Kenkō ShōkeiJapão, 1478–1506
Wagtails
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Instituto de Artes de Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Estados Unidos
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Kenkō Shōkei was both a Zen priest and a highly skilled ink painter who spent most of his career at the major Zen monastery Kenchōji in the city of Kamakura. Here he depicted a pair of wagtails on branches in strikingly contrasting poses. One stares down to the right as if aiming at some prey, while the other stands straight with a glance to the left. Shōkei painted his birds using a rapid brush technique called “boneless” (that is, without outlines), a method seen as particularly suitable for Zen themes. This combination of compositional device and technique suggests that these wagtails once flanked a third painting of a Zen deity or patriarch as part of a devotional triptych. Pictures of birds or flowers often served this purpose in Zen painting. But Shōkei’s original format seems to have been radically transformed by some later owner.
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Not only is the central painting missing but the vertical seams on each painting suggest that a previous owner cut up the original paintings to create two large horizontal compositions. The new format was less suitable for a Zen temple but fit the wide display alcove typical of grand residences. This type of conversion of a once sacred image to a secular one was not uncommon in Japan after the 1500s.
Instituto de Artes de Minneapolis
Pormenores
- Número de inventário
- 2015.79.3.2
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- Instituto de Artes de Minneapolis
- Imagem: Instituto de Artes de Minneapolis — public domain
