Who's that Monk?

Who is this?

I finished grading my students' responses to paintings from the Puys Collection at the Weisman Art Museum. They did a great job -- only a few had any insights or connections, but everybody was able to write descriptively about the paintings, which was all I asked.

I just wish I knew more about this painting...


Working with Ann Waltner's reading group, I got this much of the colophon figured out （Ｕpdate: with Paul Rouzer's help I corrected the first two characters):

面壁歸來低眉裹手慧業一燈河漁授受日畢少翻經＿生淘垢＿破我心康寧福壽唐＿ 松雲

Wall meditation, lowered brows and grasped hands, enterprise of wisdom one light, river and fisherman give and take. At days end flip through the sutra a little bit, __ life washed-up dust __ moved my heart, wishing you health, Tang _- Song Yun. (Seal: Song Yun)

With Paul's help, I think we can confirm definitely that this is a painting of Bodhidharma. The following translation of one of the stories about Bodhidharma is not relevant to this painting, but I'll leave it here anyway.

The 'story of the returning West with one shoe' :

北魏有一個使臣宋雲從西域回國時，並不知道達摩已死。路過蔥嶺（以前對帕米爾高原和昆侖山、喀喇昆侖山脈西部諸山脈的總稱，古代中國與西域之間的交通常經蔥嶺山道）時，見到達摩手裡提著一隻鞋，向西而去。宋雲認識他，便問：“和尚到那裡去？”達摩說：“回西天去。”宋雲回京，向皇帝報告了此事，皇帝覺得奇怪，便命令把達摩的棺材起出來看。據說，棺材裡面隻剩下一隻鞋了。由此，又產生了達摩“隻履西歸”的傳說。

In Northern Wei there was an emissary, Song Yun. When he returned from the Western frontier to his country, he had no idea that Bodhidharma was long dead. When his path passed the mixed peaks (Mt. Kunlun, etc.), he saw Boddhidharma, with his hands holding a single shoe, headed west. Song Yun recognized him, and said, "Where is the monk going?" Bodhidharma said, "I'm returning to the Western heaven." Song Yun returned to the capital. He reported this to the emperor. The emperor thought it was strange, and so ordered Bodhidharma's coffin to be exhumed for inspection. Inside the coffin there only remained a single shoe, or so they say..." (This text off a hotel website. How scholarly!)

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Zhang, Anzhi. Li. A History of Chines...

Zhang, Anzhi. A History of Chinese Painting. Beijing, China: Foreign Languages Press, 1992.

This translation of a Chinese work gives us a glimpse of the iconicity of China's first "great" painter, Gu Kaizhi in the preface, where Gu's famous saying "form is merely a means to bring about spirit" is quoted as part of a larger elaboration of the "national characteristic" of "a Chinese painter." Among other general assertions of the art, Gu is presumed to have laid the groundwork for locating the "personality" of the human image in art in the "spirit," and not the "likeness" of the portrait. Vague though these terms may be, they at least admit that Gu Kaizhi was a theorist who imagined portraiture as a craft adhering to certain rules and patterns of painting technique. Lines, dots, color, ink wash...these are tools of expression that were first applied to the portrayal of human beings thousands of years ago, but only in the centuries after the Han dynasty, when Buddhism had entered China, and a new emphasis on the subjective, human feelings had been introduced into the nature, that Gu Kaizhi's theory of the portrait and the painting more generally occurred. It is also the very same time that Tao Qian lived, and developed another method for producing a self-portrait, using the prose and poetic language of his time. What a pity that on the one hand, Tao Qian did not produce an essay outlining his autobiographical project as Gu did the project of the portrait. Also a pity: that neither Gu nor any other Six Dynasties painter seems to have thought to paint hermits -- unless they did do so and the knowledge has not come down to me (yet).
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