The Bodhisattva Kannon (S: Avalokitesvara; C: Kuan-yin) sits on a rock projecting out over flowing water with the branch of a tree and rocky surface suggesting the face of a cliff above. Kannon is shown in the posture of meditation with legs crossed and hands together beneath the concealing robe. She looks slightly downward as if in deep contemplation, the halo behind her creating a visual separation from the immediate environment. Just to her right is a kundika flask, originally an ascetic’s water bottle, essential for one engaged in solitary meditation, but which came to be treated as a vase into which various auspicious plants or flowers could be placed. The locus was most common, symbol of the paradise of the Buddha Amitabha, which rose above the dross of the earth just as the pure and unsullied lotus rises from the mire below, and the willow, symbol of spring, the time of regeneration, was probably the second most common plant to accompany the Bodhisattva. The bamboo appearing in the kundika here was a Chinese substitution made under the influence of the ideas, values, and taste of fourteenth-century literati, who appreciated the flexibility of the plant as well as its “hollow-heartedness,” a sign of dispassionate detachment.
The environment here is a region of temperate clime, of abundant water, and hence of mist and lush vegetation. These were in fact the characteristics of P’u-t’o-shan (Mount Potalaka), thought to lay in the south of China and eventually identified as the island of chat name off the city of Ning-po, the main port through which visitors from Japan passed. Within chat isolated setting the Bodhisattva sat on a diamond or adamantine rock, contemplating “the moon in the water,” an especially apt emblem for the ultimate unreality of all phenomena. Avalokitesvara is one of the most prominent Bodhisattvas in Buddhism. Meaning, in Sanskrit, “Lord who looks down on the world,” the name was translated directly into Chinese as Kuanshih Tzu-tsai. Early on, however, the Sanskrit isvara, “Lord,” became interchanged with svara, meaning “sound,” and the god also became known as Kuan-shih-yin, “He/She who hears the cries of the world.” Shortened to Kuan-yin Qapanese Kanna n, famed throughout the world today in its modern incarnation as Canon), the name identified a deity, the Bodhisattva of Compassion and Mercy, who became ever more feminine over time as this sovereign lord of the universe gradually evolved to become, among other things, protectress of women and children.
Judging on the basis of extent paintings, icons of the “White-robed Kuan-yin/Kannan” became very popular from the 13th century onward, with Korean and Japanese monk-painters and artists being greatly influenced by their Chinese counterparts, making it sometimes difficult to assign a definite provenance to unsigned works such as the present painting. However, comparison with a painting known to be Chinese (figure 1) demonstrates that our artist was less concerned with pictorial values and more with the formal aspects of the painting, with his brushwork being far less structural and the forms thus flatter, more effective as two-dimensional shapes than as solids arranged in three-dimensional pictorial space, all of which are characteristics that suggest the present painting was done in Japan, its most recent provenance. On the other hand, comparison with works known to be Japanese (figures 2-3) shows clearly that the present painting is conservative, still fairly close to the Chinese models and therefore probably to be dated somewhat earlier than the paintings by Moku’an (fl. 1323-45) and Mincho (1352-1431). The closest parallel is in fact an anonymous painting (figure 4) of the late 13th-early 14th century that bears a colophon by Yakuo Tokken (12441319), who visited China and lived on his return in various Zen temples in Kamakura and Kyoto, becoming abbot of Nanzen-ji two years before his death in 1319.
The present painting was designed to function as an icon, as a devotional image that gave visual form to abstract concepts of great importance in the Buddhist religion. Although formalized in such a way as to suggest the unchanging nature of those concepts, the three-quarter view and pensive face greatly enhance the approachability of the figure. The facial features are sensitive in rendition and beautiful in aspect, entirely appropriate for an image of the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion.
Fig. 1. Fa-ch’ang Mu- ch’i: “White-robed
Kannan,” after Toda Teisukei: Suiboku
Bijutsu Taikei (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1978), vol.
3, pl. 1.
—
Fig. 2. Moku’an, att.: “White-robed
Kannon,” after Tanaka lchimatsu:
Suiboku Bijutsu Taikei (Tokyo:
Kodansha, 1978), vol. 5: Ka’o,
Moku’an, Mincho, pl. 46, p. 89.
—
Fig. 3. Mincho: “White-robed
Kannon,” after Tanaka
lchimatsu: Suiboku Bijutsu
Taikei (Tokyo: Kodansha,
1978), vol. 5: Ka’o, Moku’an,
Mincho, pl. 97, p. 133.
—
Fig. 4. Anonymous:
“White-robed Kannon,”
after Tanaka lchimatsu:
Suiboku Bijutsu Taikei
(Tokyo: Kodansha, 1978),
vol. 5: Ka’o, Moku’an,
Mincho, pl. 4, p. 16.
Details:
