Artworks

The Priest Shunjōbō Chōgen

Artwork · Anonymous · early 13th century · sculpture · Tōdai-ji Temple

One of the most starkly realistic portraits of the period, probably made shortly after Chōgen’s death in 1206 for memorial services in his honour. An old man sits hunched forward, reciting the nenbutsu as he counts the beads of his rosary: prominent cheekbones, wrinkled flesh, pursed lips, eyes deep under bony brows — one opened slightly wider than the other — and the thick fingers of a man used to manual labour. hinoki wood in yosegi-zukuri, flesh tones for the head and black for the robe. No sculptor is recorded; perhaps one of the Kei masters. 1 Mason 2005, pp. 185–186, fig. 215. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.