BackNo.45
SEPTEMBER 1935
STUDIES ON THE SCROLL-PAINTING "HASEO ZOSHI."
BY SOKURO WAKIMOTO
Ki-no-Haseo was a nobel who excelled in art and science, and was in favour at Court. One evening a stranger called on him and challenged him to a game of sugoroku. Haseo accepted the challenge, and was led to the garret of the Sujakumon, a towered of the Metropolis. Up in this tower they began to play sugoroku. The tide was turning to Haseo; and being carried away by the exitement of the game, the stranger gave himself away-it was a demon. In the end, Haseo won the game. So the demon, according to his promise, presnted Haseo with a woman of wonderous beauty, and warned him to make on advances to her before hundred days and night had passed. But she was so unusually attractive that Haseo could not control his passion, and tha girl turned into a gush of water and flowed away. (P1. IV) The demon got angry with Haseo because he had broken his promise, and severely blamed him for his betrayal. Thereupon Haseo called on the sacred name of Kitano Tenjin, and the demon fled.
We have adove outlined the plot of the scroll-painting "Haseo Zoshi" which is now in the possession of Marquis Moritatsu Hosokawa. (The whole scroll is reproduced on P1. VII-X)
Mr. Wakimoto has made a study of the picture scroll from both the literary and the artistic points of view, and tries to point out the ideas expressed in it. As for the date of the scroll-painting, the weiter belives it to be sometime in the late Kamakura period, probably as early as the picture-scroll "Saigyo Monogatari" and a littele earlier than the "Egara Tenjin Engi."
SOME SIGNED CHINESE PAINTINGS OF THE SUNG AND YUAN PERIODS.
BY HAJIME WATANABE
The writer enumerates in his article a number of Chinese Buddhist Paintings of the Sung and Yuan dynasties all of which bear the signature of the artist, and investigates the problems of their history and thire painters. The pictures cited by him are the following:--
1) Sixteen Arhans by Lu Hsien-chung in the Sokokuji Monastery, Kyoto.
2) Sixteen Arhans by Lu Hsien-chung in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
3) Ten Kings of Hell by Lu Hsien-chung in the Honenji Monnastery, Kagawa-ken.
4) Death of Buddha Sakyamuni by Lu Hsien-chung in the Hojuin Monastery, Aichi-ken.
5) Arhans by Lu Ssu-lang, in the possession of Bason Heitaro Fujita, Osaka.
6) Arhans by Lu Chung-yuan in the Joshoji Monastery, Kyoto.
7) Ten Kings of Hell by lu Chung-yuan in the possession of Baron Ichizaemon Morimura, Tokyo.
8) Ten Kings of Hell by Hsi-ch'in-chu-shin in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and in tne Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
9) Sixteen Arhans by Hsi-ch'in-chu-shih in the possession of Mr. Kunizo Hara, Tokyo and in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin.
10) Sixteen Arhans by Chao Chu in the Hokkekyoji Monastery, Chiba-ken.
11) Five Hundred Arhans by Lin T'ing-kuei and Chou Chi-ch'ang in the Daitokuji Monastery, Kuoto and in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
12) Portrait of P'u-ying-kuo-shih by I-an in the Kogenji Moanastert Kyoto.
13) Portrait of Pu-k'ung-san-tsang by Chang Ssu-kung in the Kozanji Monastery, Kyoto.
14) Portrait of Tien-t'ai-shih by Chang Ssu-hsu in the Saikoji Monastrey, Shiga-ken.
(It is the writer's opinion that the siganatures on the last two pictures were probably written in a later perid.)
BIOGRAPHIES OF OLD LUCHUAN PAINTERS.
BY CHOKEN HIKA
In old Luchu, every family was given its own genealogical charts from the government archive provided it belonged to the "samurai" class. As most of the painters in the Luchuan Islands were in the service of the Court and came of the samurai class, they had their own genealogical charts authorized by the government.
The biographies of Luchuan painters given by Mr. Choken Hika are extracted from this kind of family trees handed down in the family of each painter.
In this issue the lives of the following eight painters are presented; Tsu-la, Li Chi-ch'ang, Ch'u Tsu-ch'ien, Ch'u I-tsu, Ch'a P'ing-hsien, Ch'a Wang-ts'an, Ch'a Sheng-hsun, and Wu Shin-chien.
P1. I, II, XIII-XV. Series of Six Panels representing 22 Deities.
Painted in colours on panels.
Size of each panel: H. 51.2 cm., W. 192.1 cm.
Property of the Yakushiji Monastery, Nara.
These six paintings were originally the panels between pillars in the parlours attached to the shrine of Hachiman in the Yakushiji Monastery.
According to the inscriptions weitten on the back of the panels, they were painted by Gyogon in the third year of Einin (1295), after the original panels made in the Kanji era(1087-1093) had been damaged by insects.
Gyogon belonged to the Handa-za, a Painter's guild in Nara, was engaged in the reconstraction of the Kasuga Jinsha, and was given a high ecclesiastical title in 1287.
P1. V. One of a Series of Pictures representing Sixteen Arhans.
Painted in colours on silk. Mounted as a Kakemono.
Size: H. 115.5 cm., W. 50.9 cm.
Property of the Sokokuji Monastery, Kyoto.
The picture reproduced here has a signature which reads: "Painted by Lu Hsien-chung, Shih-pan Street, Ch'e-chiao in Ching-yuan-fu". The name Lu Hsien-chung is mentioned in the "Satsujoshu", "Kundaikan Sayuchoki" and other Japanese manuscripts, but strange to say, we find no article about him in any Chinese book. Ching-yuan-fu (Ning-po-fu) was the centre of communication between China and Japan in the Medieval Times, and Ch'e-chiao was the most flourishing querter of the town. Considering these facts, we may say that Lu Hsien-chung combined the professions of painter and trader and kept a shop, mainly for provincial export, on the Shih-pan Street in Ch'e-chiao.
P1. VI. Death of Buddha Sakyamuni.
Painted in colours on silk. Mounted as a Kakemono.
Size: H. 157.5 cm., W. 83.6 cm.
Property of the Hojuin Monastery, Aichi-ken.
This picture of the Nirvana scene also bears the signature of Lu Hsien-chung; nevertheless, it differs in style from the series of sixteen Arhans mentioned above.
The reason for this is most likely that these pictures were not painted by Lu Hsien-chung himself but made in his atelier.
P1. XI. One of a Series of Pictures representing Ten Kings of Hell.
Painted in colours on silk. Mounted as a Panel.
Size: H. 105.1 cm., W. 45 cm.
Owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
The present picture, Which bears an inscription red as "Ta Sung, Ming Chou, Ch'e Chiao His Ch'in Ch'u Shih Chia Hua", has traditionally been ascribed to Hsi-ch'in-chu-shih, a painter whose name we have not yet been able t o find in the work of any Chinese authorities.
Mr. Alan Priest, however, proffered an unique opinion about this inscription in the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, June 1933.
According to him, the chatacter "Hsi" belongs to the two characters immediately preceding and means merely "West", thus the name of the artist should be Ch'in-ch'u-shin instead of Hsi-ch'in-ch'u-shih, and the whole inscription should be read as "Painted by the household of Ch'in-ch'u-shih, Carriage Brighe West, Ming Chou, in the great Sung Dynasty."