Crosscurrents of East Asian art

Magazine Antiques, March, 1999 by Amy Poster

Drawing on the superb holdings of private collectors in the New York metropolitan area, the Japan Society in conjunction with the Brooklyn Museum of Art has organized an exhibition emphasizing the crosscurrents and continuity in the arts of China, Japan, and Korea from the earliest times to the beginning of this century. Some of the highlights from the exhibition are the subject of this article.

An emphasis on nature in expressing political sarcasm finds an early example in the twelfth-century hand scrolls called Choju giga (Scrolls of Frolicking Animals and People) (see Pl. II). Animals are given the roles of the ecclesiastical and secular elite to emphasize human foibles and qualities. A deer prancing away at the left identifies the scene as the famous horse races at the Kamo Shrine in Heian (now Kyoto), while the monkeys at the right represent secular noblemen, recognizable by their black caps (eboshi). Attributed to Toba Sojo, a monk of the Kozanji temple in Kyoto, these scrolls have become part of the canon of Japanese Buddhist art. When a fire at the temple in the Kamakura period damaged the scrolls, they were copied. The fragment illustrated here shows damage from the fire and is considered to be from the original set.

The humor and immediacy of the Choju giga fragment shown here contrasts with the tranquillity of Buddhist images, such as the standing figure of the bodhisattva Jizo shown in Plate III, which dates to the Kamakura period. The anonymous artist carved it according to a codified tradition and iconography. Jizo is generally shown with a shaven head and in the monastic dress of a priest, whose function is to assist the worshiper to achieve enlightenment. The beautiful facial expression and stance of the figure mark the enduring qualities of Buddhist sculpture in the medium of wood, favored in Japan. The staff that Jizo holds is surmounted with rings to call devoted followers.

The contemplative beauty of early Japanese Buddhist art is similarly well preserved in a hanging scroll from the Nanbokucho period (Pl. I). It continues the longstanding tradition of the raigo - the descent of the Amida from the Tushita heaven. Unlike the Jizo, which was an object of worship, the divine Amida would be invoked to welcome a devotee into his western paradise. Supported by clouds, the serene image is accompanied by his celestial attendants, the bodhisattvas Kannon and Seishi, whose gestures symbolize the Buddha's reception of a devotee into one of the nine degrees of birth in paradise. Paradise is further symbolized by the materials used to make the scroll - color and gold on indigo-dyed silk.

Guanyin, shown in royal dress with hands extended in a gesture of appeasement (Pl. V), was a popular subject in East Asian Buddhist art. This is the finest of some twenty related examples.(1) Such images of Guanyin were made during the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the remote Dali kingdom in Yunan province at the crossroads of Southeast Asia, Tibet, and China. This figure is an example of the transmission of Indian prototypes of the eighth and ninth centuries as interpreted in Buddhist images from Southeast Asia. Buddhism itself was transmitted to the Dali kingdom along the southern border of China and the borders of Vietnam, Laos, and Burma.

Wearing elaborate jewelry and a long pleated garment, this image of Guanyin is wonderfully cast and gilded and displays an extraordinarily beautiful facial expression. These attributes elevate it above what is generally considered to be a remarkable stylistic consistency in these images.

The arts of the literati and the tea ceremony in East Asia are represented by works created for and collected by the cultural elite. The arts were painting, calligraphy, and poetry, while the objects used for the tea ceremony were ceramic, bronze, and lacquerware. The tea ceremony (chanoyu) is a formal gathering that in many ways is the ultimate expression of the literati movement in Japan, although it was derived from a Buddhist Zen practice in China in which powdered dry tea leaves were whisked in hot water in a teabowl and appreciated according to fragrance, color, taste, and other sensory and aesthetic criteria. The Raku ware teabowl shown in Plate VII was shaped by hand without a thick layer of glaze to hamper the user's enjoyment of its texture. The bowl has an ancient lineage, having been made by Raku Sonyu, the fifth head of the celebrated Raku workshop in Kyoto, which made teabowls for generations of the city's elite. The same private collection includes a note written by Hon'ami Koetsu (1558-1637), an arbiter of taste of the famous Rimpa school of art in Kyoto, reflecting the assistance he received from professional potters in creating his own teabowls. An important aspect of the tea ceremony aesthetic was an appreciation for amateurism; too much refinement was considered undesirable.

Another artist of the Rimpa school, Tawaraya Sotatsu painted the episode shown in Plate VI from the Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari) a tenth-century collection of poems suggesting the evanescence of life and court society. This painting is originally from an album of thirty-six paintings illustrating the poems in the square format of poem cards (shikishi). Here the lady on the veranda awaits the return of her unfaithful husband who, upon hearing her recite a poem wishing him well in his travels, is at once remorseful. This poignant image suggests the sadness that represents the Japanese literary ideal derived from Buddhism, summarized as mono no aware (all things must pass).