Zenga

For the Italian goalkeeper, see Walter Zenga. For the Japanese league of students, see Zengakuren.

Zenga (禅画; "zen picture") is a subset of Zen painting that encompasses the sumi-e painting and calligraphy of Japanese Zen Masters during the Edo period[1] and Meiji period[2]. It is characterized by direct, simple, and expressive brush work, usually in monochrome. Zenga paintings featured traditional Buddhist figures such as Daruma, Kanzan and Jittoko, and Hotei, often depicted in comical caricatures. Zen sayings, also brushed in rough calligraphy, accompanied the paintings. Simple motifs such as the Ensō, the Zen Masters staff or calligraphy without painting were also popular themes in Zenga.[3]

Zenga is sometimes contrasted with "nanga," or "literati painting," made by scholars.[4]

In many instances, both calligraphy and image will be in the same piece. The calligraphy denotes a poem, or saying, that teaches some element of the true path of Zen. These inscriptions are usually short, often written in kana.[5] The brush painting is characteristically simple, bold and abstract, and the style often playful and spontaneous.

In keeping with individual paths to enlightenment, nearly any subject matter can lend (and has lent) itself to zenga. Everything from a cat, to a bamboo shoot, to a man defecating in a field has been used to illustrate a particular point - although ensō, sticks and Mount Fuji are the most common elements.

History

Though Zen Buddhism had arrived in Japan at the end of the 12th-century, Zenga flourished during the beginning of the Edo period in 1600, in the Kyoto area. The prelate of the Daitoku-ji temple, Takuan Sōhō, was a well-known Zenga painter; other notable practitioners during the Edo period included Hakuin Ekaku and Sengai Gibon.[6]

The term "Zenga" was used at least as far back as Japanese scholar Okamoto Kanoko's studies of Ekaku, but with the renewed interest in Zen after World War II came a wave of further scholarship, both in Japan and in the West. Japanese-born Swiss scholar Kurt Brasch's books Hakuin and Zenga (1957) and Zenga (1962), as well as a traveling Zenga exhibition he organized in Europe from 1959 to 1960, were particularly influential. Brasch's use of the term "Zenga," however, prompted criticism from some Japanese scholars including Takeuchi Naoji, who argued that it narrowly categorized the art.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ Addiss, Stephen (1976). ´´Zenga and Nanga´´. New Orleans: New Orleans Museum of Art. p. 37.
  2. ^ Seo, Audrey Yoshiko; Addiss Stephen (2000). ´´The Art of Twentieth Century Zen´´. Boston: Shambhala Publications. p. 3.
  3. ^ Stevens, John (1990). ´´ZENGA Brushstrokes of Enlightenment´´. New Orleans: New Orleans Museum of Art.
  4. ^ Kobayashi, Tadashi; Rotondo-McCord, Lisa E. (2002). An Enduring Vision: 17th-20th-century Japanese Painting from the Gitter-Yelen Collection. New Orleans Museum of Art. ISBN 9780894940873. Retrieved 8 March 2023.
  5. ^ Bruschke-Johnson, Lee (22 November 2021). Dismissed as Elegant Fossils: Konoe Nobutada and the Role of Aristocrats in Early Modern Japan. Brill. ISBN 9789004487604. Retrieved 8 March 2023.
  6. ^ a b Aviman, Galit (5 July 2017). Zen Paintings in Edo Japan (1600-1868): Playfulness and Freedom in the Artwork of Hakuin Ekaku and Sengai Gibon. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781351536110. Retrieved 8 March 2023.


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