Budai was a Chinese monk who is often identified with and venerated as Maitreya Buddha in Chan Buddhism. With the spread of Chan Buddhism, he also came to be venerated in Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. He is said to have lived around the 10th century CE in the Wuyue kingdom. His name literally means "cloth sack", and refers to the bag that he is conventionally depicted as carrying as he wanders aimlessly. His jolly nature, humorous personality, and eccentric lifestyle distinguish him from most Buddhist masters or figures. He is almost always shown smiling or laughing, hence his nickname in Chinese, the "Laughing Buddha". As he is traditionally depicted as overweight and many stories surrounding Budai involve his love of food and drink, he is also referred to as the "Fat Buddha", especially in the Western world.
The Muromachi period is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate, which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi shōgun, Ashikaga Takauji, two years after the brief Kenmu Restoration (1333–1336) of imperial rule was brought to a close. The period ended in 1573 when the 15th and last shogun of this line, Ashikaga Yoshiaki, was driven out of the capital in Kyoto by Oda Nobunaga.
Ink wash painting is a type of Chinese ink brush painting which uses black ink, such as that used in Asian calligraphy, in different concentrations. It emerged during the Tang dynasty of China (618–907); it overturned earlier, more realistic techniques. It is typically monochrome, using only shades of black, with a great emphasis on virtuoso brushwork and conveying the perceived "spirit" or "essence" of a subject over direct imitation. Ink wash painting flourished from the Song dynasty in China (960–1279) onwards, as well as in Japan after it was introduced by Zen Buddhist monks in the 14th century. Some Western scholars divide Chinese painting into three periods: times of representation, times of expression, and historical Oriental art. Chinese scholars have their own views which may be different; they believe that contemporary Chinese ink wash paintings are the pluralistic continuation of multiple historical traditions.
Mañjuśrī is a bodhisattva associated with prajñā (wisdom) in Mahāyāna Buddhism. His name means "Gentle Glory" in Sanskrit. Mañjuśrī is also known by the fuller name of Mañjuśrīkumārabhūta (मञ्जुश्रीकुमारभूत), literally "Mañjuśrī, Still a Youth" or, less literally, "Prince Mañjuśrī". Another name of Mañjuśrī is Mañjughoṣa.
Sesshū Tōyō has been regarded as one of the greatest painters in Japanese history. Sesshū was a Zen-Shu priest painter of the Muromachi period in Japan, prominently recognised for his art of sumi-e. Initially inspired by Chinese landscapes, Sesshū's work holds a distinctively Japanese style that reflects Zen Buddhist aesthetics. His prominent work captured images of landscapes, portraits, and birds and flowers paintings, infused with Zen Buddhist beliefs, flattened perspective, and emphatic lines.
The Rinzai school is one of three sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism. The Chinese Linji school of Chan was first transmitted to Japan by Myōan Eisai. Contemporary Japanese Rinzai is derived entirely from the Ōtōkan lineage transmitted through Hakuin Ekaku (1686–1769), who is a major figure in the revival of the Rinzai tradition.
Hanshan is a Chinese Buddhist and Taoist figure associated with a collection of poems from the Chinese Tang dynasty in the Taoist and Chan tradition. No one knows who he was, when he lived and died, or whether he actually existed. In the Chinese Buddhist tradition, Hanshan and his sidekick Shide are honored as emanations of the bodhisattvas Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra, respectively. In Japanese and Chinese paintings, Hanshan is often depicted together with Shide or with Fenggan, another monk with legendary attributes.
Shide was a Tang Dynasty Chinese Buddhist poet at the Guoqing Temple on Mount Tiantai on the East China Sea coast; roughly contemporary with Hanshan and Fenggan, but younger than both of them. As close friends the three of them formed the "Tiantai Trio". Shide lived as a lay monk, and worked most of his life in the kitchen of Guoqing Temple.
Fenggan was a Chinese Zen monk-poet lived in the Tang Dynasty, associated with Hanshan and Shide in the famed "Tiantai Trio" (天台三聖).
The Higashiyama culture is a segment of Japanese culture that includes innovations in architecture, the visual arts and theatre during the late Muromachi period. It originated and was promoted in the 15th century by the shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, after he retired to his villa in the eastern hills of the capital city Kyoto.
Japanese painting is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese visual arts, encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the long history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis and competition between native Japanese aesthetics and the adaptation of imported ideas, mainly from Chinese painting, which was especially influential at a number of points; significant Western influence only comes from the 19th century onwards, beginning at the same time as Japanese art was influencing that of the West.
Itō Jakuchū was a Japanese painter of the mid-Edo period when Japan had closed its doors to the outside world. Many of his paintings concern traditionally Japanese subjects, particularly chickens and other birds. Many of his otherwise traditional works display a great degree of experimentation with perspective, and with other very modern stylistic elements.
Buddhism played an important role in the development of Japanese art between the 6th and the 16th centuries. Buddhist art and Buddhist religious thought came to Japan from China through Korea. Buddhist art was encouraged by Crown Prince Shōtoku in the Suiko period in the sixth century, and by Emperor Shōmu in the Nara period in the eighth century. In the early Heian period, Buddhist art and architecture greatly influenced the traditional Shinto arts, and Buddhist painting became fashionable among wealthy Japanese. The Kamakura period saw a flowering of Japanese Buddhist sculpture, whose origins are in the works of Heian period sculptor Jōchō. During this period, outstanding busshi appeared one after another in the Kei school, and Unkei, Kaikei, and Tankei were especially famous. The Amida sect of Buddhism provided the basis for many popular artworks. Buddhist art became popular among the masses via scroll paintings, paintings used in worship and paintings of Buddhas, saint's lives, hells and other religious themes. Under the Zen sect of Buddhism, portraiture of priests such as Bodhidharma became popular as well as scroll calligraphy and sumi-e brush painting.
Awataguchi Takamitsu was a Japanese painter during the Muromachi (Ashikaga) period of Japanese history. He helped produce the Yūzū nembutsu engi (融通念仏縁起絵) housed in the Seiryō-ji, a Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan. He followed the Yamato-e school. Most of the works he produced were based and inspired by his Buddhist beliefs. He was also a court painter who painted five volumes of the Ashibiki-e scroll paintings during the Ōei period.
Soga Shōhaku was a Japanese painter of the Edo period. Shōhaku distinguished himself from his contemporaries by preferring the brush style of the Muromachi period, an aesthetic that was already passé 150 years before his birth. His monstrous depictions of prominent figures were extremely unusual compared to other painters of his time.
The Ōtōkan lineage (応灯関、應燈關) is a lineage of the Rinzai school of Zen. It was founded by Nanpo Shōmyō, who received the dharma in China in 1265 and returned to Japan in 1267.
Zenrin-kushū is a collection of writings used in the Rinzai school of Zen. Initially it was a compilation of Zen writings by Tōyō Eichō a disciple of Kanzan Egen of the Myōshin-ji line of Rinzai school in Kyoto, Japan. Tōyō's anthology consisted of 5,000 writings compiled from writings of various traditions, such as Confucianism, Taoism and Zen, and the poetry of Tang and Song China.
Haboku sansui is a splashed-ink landscape painting on a hanging scroll. It was made by the Japanese artist Sesshū Tōyō in 1495, in the Muromachi period. The ink wash painting is classified as a National Treasure of Japan and currently held by the Tokyo National Museum.
Xianzi, or Kensu in Japanese, also known as the Shrimp Eater, was a semi-historical Chan/Zen monk, considered to be one of the “scattered sages,” who were deviant or otherwise unusual figures within the Chan tradition. Infamous for his iconoclastic breaking of the taboo on eating meat set forth in the Vinaya Code of monastic rules, the Shrimp Eater appears in several traditional Zen paintings as both a comedic figure that underscores the Zen tradition of humor, as well as an eccentric, enlightened individual.
Shigajiku, are a form of Japanese ink wash painting. These hanging scrolls depict poetic inscriptions at the top of the scroll and a painted image, usually a landscape scene, below. Buddhist monks of the gozan 五山 or Five Mountain monasteries of the early Muromachi Period (1336-1573) first introduced the poem-and-painting scrolls.
