The exhibition Awakenings: Zen Figure Painting in Medieval Japan and its accompanying catalogue constitute a landmark in the study of Japanese art. The paintings displayed at the Japan Society Gallery were of both high quality and significance, and the catalogue essays are all of permanent importance and will be required reading for those interested in Japanese art history.

The catalogue begins with an essay entitled “Patriarchs Heading West: An Introduction,” written by the exhibition’s curators, Gregory Levine and Yukio Lippit. In it, they offer historiographical observations and delineate some of the interpretative methodologies that will be developed in the essays that follow; especially crucial is their skepticism concerning many of the approaches seen in discussions of the last fifty or sixty years. This matter is examined in detail in a separate contribution by Levine entitled “Two (or More) Truths, Reconsidering Zen Art in the West.”

Lippit’s essay, “Awakenings: The Development of the Zen Figural Pantheon,” is an extraordinarily interesting account of the formation of the Chan/Zen pantheon (hereafter “C/Z”). One of the essay’s greatest merits is its detailed analysis of the Chinese material, since any study of C/Z visual culture must be founded on a deep understanding of developments in Song China; in this task Lippit displays an exemplary grasp of the major historiographical and doctrinal issues. In comparing this study with Money Hickman and Jan Fontein’s Zen Painting and Calligraphy (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1970), a very substantial advance in knowledge over the last few decades can be seen; needless to say, this advance is not specifically Lippit’s, but what should be stressed is the degree to which he has been able to absorb and utilize the extremely large amount of first-rate scholarly literature. During Hickman and Fontein’s time, an art historian would not have experienced substantial difficulties in keeping up with the C/Z literature. Today the situation is totally different.

What Lippit refers to as an ideology of “special transmission” is central to his discussion, for it is this phenomenon that strongly distinguishes C/Z from other schools of Buddhism in China and Japan. In considering the nature of C/Z lineages, Lippit pays particular attention to the role of pictorial representations in contributing to the special transmission both from master to disciple and from master to lay follower; while the master/disciple relationship has been mentioned frequently, Lippit’s treatment of the manner in which C/Z masters utilized paintings to gain the support of wealthy and influential patrons is especially insightful. He suggests that through the possession of such paintings members of the laity could associate themselves with the special transmission even though, strictly speaking, they could not belong to the actual lineage as lay people.

Lippit provides a careful analysis of the style and subject matter of the C/Z paintings: with regard to the former, he shows how a putatively “amateurish” expression is related to central currents in literati art, especially associated with Su Shi. As for subject matter, he examines the quite remarkable range of figures seen in the paintings. For example, it is not surprising that the Historical Buddha, Shaka, is represented; but Lippit demonstrates the way the C/Z masters eschew traditional modes and instead depict Shaka emerging from the mountains after his austerities but prior to his enlightenment. This pictorial strategy succeeds in aligning Shaka’s career with that of a C/Z monk and thereby further enhances the special claims of the school. Numerous other figures are considered, including the White-Robed Guanyin, a type with strongly literati overtones; Bodhidharma, theoretically the founder of Chan in China; and the group Hanshan, Shide, and Budai, all three of whom appear to be derived from non-C/Z sources. Finally, we learn about similar types introduced into the pantheon in Japan, especially the early poet Kakimoto no Hitomaro and Sugawara no Michizane, also know as “Tenjin.” I believe it is reasonable to say that Lippit has achieved a brilliant new synthesis in the way in which he clarifies the functions and significance of the paintings under consideration.

In his probing essay “Two (or More) Truths, Reconsidering Zen Art in the West,” Levine examines various controversies related to the interpretation of Zen art, considering viewpoints ranging from those of practitioners who maintain that only the spiritually enlightened can truly understand the essence of Zen art to the work of art historians who subject these artworks to what they see as highly objective, scholarly analyses. While he is clearly striving for a balanced account, not surprisingly, given his institutional and disciplinary affiliations, Levine tends to come down on the art-historical side of the fence. Drawing on numerous recent critiques of the writings of D.T. Suzuki and Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, Levine largely deconstructs some of the more far-fetched approaches to Zen and Zen art. (Levine consistently utilizes the italicized Zen Art in an effort to defamiliarize the concept.) He points out that inadequate accounts of Zen practice and ideology form shaky foundations for the subsequent interpretation of Zen art. In the case of Suzuki, he emphasizes the extent to which Suzuki neglected to comment on specific works of Zen art, instead lumping them altogether into a nebulous mass; this is contrasted with the approaches taken by academic specialists in their scholarly investigations. At the same time, Levine is fully cognizant of the impact of the Suzuki tradition on Western creative artists such as John Cage, Ad Reinhardt, and others.

The immediate relevance of Levine’s meditations can perhaps be seen in two enormous paintings that relate to the impact of “Zen” on contemporary art, given that the paintings in question will be seen by substantially larger audiences than those who attended the Awakenings show: I refer to a pair of representations of Daruma by Murakami Takashi—“I open wide my eyes but see no scenery. I fix my gaze upon my heart” and “That I may transcend, that a universe my heart may unfold” (both 2007)—shown recently in Los Angeles and Brooklyn, and later in Frankfurt and Bilbao, as part of the Murakami retrospective. Extremely large crowds visited the Los Angeles showing, and one has to wonder how they experienced the psychedelic visualizations of the Zen sage. A comparison of Murakami’s paintings with representations of Bodhidharma in Awakenings (e.g., no. 7) might be taken as an indication of the spectrum of possibilities that Levine confronts in his analysis.

In addition to catalogue entries by Lippit and Levine, there are others by Yoshiaki Shimizu, Barbara Brennan Ford, Eva Havlicova, Xiaojin Wu, and Ann Yonemura. Shimizu has long concerned himself with Zen figural art and raises important issues in his numerous entries; I especially enjoyed his discussion of Mokuan’s The Four Sleepers (fourteenth century). Interestingly, in terms of Shimizu’s focus on Mokuan, Wu was given the opportunity to comment on two representations of Hotei by Mokuan. Similarly, while Wu discusses the famous version of The Shrimp Eater (fourteenth century) by Kao, Shimizu analyzes another attributed to Muqi. This sort of division of labor results in greater variety than might result from a single scholar treating all examples of a specific group of paintings, thereby enhancing the overall value of the catalogue.

An excessive degree of popularization and what I have often thought of as the “mysteries of the East” approach that have for too long dominated the discourse on Zen art are entirely absent from this book, the only exception being some bibliographical citations to a few of the more egregious offenders. In that sense, this project can be seen as realigning the study of one of the most important and attractive areas of East Asian art, and Lippit, Levine, and their colleagues are to be congratulated for this achievement. Perhaps it is appropriate also to thank the Japan Society for the production of this beautiful volume, superbly edited by Naomi Noble Richard and Melanie B. D. Klein.