The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Asian Art department), New York. Not on view.
Location History:
Handled by Takashi Yanagi, Kyoto, until 26 September 2011, when it was sold to the Cowleses; in the collection of Mary and Cheney Cowles, Seattle, Washington (2011–21); donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2021. Exhibited at the Met in "The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection," 10 August 2024–3 August 2025.
Three hanging scrolls in ink on paper here, bring together three subjects that at first appear unrelated but are designed to be read as a single composition, a format that was common in early Zen devotional painting and became widespread during the sixteenth century. The scroll in center shows the Chan monk Zhaozhou Congshen (known in Japanese as Joshu Jushin, 778–897). There is a small dog beside him. On either side bird-and-flower subjects of Chinese origin: two geese among autumnal reeds on the right, and a mynah perched on a tree stump on the left can be seen.
The composition is based on the figure at its centre and the famous exchange associated with him. Zhaozhou is remembered for his response to the koan asking whether a dog possesses Buddha nature. He answered simply "Wu" — a word that on one level means "no" but which in a Zen frame of mind may be understood not as a literal answer at all, but as a verbal signal to halt the logical effort of searching for one. The dog points directly to this koan, so that the painting is not merely a portrait of a monk but an image carrying a specific Zen teaching about letting go of rational analysis.
The geese among reeds and the mynah on its stump belong to the Chinese bird-and-flower tradition. They frame the monk with the ordinary creatures and seasonal life of the natural world. Set on either side of a figure associated with the question of whether an animal shares in Buddha nature, these everyday birds become part of the contemplative whole rather than separate decorative subjects, and the three scrolls together unite a Zen patriarch and the living world around him into one meditative statement.
The ink medium and Zen subject are themselves expressions of the artist's lineage. Tōeki belonged to the Unkoku school, which arose late in the sixteenth century as a deliberate revival of monumental ink painting in the tradition of Sesshū, the great fifteenth-century master, and which defined itself in opposition to the brightly coloured, gold-ground style of the dominant Kano school.
This triptych beautifully unites Zen philosophy with nature. The muted ink washes create a serene, meditative space where the central, introspective monk harmonizes with the surrounding wildlife. By presenting seemingly unrelated subjects across three cohesive hanging scrolls, the composition perfectly captures the profound interconnectedness and quiet contemplation central to early Zen devotional art.
