similar image is often used to describe the effect of empty space in Zen paintings. I had always dismissed these as rather abstract intellectual descriptions (as many of them are, I think), but perhaps there is something to them after all.

2 Chickens by Jakuchu - in the Hosomi Collection

The other point worthy of note is the level of skill necessary to make images of this sort. It both is and isn't difficult. Many zenga, for example, which are exemplary of the simplicity of this type, are less than fully satisfying as works of art. Their often praised spontaneity is common-place to many professional artists, and what is remarkable is that these works were regarded as sufficiently important to be preserved and treasured. In fact, in many cases, they were popular among foreign collectors before they were recognized here.

Jakuchu and Bada Shanren were different and display a high level of technical skill (especially in Jakuchu's case), and much of this is technical control of the medium, involving the ability to elicit depth from the ink line which it is almost too easy to produce a superficially dramatic effect, owing simply to the fluidity with which the ink flows off the brush, and the contrast it produces on white paper. Indeed, it can be so easy, that to produce depth and meaning for oneself is more difficult than creating a memorable or pleasing image for the viewer.