There are rare instances in which portraiture succeeds in conveying not only an individual’s personality, but also something greater, something like what John M. Rosenfield calls “the immediacy of life itself” (11). The striking portrait sculpture of the Japanese monk Shunjōbō Chōgen on the cover of Rosenfield’s Portraits of Chōgen: The Transformation of Buddhist Art in Early Medieval Japan meets these lofty standards. Produced around the time of its subject’s death in 1206, the work embodies the artistic transformation in Japan occurring over the last decades of the twelfth century and into the early thirteenth century, when the otherworldly idealism of the Heian period (794–1185) gave way to an interest in physicality and realism. Chōgen himself is best known for leading the campaign to rebuild the Tōdaiji temple after its destruction in 1180 due to civil war, and for restoring its colossal cast bronze Buddha. In Portraits of Chōgen, Rosenfield provides a fascinating look at the life and career of one of the most artistically active monks of the period—his involvement is documented in the creation of over 100 statues—as well as a comprehensive overview of developments in style, technique, patronage, and devotional practices of the early Kamakura period (1185–1333).

To my knowledge, this is the first book in English to focus on an individual monk’s relationship to Japan’s pre-modern art and architecture. Western scholars of religious studies have produced numerous monographs about Chōgen’s more famous contemporaries, such as Hōnen, Myōe, Shinran, and Jōkei (James L. Ford’s Jōkei and Buddhist Devotion in Early Medieval Japan, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006, is a particularly valuable companion to Rosenfield’s study). But Rosenfield shows how, unlike many of those monks, Chōgen “was not a religious thinker like those who brought about radical changes in Japanese religious life in the thirteenth century. His faith was pluralistic and traditional in character, and there is no evidence that he consciously blended the different elements into a single doctrine” (43). Rather, Chōgen made things: he was active in the world, traveling here and there to secure funding for public works, temples, and statues. He left behind relatively few doctrinal writings, but instead we find a rich visual record and documented relationships with master sculptors such as Kaikei and Unkei. Indeed, as Rosenfield writes, the objects and buildings related to Chōgen “constitute a coherent unit in the unwieldy corpus of art works produced in an unsettled age,” and therefore lend themselves well to a close study of the period (11).

In addition to referencing the most recent scholarship in Western languages, Rosenfield is aided in his project by the copious Japanese literature on Chōgen, especially that of Kobayashi Takeshi who nearly fifty years ago collected and compiled the primary sources about the monk (Shunjōbō Chōgen shiryō shūsei, Nara: Kokuritsu Bunkazai Kenkyūjo, 1965). Rosenfield also refers frequently to the catalogue of a vast exhibition devoted to Chōgen and his era held at the Nara National Museum in 2006 on the occasion of the monk’s 800-year memorial (Dai kanjin Chōgen, Nara: Nara Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan, 2006). As many of the works that constituted the Nara show have not been written about extensively in English, Rosenfield’s contribution is especially welcome.

Portraits of Chōgen is the first volume of Brill’s new Japanese Visual Culture series and is beautifully produced and profusely illustrated with multiple views of key objects and photographs of interiors and contents of statues. In addition to the works central to the study, the volume includes numerous illustrations for reference or simply for visual interest, such as scenes from the sixteenth-century painted scroll Tōdaiji Daibutsu engi (fig. 12). Photographs of temples and rituals help the reader contextualize the works; for example a contemporary view of the monthly ceremony in honor of Chōgen at Tōdaiji shows the cover sculpture in use as a ritual icon (fig. 56).

In the first chapter, Rosenfield creates an evocative biographical portrait of the monk, drawing on Chōgen’s memoir and other relevant primary sources. Rosenfield places Chōgen in a broader historical context, succinctly summarizing the prominent religious and political developments of the early Kamakura period. Although available sources do not allow him to resolve fascinating questions such as whether or not Chōgen actually went to China, or the nature of his relationship with Hōnen, when the details of an episode are known, Rosenfield provides a wonderfully “zoomed-in” account. We read, for example, of the monk’s efforts to secure a great quantity of lumber from Suō Province for the building of Tōdaiji, and of his threats to resign because of pestering from local officials and “unyielding pressure from above” (38).

Arguing that the memorial statues of Chōgen were created at a pivotal moment for the development of realism in Japanese art, Rosenfield’s subsequent chapters encompass portraiture in Japan and, more broadly, in Buddhist art. He outlines distinct traditions of Japanese secular portraiture (mainly paintings) and Buddhist portraiture in East Asia up to the time of Chōgen, also considering naturalism in Chinese art and doctrinal foundations for the use of symbolic realism in Buddhist art. Rosenfield then shifts his focus to the group of sculptural portraits depicting Chōgen, while also accounting for imaginary portraits of ancient figures, such as Unkei’s Seshin and Muchaku, which demonstrate the descriptive realism developing in the early Kamakura period. As in the first chapter, the most compelling passages concentrate on Chōgen and his images. Rosenfield describes in vivid detail the construction method and ritual function of the portrait statue at Tōdaiji, noting, for example, that a piece of charred wood likely from the burned Great Buddha Hall was incorporated into the sculpture, establishing a physical connection between the monk and the building he worked so arduously to replace (85).

The recasting of the Great Buddha of Tōdaiji and the rebuilding of its enormous hall occupied Chōgen for the last twenty-five years of his life. Rosenfield discusses the making of the original eighth-century bronze colossus at length before detailing the process of recasting it under Chōgen’s leadership in the twelfth century. A captivating account of the rededication ceremony in 1185 closes the chapter. The subsequent chapter concerns the rebuilding of the hall itself, but because the Kamakura-period building was likewise lost to fire in 1567, the discussion necessarily focuses on Tōdaiji’s Great South Gate and other buildings linked to Chōgen. Rosenfield explains how Chōgen chose the foreign tenjiku’yō (“Indian mode”) for the Great Buddha Hall and other structures he supervised, whereas his contemporaries preferred the more conservative wayō, or “Japanese mode.” The “Indian mode,” despite its name, originated in Southern China, and in this section Rosenfield shows how Chinese craftsmen played a leading role in the rebuilding project.

Portraits of Chōgen includes a wealth of information on the religious and social status of Japanese sculptors as well as their working methods, materials, techniques, and individual styles. Rosenfield’s detailed discussion of the making of the guardian figures of the Great South Gate is accompanied by a view of the west guardian removed from its context for repair. The difference in affect is striking; as Rosenfield writes, “The enlarged heads cause the figures to appear heavyset and stocky when seen from a distance. When installed in the gate and viewed up close from below, however, they appear towering and ferocious” (140). Here Rosenfield inaugurates an illuminating focus on dedicatory inscriptions and objects found within extant works, which he continues in the following chapter treating sculptures by Kaikei. Rosenfield clearly explains the ritual and devotional contexts for these works, while revealing the complex links between patronage, production, and devotion evident in lists of individuals who formed a spiritual link (kechien) with the deity by contributing to—or simply being associated with—the making of the statue. By being part of a kechien group, a person could receive the karmic benefits of the image-making project, gaining merit toward a favorable rebirth in the next life or assistance from the deity in this life. While the important concept of kechien is clarified in an appendix, given its central place in the study, this—and the other informative notes on ritual and doctrine in the first appendix—might have been more effective if integrated into the body of the book itself.

Two shorter chapters consider non-sculptural objects connected to Chōgen, such as reliquaries, ritual implements, and paintings. Although these chapters are loaded with fascinating information, neither constructs a larger narrative, sticking instead with an analysis of individual works. Nevertheless, the attention to ritual implements and reliquaries—often ignored in art-historical studies until recently—is most welcome, given that Chōgen likely “considered reliquaries, altar fittings, and even bathtubs to be as essential to his religious mission as sculptures or paintings” (185).

Rosenfield concludes with an extensively annotated translation of Chōgen’s memoir, the Benevolent Deeds of Namu-Amidabutsu. Composed shortly before the monk’s death, this short document was possibly intended as a preliminary set of notes for a more formal biography. In a brief introduction to the document, Rosenfield laments its inconsistent and repetitious nature; it is essentially a series of schematic lists lacking any discernible order and often omitting reference to otherwise known events from Chōgen’s life. The document reads like an early draft of a curriculum vitae, but it provides invaluable information on Chōgen’s activities, in particular his artistic and architectural commissions. The translation and annotations are useful complements to the earlier chapters of the book, with abundant cross-references to discussions of specific entries from the Benevolent Deeds. Portraits of Chōgen contains plentiful reference matter, like a comprehensive list of Chinese and Japanese characters (some of which are also provided in the text) and a table of sculptural projects at Tōdaiji. A similar list of extant and documented sculptures connected to Chōgen would have been helpful as well. Rosenfield wisely includes a second appendix with short biographies of important figures appearing in the text, a useful resource for readers unfamiliar with the period and a model I wish were adopted more widely.

On the whole, the book is well-edited and a pleasure to read. There are, however, a few errors of consistency throughout the volume. References to line numbers in the Benevolent Deeds sometimes appear in parentheses and other times in the endnotes, and a few entries in the index provide incorrect page numbers. Finally, after the extensive and detailed discussions of works related to Chōgen, the book ends somewhat abruptly. The analysis could have benefited from a short concluding chapter providing a wide-angle description of the transformation of Buddhist art in early medieval Japan and Chōgen’s role in it. Portraits of Chōgen assembles in one place key sculptural works and recent scholarship of the early Kamakura period, including much information previously available only in Japanese, making it a valuable addition to the teaching repertory. Written in a clear, accessible, and engaging style, Rosenfield’s study is a fascinating read both for non-specialists and for scholars of the art and religion of Japan.