Peapods on a Branch

In this simple yet deft rendering of peapods on a branch, Jakuchū combined broad, wet strokes of pale ink wash with bold accent strokes to capture the springiness of the stalks and the gravity-defying lightness of the almost-ripe peapods. The sheet once belonged to a set of six paintings of vegetables—a common subject for the artist, who came from a family of greengrocers—including others in the collection of The Met (1985.97), and the Detroit Institute of Arts (78.73).

Like the other paintings in the set, this one includes an inscription by the Ōbaku Zen monk Musen Jōzen (who impressed the work with three of his seals). He composed a couplet of seven-syllable Chinese verse that is perplexing at first glance—a not uncommon occurrence in Zen inspired painting inscriptions. It includes the phrase “goat’s eye,” which is another way of referring to a type of pea. Yet that phrase was just a leaping-off point for the Zen master, who wove into the poem allusions to Chinese philosophic texts, such as using the phrase “goat’s-eye peas brushing up against a fence” to mean “unable to go forward or backward,” or to reach an impasse. The second line refers specifically to a passage in the ancient Teachings of Master Huainan (Chinese: Huainanzi; Japanese: Enanji), in which the philosopher Yang Zhu bursts into tears at a fork in the road, because he could go either north or south and did not know which way to head. Jōzen wryly analyzes this all-too-human predicament by composing an entirely new verse:

何年羊眼觸藩籬　應免令人泣路歧

Whatever the year,
when facing an impossible impasse,
One shouldn’t cry since
there’s nowhere to go anyway!

Ultimately, the thought-provoking, quasi-humorous statement, though difficult to comprehend at first, conforms to the Zen tradition of trying to break down logical thought processes. It succeeds to the extent that readers—modern readers included—pause to reflect on the challenges that arise when obstacles appear unexpectedly in people’s lives. The ability to turn away from consternation, an intransigent mindset, or an obsession with an intractable situation is part of the definition of satori. On the one hand, it comes across as somewhat pessimistic for a Zen monk to suggest that there is no place to go in any case—but on the other, it is liberating to reflect on success and failure as different sides of the same coin.