Art historians agree that Muqi (active late 13th century) was a prototypical painter of the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279), a Chan Buddhist monk who reached enlightenment under the revered Chan master Wuzhun Shifan (1177-1249) and the founder of th...
Art historians agree that Muqi (active late 13th century) was a prototypical painter of the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279), a Chan Buddhist monk who reached enlightenment under the revered Chan master Wuzhun Shifan (1177-1249) and the founder of the “Liutong school of Zen art.” It is also believed that Yuan dynasty (1260-1368) critics severely criticized Muqi’s style but Japanese audiences began to covet his paintings beginning in the 14th century. Muqi was admired as one of the most famous Chinese masters in Japan. It is interesting to note that the widespread image of Muqi as a Zen (Chan) master painter celebrated in Japan was, in fact, invented by Okakura Tenshin (Okakura Kakuzō, 1862-1913) and other art historians during the early 20th century. This thesis reexamines the life and historical image of Muqi and the reception of his paintings, focusing on Guanyin, Gibbons, and Crane (the “Daitoku-ji triptych”) at Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto, and Persimmons (better known as Six Persimmons) in Ryōkō-in, a sub-temple of Daitoku-ji.
Chapter I challenges the long-held view of Muqi as a Chan Buddhist painter who studied under Wuzhun Shifan and as a man from Shu (present-day Sichuan province). A close examination of contemporary texts reveals that Muqi’s relationship with both Wuzhun and Chan Buddhism stemmed from insufficient evidence. It is not clear whether Muqi was a monk at Liutong Temple. His Shu origins, however, remain reliable. This chapter looks into Muqi’s activity in the Chang’erxiang area on West Lake in Hangzhou. Figures like the Korean prince-monk Uicheon (1055-1101) came to this region to study Huayan Buddhism, indicating that Muqi’s life and career were, in all likelihood, influenced by the efflorescent culture flourishing in Chang’erxiang. This chapter also considers the impact of Emperor Lizong (1205-1264, r. 1224-1264) on Muqi’s art. Emperor Lizong’s Tianzhusi Guangda Linggan Guanyindian ji (Record of the Broadly Great and Miraculously Inspirational Guanyin Hall in Tianzhu Temple) not only indicates that the faith of Guanyin’s many manifestations was popular in the West Lake region during the mid to late-13th century, but also testifies that three aspects of Guanyin received special emphasis: wisdom, mercy, and purity.
The chapter then concludes with a new interpretation of the Daitoku-ji triptych: the three paintings visualized the prevalent belief in the threefold aspects of Guanyin popularized by Lizong. The interpretation posits that the crane and gibbons are not merely flanking attendants but manifestations of Guanyin. It is clear that Muqi’s use of the crane and gibbon motifs was derived from the Shu traditions of yipin (untrammeled) monochrome ink paintings, time-honored lingmao (bird and animal) paintings, and large-scale hanging scrolls of Buddhist figures and motifs.
Chapter II examines the reception of Muqi during the Yuan dynasty, the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), and the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). Connoisseurs and critics across the three periods are known to have disparaged Muqi and his oeuvre. A detailed comparison of Yuan texts, however, reveals that these critics, without encountering Muqi’s artworks firsthand, merely excerpted and combined the comments of their predecessors. More vivid accounts of Muqi’s creations from their actual audiences support that Muqi and his paintings were appreciated by myriad figures with Confucian, Buddhist, and even Daoist backgrounds. The poetic inscriptions on Muqi’s paintings also serve as testimony that the works were well-received in various contexts. Chapter II then focuses on the drastic change in the documentation of Muqi’s paintings from the 15th century onward. Documents discussing huahui zahua (flowers, plants, and miscellaneous subjects) by Muqi were nearly nonexistent until the Yuan dynasty. Two of Muqi’s huahui zahua scrolls, one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, and the other in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, however, appeared in early Ming Chinese texts on painting for the first time. This appearance coincides with the Japanese Muromachi period (1336-1573) when the demand for Muqi’s paintings of kashi, fruits or nuts served as confections with tea, burgeoned alongside the development of chanoyu (tea ceremony) under the Ashikaga shogunate.
The culture of chanoyu required certain types of paintings to adorn the tokonoma, an alcove in the wall of a tea room for the display of aesthetic objects. Previously overlooked huahui zahua scrolls attributed to Muqi served to satisfy the demand of the tokonoma, which led to the mass production of kashi paintings with Muqi attributions. Ming artists’ encounter with the sudden increased demand for huahui zahua pictures played a significant role in changing the style of monochrome ink paintings and in formulating the more favorable Chinese reception of Muqi. The painters who interacted with the paintings in this context include such renowned figures as Shen Zhou (1427-1509), Li Rihua (1565-1634), and Zha Shibiao (1615-1698).
Chapter II finishes with an exploration of the evolution of Muqi’s reputation during the Qing dynasty. The third volume of the Jieziyuan huazhuan (The Mustard Seed Garden Manual), published in 1701, lists Muqi as a master of bird-and-flower paintings. This serves as proof of how Muqi’s reputation continued to evolve. It expands further with the Lidai huashi huizhuan (Biographies of Painters through the Ages) by Peng Yuncan in the late 19th century that highlights Muqi’s eccentricities absent from any previous biographical writings about the painter. Chapter II’s examination of various dimensions of Muqi’s reputation throughout Chinese art history establishes that Muqi and his art became highly regarded in China due to the immense popularity of his works in Muromachi Japan.
Chapter III analyzes the Japanese reception of Muqi’s two paintings, the Daitoku-ji triptych and Persimmons, from the Muromachi period through the end of the Edo period (1600-1868). The triptych, comprised of Guanyin, a crane, and gibbons, began its history in the decoration of the kaisho, the meeting rooms of the villas maintained by Ashikaga shoguns. Chapter III first explores how the triptych came to be considered one of the greatest karamono (Chinese objects) and how Ashikaga shoguns used it as a means of demonstrating their elegant taste and artistic and cultural knowledge. The reputation of the Daitoku-ji triptych as the precious property of the Muromachi rulers remained unchallenged, even leading Japanese authors in later periods to mistakenly regard every painting by Muqi in the holdings of Daitoku-ji as part of the Higashiyama gomotsu, the collection of the Ashikaga shogunate.
Chapter III also focuses on the aesthetic reception of the Daitoku-ji triptych which set standards for the composition and display of karamono painting in Japan. The unique composition of Muqi’s triptych suited the taste of the Muromachi shoguns. Following in the footsteps of the shoguns, many collectors of karamono purchased paintings similar in composition to Muqi’s triptych. Chaper III further examines the later reception of Muqi’s triptych held at Daitoku-ji. Many Edo period documents show that the Daitoku-ji triptych was displayed for both internal rites and public events. During these events, the temple showed Guanyin, Gibbons, and Crane as separate scrolls and sometimes combined them with Dragon and Tiger, attributed to Muqi, now in the collection of Daitoku-ji. This chapter investigates the role of the shusho’e, the New Years’ service in Japanese Buddhist temples, in the display of the Daitoku-ji triptych. Chapter III points out that the shusho’e at Daitoku-ji involved a singular use of the triptych. The centerpiece of the triptych, the white-robed Guanyin, was exhibited alone on the last day of the shusho’e when the priests of Daitoku-ji performed the first tea ceremony of the year in Unmon-an, the burial place of the founder Daitō Kokushi Shūhō Myōchō (1282-1337). Daitoku-ji’s own uses of Guanyin, Gibbons, and Crane further illuminate how Muqi’s triptych was displayed within the context of Buddhist rituals.
Chapter III also probes into the provenance, authenticity, and reception of Persimmons (Six Persimmons), one of the diptych Chestnuts and Persimmons, a set of two hanging scrolls, known to exist in Japan since the 16th century. It is noteworthy that Japanese artists, collectors, and tea masters paid more attention to Chestnuts than to Persimmons. A later composition entitled Chestnuts by Kanō Motonobu (1476-1559) shows not only the popularity of this motif over that of persimmons, but also the presence of identical or similar paintings regarded as Muqi’s huahui zahua starting in the early 16th century at the latest. Chestnuts and Persimmons began to be mentioned in written records in 1571. The diverse and complex accounts of Chestnuts and Persimmons raise questions about the possible existence of other paintings with the same title yet different motifs. To explore this possibility, Chapter III traces the provenance of other paintings titled Chestnuts and Persimmons. Yōka Kyokuan (active in 16th century), the first owner of the renowned Persimmons, and Marquis Inoue Kaoru (1836-1915) are said to have possessed Chestnuts and Persimmons respectively. The Jōtenkaku Museum of Shōkoku-ji Temple, Kyoto, has a painting called Chestnuts and Persimmons. These paintings suggest that there were many paintings depicting chestnuts and persimmons in circulation during the Edo period. Copies of Chestnuts and Persimmons by Kanō painters testify to this phenomenon during the Edo period. The wide circulation of paintings called Chestnuts and Persimmons shows the abundance of copies of Muqi’s huahui zahua, especially in 16th-century Japan.
The analysis of the provenance and authenticity of Chestnuts and Persimmons in Chapter III is followed by a discussion of its reception. Sen no Rikyū (1522-1591) is recorded as the first tea master to display Muqi’s Chestnuts and Persimmons. He displayed them to show his gratitude to the guests who attended his tea ceremony. During Rikyū’s time, chestnuts and persimmons were symbolic of the host’s gratitude to the guests. As a result, kashi (nuts or fruits) paintings began to take on symbolic meanings. Muqi’s Chestnuts and Persimmons was donated to Ryōkō-in, a sub-temple of Daitoku-ji, by Kōgetsu Sōgan (1574-1643), the second son of the Sakai tea master and abbot of Ryōkō-in Tsuda Sōgyū (?-1591). Sogan enjoyed a close friendship with renowned chanoyu masters and artists of the time such as Kobori Enshū (1579-1647), Shōkadō Shōjō (1584-1639), and Kanō Tan’yū (1602-1674). Shōjō and Tan’yū created huahui zahua hanging scrolls similar to Chestnuts and Persimmons. This indicates that they had access to these Muqi-attributed works. Given that Chestnuts and Persimmons was in the Ryōkō-in, the painting gained enormous popularity. It was frequently viewed and appreciated by elite chanoyu practitioners and artists of which Shōjō and Tan’yū were only two. The Chūkō meibutsuki (Masterpieces of the Revival) detailing Kobori Enshū’s tea aesthetics mentions the ways in which Chestnuts and Persimmons was shown to them in the chanoyu ceremony. Chestnuts and Persimmons was received as such during the period. It was regarded not as an artwork embodying the quintessence of Zen, but as a special object for the chanoyu practice. That Edo period illustrated books reveal that the Ryōkō-in zahua was not as much highly valued as the Daitoku-ji triptych indicates that Chestnuts and Persimmons served as a chanoyu object.
Chapter IV examines the changes in the Japanese reception of both Guanyin, Gibbons, and Crane and Chestnuts and Persimmons which occurred when these paintings were incorporated into Zen art history starting in the early 20th century. Okakura Tenshin created his pan-Asianist discourse, arguing that the ideals of the East rest on Zen Buddhism which was forgotten in India or China while it prospered in medieval Japan. Okakura’s ideological framework played a significant role in the establishment of Japanese art history. His theory of pan-Asianism and his promotion of Zen and Zen art exerted wide influence by the Kinki hōmotsu chōsa (Investigation of the Art Treasures of the Kinki Region, 1884-1888), the publication of collected works such as the Shinbi taikan (Selected Relics of Japanese Art, 1899-1908) by the publisher Shinbi shoin, and the establishment of the kokuhō (National Treasure) system. As these new art historical and cultural endeavors that emphasized the significance of Zen Buddhism began to gain currency, Muqi became a painter who embodied Zen aesthetics and represented Okakura’s discourse on the ideals of the East. Nevertheless, the Daitoku-ji triptych, the most renowned masterpiece of Muqi from the Muromachi period on, did not fit neatly into the principles of Zen art history that celebrated the untrammeled manners of Zen master painters. The Daitoku-ji triptych is a carefully designed and finely executed set of paintings famous for the painter’s meticulous and refined draftsmanship, standing in sharp contrast to the swift, sketchy, abbreviated, rough style of ink drawing typical of Zen artists. As a result, scholars pursuing Zen art history turned their attention to other paintings by or attributed to Muqi that represented the characteristics of Zen art.
After examining this phenomenon, Chapter IV then focuses on the compromise which Japanese art historians reached after the 1910s. They regarded Gibbons as an example of relatively rough and expressive style closely related to the untrammeled quality in Zen painting. This new interpretation of the Daitoku-ji triptych led to the idea that Guanyin, Gibbons, and Crane originally did not constitute the triptych and the three paintings were assembled as a set of three hanging scrolls in Japan. It must be noted that Guanyin, Gibbons, and Crane had been recorded separately in texts since the Muromachi period. Scholars of the Meiji era (1868-1912) followed this tradition and treated the paintings separately. Guanyin, Gibbons, and Crane came to be enrolled as separate artworks in the system of the National Treasures.
Chapter IV then continues to trace the historiography of Chestnuts and Persimmons, or the modern “discovery” of Persimmons. The Gūnpo seigan (Appreciation of Fragrant Flowers, 1913) by Aimi Kōu (1874-1970) is the only literature that introduced Chestnuts and Persimmons as one of the best examples of Zen art in the early 20th-century Japan. Aimi described the Ryoko-in zahua as the prototype of Muqi’s small paintings that visualized the Zen spirit. Otto Kümmel (1874-1952) and Ernst Grosse (1862-1927), two of the German scholars who had read the Gūnpo seigan introduced Chestnut and Persimmons to Western scholars, notably Arthur Waley (1889-1966), by reproducing its plate in their books, Die Kunst Ostasiens (1921) and Ostasiatische Tuschmalerei (1922) respectively. Waley, the author of Zen Buddhism and Its Relation to Art (1922) and An Introduction to the Study of Chinese Painting (1923), recorded that Muqi was the founding father of Zen painting. His books reproduced only Persimmons as the artist’s exemplary work. Persimmons consequently enjoyed tremendous popularity in the West. This Western perception of Persimmons as a masterpiece exemplifying the essence of Zen stands in direct contrast to the traditional Japanese conception of Chestnuts and Persimmons as a special object in the tea ceremony.
Chapter IV further examines how Chestnuts and Persimmons came to be celebrated in the West. It is noteworthy that Aimi, the sole Japanese scholar who wrote on Chestnuts and Persimmons in the context of Zen, not only worked together with the Shinbi shoin under the aegis of Okakura but also interacted with Westerners in person while studying in France and England. Aimi’s new interpretation of Chestnuts and Persimmons as Zen painting seems to have been derived from his own experience in Europe where Okakura’s theory of interconnectedness among Zen, Asian ideals, and Japanese art gained enormous popularity. As a result, Persimmons rose to prominence as a masterpiece showing the essence of Zen aesthetics. Arthur Waley’s celebration of Zen art played a key role in the making of Persimmons as a masterwork.
Muqi’s paintings cannot be understood solely as artworks representing the quintessence of Zen art forgotten in China. The reception of Muqi and his paintings varied according to different times and places. Each reception is related to its own cultural context. This thesis explores how to understand Muqi within the specific context in which he lived and worked and how to interpret the ways in which he was received in Chin and Japan from various perspectives.