Friday, May 3, 2019

Art Book Review: The Art of Zen

I had a copy of The Art of Zen, in an oversize softcover edition, lying around my apartment for years before I recently picked it up and read through it.  I hadn't had any great expectations - books on Zen and Eastern mysticism have become something of a cottage industry since the 1960's and are usually nothing more than lightweight overviews that offer no real insight into their subject but instead do as much as possible to obfuscate it.  This brief study by Stephen Addiss, however, contains a wealth of information regarding not only Japanese art and calligraphy during the Momoyama and Edo eras, when Zen had already ceased to be the primary form of Buddhism in Japan, but also a history and explanation of Zen practice during that same period.

Proceeding in chronological order, the book begins with a discussion of the origins of modern Zen art, zenga, at the Daitoku-ji Rinzai monastery in Kyoto where the fourteenth century monk Ikkyū had once practiced calligraphy.  Addiss argues that as the shogunate consolidated its power in the seventeenth century it deliberately promoted Confucianism, with its emphasis on the respect to be paid to filial and social obligations, over the Zen beliefs that had prevailed during the Muromachi era.  The author feels that this politically expedient move actually freed Zen from the duties and functions which its previous position as the state religion had imposed upon it.  Zen was consequently once again able to return to its original emphasis on individual enlightenment and make increasing use of art and calligraphy to accomplish this purpose.

In subsequent chapters, Addiss discusses the continuation of the Rinzai tradition from successive masters, each imparting to his pupils the direct communication of satori, the form of sudden enlightenment that is the ultimate goal of Zen practice.  He also devotes a chapter to the growth of the Obaku sect, characterized by its inclusion of aspects of other forms of Buddhism such as the Pure Land school, that first appeared in Japan when Chinese monks fleeing the Manchu invaders who had overthrown the Ming dynasty landed in Nagasaki, the only Japanese port open to foreigners.  This was easily the most accessible school of Zen and soon became the most popular in Japan.

In each chapter Addiss discusses the most important monk/artists of the period under review.  An entire chapter is devoted to the life and art of Hakuin whom he terms the most important Zen artist of the past four hundred years.  In discussing the artists, the author furnishes a short biography that focuses on the individual's quest for enlightenment and the manner in which one finally attains it.  There is also an examination of each artist's style in both painting and calligraphy accompanied by high quality reproductions that illustrate not only the artwork but the character of the individual who created it.

One of the paradoxes of Zen is that while the state of enlightenment is undifferentiated, those who achieve it still retain highly distinctive personal styles in the art they subsequently create.  Addiss accordingly reviews some of the most common motifs to be found in Zenga - for example, representations of Bodhidharma, the monk who brought Buddhism to China from India, or of the ensō, the empty circle that represents the void and by extension the enlightened mind - and shows how their representations differ from one artist to the next.

Addiss's book is important not only as an art history but as a text on Zen itself.  Along with Alan Watts's The Way of Zen, this is one of the best introductions available to the general reader when it comes to the meaning and practice of Zen, a subject very difficult for the Western reader to comprehend.  This is because Zen regards rational thought as the greatest hindrance to attaining satori, and the master deliberately moves in apparently illogical fashion to shock the novice into an awareness of a higher state of being.  While a true understanding of Zen cannot be obtained from reading this or any other book, a study of the art left by its practitioners does give some idea how an enlightened mind views the world about him.  Moreover, Addiss's writing captures something of this  spirit in his erudite yet genial approach that is never pretentious as it leads the reader into greater awareness of the meaning of Buddhism.

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