These two legendary Chinese monks of the Chan (Zen) tradition were often paired in Japanese painting beginning in the early Muromachi period (1392–1573). Shown at right is Zheng Huangniu (Japanese: Seiōgyū), whose name means “Zheng of the Yellow Ox.” He was known for riding such an animal, to which he would attach various objects, including jugs and books. As was common in seventeenth-century and later Japanese examples, here Zheng rides his ox backward. His counterpart is Yushanzhu (Japanese: Ikuzanshu), or “Master of Mount Yu.” Yushanzhu is said to have gained enlightenment after falling from his donkey on a bridge. The poetic inscriptions, rendered in a crisp and brusquely brushed style, are by Takuan Sōhō, one of the most influential Zen monks of his day.
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狩野内膳筆 沢庵宗彭賛 政黄牛・郁山主図
Title:Zheng Huangniu and Yushanzhu
Artist:Painting by Kano Naizen (Japanese, 1570–1616)
Artist: Inscribed by Takuan Sōhō (1573–1645)
Period:Momoyama period (1573–1615)
Date:early 17th century
Culture:Japan
Medium:Pair of hanging scrolls; ink on paper
Dimensions:Image (a): 44 in. × 18 11/16 in. (111.7 × 47.4 cm) Overall with mounting (a): 78 11/16 × 24 5/8 in. (199.8 × 62.6 cm) Overall with knobs (a): 78 11/16 × 26 9/16 in. (199.8 × 67.5 cm) Image (b): 44 1/16 × 18 11/16 in. (111.9 × 47.4 cm) Overall with mounting (b): 78 15/16 × 24 1/2 in. (200.5 × 62.3 cm) Overall with knobs (b): 78 15/16 × 26 9/16 in. (200.5 × 67.4 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015
Object Number:2015.300.69a, b
Images of the two Zen patriarchs Seiōgyū (Ch: Zheng Huangniu; Zheng on the Yellow Ox) and Ikuzanshu (Ch: Yushanzhu; Master of Mount Yu), who were believed to possess mysterious powers, were popular among Zen adherents in both China and Japan. Often they were displayed together and, in many instances, were placed at either side of a central panel depicting the Indian monk Bodhidharma (J: Daruma), who had introduced Buddhism to China.[1]
Seiōgyū lived during the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127). Traditionally he was known for riding a yellow ox—a water bottle hanging from one of its horns—when he wandered the city streets or when he visited his friend, a local official in Zhejiang Province.[2] In this painting, however, the horn is decorated with a spray of peony, and the water bottle, a gourd, hangs from the lead rope.
Ikuzanshu (1121–1203) lived in Zhejiang Province during the Southern Song dynasty.[3] Here, he rides a donkey; suspended from its harness are books and a fan. Only a cursory reference is made to a groundline and to the mountainous landscape setting, rendered in pale ink washes. Other pictorial elements, including the cloaks of the patriarchs, the plodding animals, and the incongruous peony ornamenting the ox's head, are executed in watery ink, in the mokkotsu (boneless) style. Dark ink, applied sporadically, enlivens these otherwise pale monochromatic works.
The poems on both scrolls were composed and inscribed by Takuan Sōhō (1573–1645), one of the most prominent Zen monks of his era. A prolific writer, a notable painter, and an energetic temple administrator, Takuan was known also for his loyalty to the imperial family, which in his lifetime was losing its authority to the increasingly powerful Tokugawa clan. Each poem, comprising four lines of seven characters each, is followed by Takuan's signature and by seals reading "Sōhō" and "Takuan." The poem for Seiōgyū reads:
A man of the Way sits leisurely without a concern Astride a yellow ox, separated from the wind and dust (of this world). He has left the hermitage of his garden, And from the ox's horn hangs a sprig of peony from the Yao or Wei.[4]
Casually inscribed by the recluse monk of Nanzenji Takuan
The verse for Ikuzanshu reads:
Breaking bridge planks as he treads, calling emptiness empty, He strolls freely—to east, to west, Surrounded by blue hills, green waters. What is true, what is false, is but wind in a horse 's ear. Painting of the Master of Mount Yu Riding a Donkey, casually inscribed by Sokuin Hissū Takuan [5]
In contrast to the fame of Takuan, little is known about the painter of the two scrolls, Kano Naizen (1570–1616), although several pairs of folding screens bearing his signatures and /or seals are extant. The most famous of his screens, depicting the arrival of Portuguese traders in Nagasaki, are in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, and in the Kōbe City Museum (fig. 39).[6] And his Hōkoku Festival screens of 1606 are in the Toyokuni Shrine, Kyoto.[7] Both the Kōbe and the Kyoto screens are executed in brilliant color, with careful attention given to detail , thus differing significantly from the monochromatic scrolls in the Burke Collection.
Another body of work by Naizen, in ink monochrome and depicting a variety of subjects—Chinese figures, landscapes, birds, animals[8]—exhibits stylistic similarities to paintings by two of his contemporaries, Kaihō Yūshō (cat. no. 77) and Unkoku Tōgan (cat. no. 78). The signatures and seals on these paintings are identical to those on the Burke pair; the signatures and seals on the polychrome screens are different.
A brief outline of Naizen's life can be reconstructed from an entry in the Tansei jakubokushū, a history of Japanese painting written by Naizen's son Kano Ikkei (1599–1662).[9] Naizen is believed to have studied painting under Kano Shōei (cat. no. 75), the father of Eitoku, and his talent in painting is sometimes said to have been recognized by the great warrior statesman Toyotomi Hideyoshi. In 1591 he apparently accompanied Kano Mitsunobu (1562/65–1608), a son of Eitoku, to Nagoya, in northern Kyūshū, to decorate the interiors of the castle built for Hideyoshi. Naizen was not born to the Kano family but was allowed the use of this august name, which imparted great prestige and led to important commissions. After Hideyoshi's death in 1598, however, his fortunes declined with those of many other artists who were outside the Kano clan and who remained in Kyoto after members of the Kano family resettled in Edo, the new capital of the Tokugawa shoguns.
Naizen may have met Takuan Sōhō in the early 1600s. The illustrious monk was then living at Daitokuji, where in 1609 he served his infamous three-day tenure as its chief abbot.[10] His inscriptions on this pair of scrolls are thought to date, on stylistic grounds, to about 1615, shortly before Naizen's death.[11]
[Miyeko Murase 2000, Bridge of Dreams]
[1] The best-known example of such a triptych is a Chinese work dating to the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279) in the Tokugawa Art Museum, Nagoya. Tokugawa Art Museum 1983, no. 66. [2] See Zenrin kujitsu kommeishū (1715) by Kakuhō Jitsugai, in Kokuyaku zengaku taisei 1929–30, vol. 18, pp. 40–41, 59–60. [3] Zoku dentō roku, in Daizōkyō 1914–32, vol. 51, no. 2077, p. 689. [4] The Yao and Wei families of China were famous for their peonies. [5] Translations after Stephen D. Allee. [6] Sakamoto Mitsuru et al. 1982, pls. 50, 52, and 70–73. [7] Takeda Tsuneo 1980a, pls. 15, 16. [8] Okamoto Yoshitomo and Takamizawa Tadao 1970, pls. 2–7; and Narusawa Katsutsugu 1985, figs. 16, 17. [9] Tanaka Toyozō 1942. A portion of the note on Naizen seems to be missing, but it is reproduced in the Koga bikō (Notes on Old Painters); see Asaoka Okisada 1905 (1912 ed.), pp. 1765– 66, 1769–70. [10] For Takuan's life, see Ichikawa Hakugen 1978; Haga Kōshirō 1979; Ogisu Jundō 1982; and Rosenfield and Cranston 1999, pp. 93–94. [11] Tsuji Nobuo 1980, pls. 97, 98. It has been suggested that Naizen's workshop was responsible for many of the extant ink paintings that bear his signature and seal, including the Burke pair. See Narusawa Katsutsugu 1985, pp. 10–11.
Inscription: Inscription (Chinese poem in four lines, seven characters) on each scroll by Takuan (1573-1645); "Seiogyu" has inscription "drawn by Naizen".
Marking: Seal: Ko
Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation , New York (until 2015; donated to MMA)
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 Haven. Yale University Art Gallery. "Bright Color, Bold Ink: Diversity in Momoyama Art," February 23, 1988–April 4, 1988.
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. "Die Kunst des Alten Japan: Meisterwerke aus der Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," September 16, 1990–November 18, 1990.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Japanese Art from The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," March 30–June 25, 2000.
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.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection," August 10, 2024–August 3, 2025.
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. 63.
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], pp. 106–107, cat. no. 135.
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