During the turbulent years of China’s early Western Jin dynasty (265–317), seven literati secluded themselves in a bamboo grove outside the capital. There they escaped from the strictures of officialdom and Confucian conduct. They drank wine, engaged in witty Daoist discourse called qingtan, and played music and chess. Their story became legend and a frequent subject of painting in China, then Japan. In this unusually exuberant interpretation by Sesson, the sages dance wildly in the company of equally ebullient women and children. Even the bamboo seems to sway to the drumbeat. Although this type of departure from traditional iconography led to the occasional characterization of Sesson as “eccentric,” he was also a Zen monk and educated painter who studied a wide array of earlier Chinese and Japanese paintings. This work can be dated to the 1550s, when he lived near Kamakura, the old administrative capital and the early medieval cradle of Zen Buddhism in Japan.
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雪村周継筆 竹林七聖図
Title:Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove
Artist:Sesson Shūkei (ca. 1504–ca. 1589)
Period:Muromachi period (1392–1573)
Date:1550s
Culture:Japan
Medium:Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper
Dimensions:Image: 40 5/16 × 20 3/8 in. (102.4 × 51.7 cm) Overall with mounting: 79 3/4 × 26 7/16 in. (202.5 × 67.2 cm) Overall with knobs: 79 3/4 × 28 9/16 in. (202.5 × 72.6 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015
Accession Number:2015.300.50
In the right foreground of this lively scene, an old gentleman performs an impromptu dance to the tune of drums and flutes played by four of his companions. Beneath leafy bamboo branches, another man holding a wine pot and a cup in his outstretched arms dances along, unsteady on his feet. At the right a reveler, overcome with laughter, collapses on the ground. The antics of these carefree old men draw the attention of a group of women and children. The atmosphere is charged with energy, even the stalks of slender bamboo swaying in response.
In the later years of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.–A.D. 220) a Daoist-inspired pastime called qingtan (J: seidan ), or pure conversation, became popular among bureaucrats and intellectuals in search of temporary release from the strict Confucian code of conduct that governed their lives. Participants would gather in some rural spot to relax and to engage in witty and sophisticated discussions of philosophical matters. On these occasions wine flowed freely and drunkenness was permissible, even expected. Culturally ambivalent behavior can serve as the inspiration of legend, and in China the quasi-historical qingtan group known as the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove (J: Chikurin Shichiken) became the subject of a popular theme.[1]
The members of the group lived after the fall of the Han dynasty. Ji Kang (A.D. 223–262), the founding member, was a musicologist and renowned player of the qin (a seven-stringed zitherlike instrument called a koto in Japanese). He is remembered particularly for an essay on the art of qin playing.[2] The other members were: Yuan Ji (210–263), Tao Shan (205–283), Yuan Xian (dates unknown), Xian Xiu (221–ca. 300), Wang Rong (235–306), and Liu Ling (221–300). Escaping to the cool seclusion of Zhulin (Bamboo Grove), a famous summer resort north of the capital, these responsible men of superior education and high position would shed the trappings of their schooled conduct and immerse themselves in the pleasures of music and chess. They also read poetry and, most of all, they drank. When their spirits had been refreshed, they would return to their life of material comfort and politics, and to the decorum of the capital.
Exactly when the Seven Sages were first depicted in painting is not known.[3] One of the earliest extant examples is found on a set of relief-decorated tiles, recovered near the city of Nanjing in South China, that have been dated to the early Six Dynasties period (220–581).[4] The theme of releasing oneself from the strictures of court life must have been highly appealing to the nobles of the Early Heian period, and Japanese paintings of this subject are reported as early as the late ninth century.[5]
Chinese renditions of the theme usually depict the Seven Sages engaged in music-making and singing, while Japanese representations tend to show them strolling quietly in a bamboo forest (cat. no. 70). Sesson's painting, in which the sages have abandoned themselves to drunken revelry, is a departure from the pictorial norms of both China and Japan. The inclusion of spectators—women, one nursing an infant, and several children—is also unusual.
The painting is in ink monochrome, with light washes of green and buff. A dark ink wash is used for the rocks in the lower left corner. The stalks and leaves of the bamboo are carefully outlined in smooth, deliberate strokes, reflecting Sesson's stylistic debt to the Ming Academy. Clothing is described in short, thick lines that frequently turn, forming sharp angles and nailheads. The tubelike sleeves that hang below the hands of the dancing sage are strangely tapered, and the ends have a curious, animated life of their own.
The painting is not signed, but it bears two seals, both of which appear on dated paintings by Sesson from the 1550s, while he was at Odawara (see cat. no. 67). The absence of a signature on the Seven Sages implies that it is from relatively early in the artist's career, before he made it a habit to sign his works. Its unusual stylistic features may be regarded as an intimation of the idiosyncrasies of Sesson's late style.
[Miyeko Murase 2000, Bridge of Dreams]
[1] Spiro 1990; and Brown 1997. [2] Holzman 1957; and Gulik 1969. [3] For fourth- and fifth-century paintings on the theme, see Soper 1961, p. 85. [4] Nagahiro Toshio 1969. [5] lenaga Saburō 1966a, p. 25.
Signature: (lower right corner) cauldron-shaped relief seal Sesson 雪村 above square relief seal Shūkei 周継
[ N. V. Hammer, Inc. , New York, 1968; sold to Burke]; Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation , New York (1968–2015; donated to MMA)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," November 7, 1975–January 4, 1976.
Seattle Art Museum. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," March 10–May 1, 1977.
Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," June 1–July 17, 1977.
Tokyo National Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," May 21, 1985–June 30, 1985.
Nagoya City Art Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," August 17, 1985–September 23, 1985.
Atami. MOA Museum of Art. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," September 29, 1985–October 27, 1985.
Hamamatsu City Museum of Art. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," November 12, 1985–December 1, 1985.
New York. Asia Society. "Art of Japan: Selections from the Burke Collection, pts. I and II," October 2, 1986–February 22, 1987.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Sesson Ink Paintings," February 1, 1993–June 1993.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Noh Robes," 1993.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Japanese Art from The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," March 30–June 25, 2000.
Chiba City Museum of Art. "Sesson ten: sengoku jidai no sūpā ekisentorikku," January 26, 2002–March 3, 2002.
Tokyo. The Shoto Museum of Art. "Sesson ten: sengoku jidai no sūpā ekisentorikku," April 2, 2002–May 12, 2002.
Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art. "Sesson ten: sengoku jidai no sūpā ekisentorikku," June 18, 2002–July 28, 2002.
Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art. "Sesson ten: sengoku jidai no sūpā ekisentorikku," August 10, 2002–September 23, 2002.
Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," July 5, 2005–August 19, 2005.
Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," October 4, 2005–December 11, 2005.
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," January 24, 2006–March 5, 2006.
Miho Museum. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," March 15, 2006–June 11, 2006.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," October 20, 2015–May 14, 2017.
University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts. "Sesson Shukei," March 28, 2017–May 21, 2017.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Anxiety and Hope in Japanese Art," April 8, 2023–July 14, 2024.
Brown, Kendall H. The Politics of Reclusion: Painting and Power in Momoyama Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997, fig. 8, p. 124.
Tsuji Nobuo 辻惟雄, Mary Griggs Burke, Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha 日本経済新聞社, and Gifu-ken Bijutsukan 岐阜県美術館. Nyūyōku Bāku korekushon-ten: Nihon no bi sanzennen no kagayaki ニューヨーク・バーク・コレクション展 : 日本の美三千年の輝き(Enduring legacy of Japanese art: The Mary Griggs Burke collection). Exh. cat. [Tokyo]: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 2005, cat. no. 44.
Murase, Miyeko, Il Kim, Shi-yee Liu, Gratia Williams Nakahashi, Stephanie Wada, Soyoung Lee, and David Sensabaugh. Art Through a Lifetime: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection. Vol. 1, Japanese Paintings, Printed Works, Calligraphy. [New York]: Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, [2013], p. 82, cat. no. 103.
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