15.  Southern Song Chan Buddhist Painting and Sculpture

Southern Song (1127-1279)

concept: icon, iconoclasm

icon:   most generally an image, figure, or representation; a portrait; a picture. Typically used to refer to a representation of some sacred personage, in painting or sculpture, itself regarded as sacred, and honored with worship or adoration.

iconoclasm:   destruction of images

Terms

Chan Buddhism 禅   Known in the Japanese language as Zen.   A Buddhist sect that emphasizes meditation and personal transmission of doctrine.   Traditionally believed to have been transmitted from India by Bodhidharma, but possibly of Chinese origin.

Bodhidharma (d. 532 CE).   The First Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, an Indian or Sogdian monk who is traditionally believed to have transmitted Chan from India to China.

Patriarch: head of the sect.

Southern School of Chan:   promotes idea of sudden enlightenment.

Northern School of Chan: promotes idea of gradual enlightenment.

Objects

Compare Liang Kai's 梁愷 Shakyamuni Emerging from the Mountains 出山 釈迦   1204.   Hanging scroll, ink, color, silk; 47 x 20” (7-45) with an anonymous early Yuan painting of Bodhidharma Crossing the River on a Reed.

Huike 慧可 (487-593):   The Second Patriarch of the Chan sect.   Chopped off arm to demonstrate seriousness of intent in becoming a disciple of Bodhidharma.

            See Shike 石恪 , Second Patriarch Asleep 二祖调心图 (note crossed-off arm). Ink on silk; 47.0 x 36.5 cm.

Huineng 慧能 (638-713).   One of two contenders for the title of Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, traditionally known as the “founder” of the southern school of Chan.   See Liang Kai, Sixth Patriarch Chopping Bamboo (六祖栽竹) 13th c. Hanging scroll, ink, paper, 29 x 12” (fig. 7-46).   See also Liang Kai, Sixth Patriarch tearing up the Sutras (六祖破經 ).   13th c. Hanging scroll, ink, paper.

Three genres of painting associated with Southern School of Chan:

#1   stories about the sect itself

ko'an (Japanese term used most commonly today, from the Chinese term gong'an 公案 ).   A nonsensical or paradoxical question or story used in Chan Buddhism as a method to force the listener to abandon logical thought and attain a suprarational understanding.   Example: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” or “What did your face look like before you were born?”

Anonymous. Monk Jianzi with the Crawdad. Hanging scroll, ink, paper.

#2   bird and flower painting

ziran 自然 (self-so).   A desirable quality of natural spontaneity--lack of artifice and resonance with nature--in one's personality and creative work.

See Muqi 牧谿, Six Persimmons and Guanyin, Crane, and Mother Gibbon with Baby.   13th c.   Set of three hanging scrolls, ink and colors on silk. 5'7” x 39”   Now in Daitoku-ji, Kyoto, Japan (fig. 7-47)

guan 觀   “Visualization.”   A meditative practice in which the devotee creates mental images, sometimes using visual aids.

#3   ink landscape

pomo technique 破墨:   broken ink or splashed ink

Yintuoluo 因阤羅.   Landscape Painting.   Mid-14th century.   Ink on paper.