Large Antique Zen Japanese Ink Scroll After Sesson Shukei

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A Japanese Sumi ink painting with light color wash mounted with brocade borders as a hanging scroll (Kakejiku). The painting … Read more A Japanese Sumi ink painting with light color wash mounted with brocade borders as a hanging scroll (Kakejiku). The painting depicts the famously eccentric Buddhist monks Hanshan and Shide (known in Japan as Kanzan and Jittoku). Often as a pair, they have been a popular motif in Japanese Zen painting for meditation, representing deeper philosophical meanings and mysterious symbolism in Zen Buddhism.
Hanshan or Kanzan ("Cold Mountain") and Shide or Jittoku ("found") are legendary Zen monks living in the Tang Dynasty (618–907) of China. The two close friends were often depicted as unconventional mystics, disheveled in appearance and mischievous in manners. Kanzan is identified by the scroll he holds as a poet while Jittoku by a broom as a kitchen cleaner, as seen in this painting. It was said that they communicated with a gibberish language only understood by them and were deemed lunatic and carefree. In Japan, starting in the Muromachi period (1336-1573), they were regarded by many scholars as the incarnations of Manjusri (Monju) and Samantabadhra (Fugen) and became a very popular motif in Zen Buddhism art.
In a classic manner of Suiboku school of the Muramachi period, this painting was painted by a follower of Sesson Shukei (1504-1589), one of the most well-known Japanese Zen monks and painters from the Muromachi period. It was signed "After Sesson". Old collection labels further indicated the provenance of this piece as the following:
Purchased on 30/04/1968 from Dawson's Book Shop in LA, CA
Collected by Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina-Greensboro in 1987.
The painting itself measures 18" W x 46" H; the scroll measures 24" W x 81" H. In a storage wood box with Chinese inscription as shown. See less