A rabbit crouches by a boulder and a rose bush with vibrant leaves and blossoms. Mori Ransai’s polychrome technique belongs to a tradition established by the Chinese painter Shen Nanpin (active 1725–80) in Nagasaki. The inscription, brushed by the Shingon monk Jiun Onkō, echoes a Zen teaching that asserts that all beings, including inanimate objects, can reach enlightenment. It reads:
有情非情同時成道ときけばげに うれしくもあるがか 法の友どち
I’m truly delighted to hear it said that “Sentient beings or insentient beings, at the same time, can attain the Way [of spiritual enlightenment],” for those that pursue the Buddhist law together.
This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
Open Access
As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.
API
Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.
This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Scroll left to view more.
Artwork Details
Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item
森蘭斎筆 慈雲飲光賛 薔薇に兎図
Title:Rabbit and Roses
Artist:Painting by Mori Ransai (Japanese, 1731–1801)
Artist: Inscription by Jiun Sonja (Japanese, 1718–1804)
Period:Edo period (1615–1868)
Date:ca. 1776–83
Culture:Japan
Medium:Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
Dimensions:Image: 42 5/8 × 16 9/16 in. (108.3 × 42 cm) Overall with mounting: 80 5/16 × 24 1/8 in. (204 × 61.2 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, Gift of Mary and Cheney Cowles, 2019
Object Number:2019.420.26
Mori Ransai studied painting with Kumashiro Yūhi, making a specialty of naturalistic, richly decorative bird-and-flower paintings in the manner of Shen Nanpin.[1] When compared to the more abbreviated work on paper by the Ōbaku monk-painter Kakutei (cat. 74, 2020.396.32), a fellow member of Yūhi’s school, Ransai’s painting, executed on silk, is more meticulously detailed, pursuing a descriptive style with a much denser use of color. In both works, the pictorial elements are concentrated on one side of the picture plane, typifying a Chinese convention used in bird-and-flower and plant-and-animal paintings from the Song dynasty onward.
Above the painting an inscription imparts a distinctly Buddhist interpretation to this secular scene. It was brushed by Jiun Onkō (cats. 76 , 77; 2023.583.19, 2023.583.20), a Shingon monk who advocated the integration of Esoteric Buddhism with Shinto principles. In his writings, he expressed a concept that echoes a Chan teaching originating from the Niutou (Oxhead) school. This Tang-dynasty sect, although short-lived, had a significant influence on Zen thought by asserting that all beings, including inanimate objects, possess Buddha nature. this stance is elaborated upon in Treatise on the Transcendence of Cognition (Zetsukanron), a text introduced to Japan from China by Saichō (767–822), the founder of Tendai Buddhism in Japan. this view diverged from earlier Buddhist doctrines, which posited that only sentient beings could have Buddha nature.[2]
The first column, comprising mostly kanji to render the Buddhist teaching, is followed by Jiun’s reflection in vernacular Japanese:
有情非情同時成道と きけはけに
うれしくもあるか 法の友とち
Yūjō hijō dōji jōdō to kikeba geni
ureshiku mo aru ka nori no tomodochi
I’m truly delighted to hear it said that "sentient beings or insentient beings, together at the same time, can attain the Way [of spiritual enlightenment]," for those that pursue the Buddhist law together.[3]
A record in Revered Poems of the Great Master [Jiun Sonja] (Daiwajō-sama go-son’ei ) states that Jiun received a request to write an inscription on a painting of "an animal, with plants and flowers." It mentions neither the painter’s name nor a date but clearly indicates that the monk inscribed secular works such as this.[4]
Mori Ransai’s painting must have been produced between 1776 and 1783, when both he and Jiun were active in Osaka.[5] Ransai arrived in Osaka in 1774, having left Nagasaki following the death in 1772 of his mentor and father-in-law, Kumashiro Yūhi. [6] Two years later, Jiun took up residence at Kōkiji temple in Osaka. [7] Ransai left the city in 1783, once returning to his hometown in Echigo domain (present-day Niigata prefecture) and later moving to Edo.
[John T. Carpenter, with Tim T. Zhang, The Three Perfections (2025), cat. 78, p. 212–213, adapted 8/12/2025]
Notes: [1] For a fuller range of the artist’s work, see Mori Ransai gashū 2012. [2] Ibuki 2021, pp. 150–53. [3] Translation by John T. Carpenter. [4] Hase 1922–26, vol. 15 (1925), p. 241. [5] Miura 1987, n.p., appendix. [6] For Mori Ransai’s biography and activity in Osaka, see Itō Shiori 2023, pp. 226–56. [7] Ibuki 2021, pp. 150–53.
Bibliography:
Hase 1922–26. Hase Hōshū, ed. Jiun Sonja zenshū (Complete works of Jiun Sonja). 19 vols. Osaka: Kōkiji, 1922–26.
Ibuki 2021. Ibuki Atsushi. Chūgoku Zen shisōshi (History of Chan thought in China). Kyoto: Institute for Zen Studies, 2021.
Miura 1987. Miura Yasuhiro. Tokubetsuten: Jiun Sonja ihōten; Seitan nihyaku-shichijūnen kinen (Special exhibition of calligraphy and paintings by Jiun "Sonja": On the 270th anniversary of his birth). Exh. cat., Tōkyō Bijutsu Kurabu. Tokyo: Tōkyō Bijutsu Seinenkai, 1987.
Mori Ransai gashū 2012. Mori Ransai Kenshokai, ed. Mori Ransai gashū (Collection of paintings by Mori Ransai). Myoko: Mori Ransai Kenshokai, 2012.
[ Maezawa Seikandō , Kyoto, until 2011; sold to Cowles]; Mary and Cheney Cowles , Seattle, 2011–19; donated to MMA
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.
John T. Carpenter, and Tim T. Zhang. The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting; The Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2024, pp. 212–13, cat. no. 78.
The Met's Libraries and Research Centers provide unparalleled resources for research and welcome an international community of students and scholars.
The Met Collection API is where all makers, creators, researchers, and dreamers can connect to the most up-to-date data and public domain images for The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.
The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world.
