Shôkokuji, Golden Pavilion, Silver Pavilion, Art and Zen in Kyoto

Report of the conference visit « Shôkokuji, Golden Pavilion, Silver Pavilion, Art and Zen in Kyoto By Percin de Sermet, lecturer at the Cernuschi and Petit Palais museums.

Our charming speaker first reminded us that 2008 was the anniversary year of one hundred and fifty years of Franco-Japanese relations and especially the fifty years of the pact of friendship between Paris and Kyoto.
Mrs. Percin de Sermet pointed out, as Professor Macé had done previously, that the practice of Zen, Buddhism of meditation, reached its peak during the Muromachi period (1333-1582), one of the most troubled of the history of Japan.

Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), the third shogun of the Ashikaga dynasty installs the government in Muromachi, district of Kyoto near the imperial palace. Not far from there he built in 1392, Shôkokuji, the last of the Five Mountains temples in Kyoto, but which was also, during a brief but brilliant period, the major temple of the group. This temple experienced many vicissitudes: several fires due to accidents, almost completely razed during the civil war of Ônin (1467-1477). However, still rebuilt, it remains the prototype of the official temples, of pure Zen invoice.

Yoshimitsu retired to take the monastic habit and had a sumptuous residence combining the palace and the temple, the Kinkakuji or Golden Pavilion, built west of the city.
His example was followed by his grandson, Yoshimasa (1436-1490), the eighth shogun Ashikaga, who arranged a less sumptuous but more elegant retreat east of the capital: the Ginkakuji or Silver Pavilion.

Portraits

After this historical summary we stopped in front of the wooden statue (N ° 90) of Musô Soseki (1259-1351). Although he died thirty years before the construction of the Shôkokuji, he is considered the first patriarch and "the one who opened the mountain". In fact it is his nephew and disciple, Sun'oku Myôha, accepting to be a patriarch only if he was the second after his master, who was the first.

The portrait is strikingly real, not only by the face that is usually faithfully rendered in Zen statuary, but a painted portrait (No. 89) located nearby shows the perfect resemblance, but also by the frail shoulders and shoulders drooping. Dressed in the monastic robe, he sits on a throne, in a meditative position. His teaching staff, symbol of peregrination and power, placed beside him.
The painted portrait (N ° 92) of Sun'oku Myôha, directed by Kanô Tan'yû (1602-1674) is very clearly influenced by Chinese painting. These portraits were supposed to be the resting place of the soul of the deceased monk and could be the object of a devotion although Zen is based on meditation.

The painted portrait (N ° 94) and the carved one (N ° 96) of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu represent him as a Zen monk, seated on a throne and wearing the kesa, the monastic robe. The third shogun had a fascination with Chinese culture and possessed an important collection of paintings and porcelain from the Song and Yuan dynasties. These two portraits were made after the death of Yoshimitsu and are of a lesser realism.

The statue (N ° 97) of Kûkoku Myôô (1328-1407), third patriarch of Shôkokuji, shows a great realism in the treatment of the face but the general construction remains conventional.

The monumental bronze sculpture of the “phoenix” (N ° 98), once gilded, is the original piece that adorned the Kinkakuji's apex box and remains the only piece that survives of the old Golden Pavilion burned in 1950.

Paints and ink wash

In spite of a displayed antiritualism, the practice of Zen remains essentially a ritual practice, as Professor Macé had already reminded us.

Two Buddhist divinities have been particularly venerated in Zen Buddhism: Kannon in the white robe (a form of the boddhisattva of compassion: Avalokitešvara or Guanyin in China) and Monju (Mañjušri: the boddhisattva of knowledge). Song aesthetics were particularly popular in the fourteenth century, and early Zen monasteries used paintings imported from China that later influenced local production.

The painted representations of Kannon in the white dress shows her often sitting in a relaxing position on a rock, near a watercourse (No. 143) or in a cave (No. 144), a reminder of the eremitism advocated by Zen, with at his feet a devotee or a child. Another representation, large format (No. 146), the standing watch, slightly turned to his right and holding a lotus flower. This roll was used once a year during the ritual of repentance.
These works were executed by monks painters using the technique of ink enhanced with color.

Monju, who was very successful in Zen Buddhism, is illustrated by a large vertical scroll: “Monju in the garment of rope” (N ° 148). The figure is shown with loose hair, falling to his bare feet, wrapped in a long garment of rope and holding a collection of sutras in both hands. Here again the reminder of eremitism is obvious.

The work of the Chinese painter Mu Qi (first half of the 149th century) showing Hanshan (cold mountain), Shide (garbage collector) and Fenggan (No. 167), illustrates the caricatural and eccentric character of certain Zen paintings. In comparison, the scroll "travelers crossing the cold mountain" (No. XNUMX) attributed to Zhang Yuan (China XNUMXth century) demonstrates the elegance and mastery of the brush specific to landscape painting in wash and evokes the tradition of the painting "mountains and water".

Daruma (Boddhidharma, considered the founder of Chan Buddhism) on the reed leaf (No. 154) is the work of a literate monk, Gukyoku Reisei (1363-1452). Here, the work of the ink on the silk is of a great fluidity in spite of the economy of means.

Another monk of Shôkokuji, Shûbun (XV ° s.), Is the presumed author of a diptych illustrating two “scenes of edification”, the dog of Zhaozhu and Yantou as a ferryman (N ° 157, N ° 158). These "edifying scenes" represent the incident which brought enlightenment to the masters or episodes of their lives bearing a teaching. They generally play on the narrative and concrete side of the scene.

The “arhat” (N ° 173) attributed Kanô Monotobu (1476-1559) takes again the burlesque allure of the characters in a landscape treated with care while “Deshan's response” (N ° 174), attributed to Kaihô Yûshô (1533 -1615), another “scene of edification”, shows a refined, almost severe style.

The roll "branches of white plum and red plum" (No. 171) by Motsugai (early XNUMXth century) uses a model of the Song dynasty. He uses a thin line and shows great skill in rendering the contrast between the two branches in monochrome ink.

Chanoyu (tea ceremony)

As in China, tea was first considered a medicinal drink, then served at Buddhist ceremonies, and temples were the main producers of tea. In Japan as in China the consumption of tea was often associated with poetry. The eighth shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1436-1490), scholar and refined, was the greatest collector of Chinese art of his time and it was at this time that Japanese poetry developed, the art of bouquets and incense, the beginnings of tea. His portrait (No. 205), although dating from the eighteenth century. well conveys the refinement of shogun.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Japanese nobility lived in the time of basara, "extravagance" and they imported luxurious objects from China for decoration or preparation of tea. Celadon bowls from Longquan (No. 199, No. 200) or tenmoku (No. 202) from the Southern Song were particularly popular and were imitated by local ovens (No. 201).
Sen no Rikyû (1522-1591) is certainly the most famous tea master and it is to him that we owe a reversal of trends. He advocated wabicha, “tea in the style of the poor” and almost definitively codified the tea ceremony. Under his influence, the various objects necessary for the ceremony seem crude and imperfections become an aesthetic criterion, it is also he who created raku-type ceramics. The exhibition shows some objects that belonged to him: teaspoon in its bamboo case (N ° 215, N ° 216), bamboo bouquet holder (N ° 217), setoguro type sandstone bowl (N ° 218) . Despite this apparent simplicity, the tea ceremony remains a social marker and can only be performed by cultivated people.

Noromura Ninsei (XVII ° century), a craftsman who brought technical and stylistic improvements to the art of pottery, is represented by three tea bowls of very different style: the 223 in the Korean style, the N ° 224 in sandstone decorated with a Zen painting showing Kanzan and Jittoku, the 226 sandstone with polychrome decoration that combines several techniques.

Zen in Japan from Edo

We ended the visit with the painting hall of the Edo period (1615-1867). Ito Jakuchû (1716-1800) shows here the different facets of his art. The great triad (No. 249-251) Shaka surrounded by Monju and Fugen (Šâkyamuni, Mañjušri, Samantabadhra) follows a Chinese model attributed to Zhang Sigong (China dyn.Song) and its very conventional style is suitable for a work intended for public worship , far from meditative painting. The dragon (N ° 262) as the bouncing carp (N ° 261) are treated in an alert style, with a loose brush, transmitting well the notion of movement and freedom dear to Zen.

This exhibition perfectly illustrates how Zen art can be protean.