Zen Painting. (English and Japanese Edition)

This work is the first to deal with Zen painting comprehensively as a category of art in its own right. Not, of course, that a knowledge of Zen is necessary to appreciate it; seen quite simply as a collection of ink paintings, it is superbly enjoyable. Part of the enjoyment derives from the wide range of styles. These extend from comparatively conventional Chinese-style landscapes, via works such as Sesshu's "Haboku Landscape" (that wonderful piece of scenery from the inner mind) to the incredibly "modern" lines, circles, and freely drawn figures of Hakuin, Sengai, and the later artists. In this sense, the book is an intriguing guide to the magnificently varied affects that can be achieved using the simple medium of brush and Chinese ink. The 135 paintings in this volume include some of the finest masterpieces of the ink monochrome ever produced in Japan. But the book achieves something more than that. It also demonstrates, beyond all doubt, the existence of "Zen painting" in its own right. And in doing so it will tell the reader, better than any words could do, something about the nature of Zen--that baffling religion that in the West at least is more discussed, perhaps, than understood. The Zen in this art is unmistakable. It may appear in an unconventional treatment of a conventional subject; in a wild spontaneity, irreverence and sense of humor; in a conciseness that transforms familiar things into raw, essential forms that are both immediate and have dimensions and layers of meaning for those able to see; in an exuberance of energy that contains at once an understanding of joy and pathos; in a use of space to suggest simultaneously both limitless depths and nothing at all.