context: painting > Zen painting > Artists

Hakuin Ekaku 1685-1768

I guess putting an image of his on the front page makes it obvious that I like Hakuin's work, but he's a giant figure in many senses. He's been called the most influential monk of the last 500 years, and this is as a writer and teacher rather than an artist. There are collections of his poems, stories, lectures, commentaries and songs. Eventually he had too many devoted disciples for his temple, and, according to Addiss, the "entire area for three miles around became a training ground for his followers." He's also the man who made up the only world-famous koan, the one about one hand clapping, back in the late 1740s. I'm also tempted to try to claim that he invented the battle rap, having come across his line "I crush those who practise false Zen" in one poem.

Two Blind Men Crossing A Log Bridge

He was over sixty when he took up art and calligraphy seriously. His early works are very simple, generally crude animal cartoons, and his work always had lots of the caricature about it - some of his paintings of Hotei or the bodhisattva Kannon look like Don Martin cartoons from Mad. His monkeys are often totally adorable, but they are as didactic a lesson as the image here, which is telling us that when trying to grasp Zen we are like blind people on a narrow log-bridge across a deep gorge. It's another case where I don't think that we have to hear his message to love the work.

Hakuin the calligrapher

backwards: Musashi

forwards: Sengai