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Orchids |
context: painting > Zen painting > Artists
Gyokuen Bonpo, 1348-1420
I've seen it claimed that Bonpo's work is the first example of a distinctly Japanese Zen beauty; but in all honesty, spotting the difference between Bonpo's lovely orchid paintings and those of a Chinese orchid painter such as Hsueh-ch'uang is really rather hard. Some increased sense of negative space, perhaps? He composed and inscribed his own inscriptions too, and is mentioned in the shigajiku page here as one of the poets/calligraphers writing above Josetsu's famed catfish painting.