Artworks

Senzui byōbu (Landscape screen)

Artwork · Anonymous · 11th century · byōbu · Kyoto National Museum

A six-panel screen once at Tōji, an essential ritual object in the Shingon kanjō initiation, although its subject is secular: an elderly gentleman in a thatched hut among wisteria-covered pines, usually identified as the Chinese poet Bo Juyi (772–846), visited by young men who want to learn from him. Perhaps a nobleman screened himself with it at a ceremony and then gave it to the temple. Chinese theme and figures in a Japanese landscape — a kara-e gem in a yamato-e setting. 1 Mason 2005, p. 114, fig. 139. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.