Shubun - Reading in a Bamboo Grove detail

Zen Buddhist Zen (; from Chinese: ''Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka phil ...

monk and

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

of the

Muromachi period The , also known as the , is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate ( or ), which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi ...

.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Shūbun''" in

Biography

Shūbun was born in the late 14th century in

Ōmi Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan, which today comprises Shiga Prefecture. It was one of the provinces that made up the Tōsandō Circuit (subnational entity), circuit. Its nickname is . Under the ''Engishiki'' classification system, ...

and became a professional painter around 1403. He settled in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

, then the capital city. He became director of the court painting bureau, established by Ashikaga shōguns, which consisted of influential art patrons. He was chosen by the members of the diplomatic mission to

Joseon Joseon ( ; ; also romanized as ''Chosun''), officially Great Joseon (), was a dynastic kingdom of Korea that existed for 505 years. It was founded by Taejo of Joseon in July 1392 and replaced by the Korean Empire in October 1897. The kingdom w ...

in 1423. Shūbun is considered to be the founder of the Chinese style of ''suiboku'' ink painting in Japan. He was influenced by Chinese landscape painters Xia Gui and

Ma Yuan Ma Yuan may refer to: * Ma Yuan (Han dynasty) (馬援; 14 BC – 49 AD), general of the Han dynasty * Ma Yuan (painter) (馬遠; 1160–1225), painter of the Song dynasty * Ma Yuan (judge) (:zh:馬原 (政治人物), 馬原; born 1930), a former V ...

. Throughout his life, Shūbun was associated with the Zen Buddhist temple, Shōkoku-ji. Early in his career, he studied painting there under Josetsu, a Chinese immigrant who became the father of the new Japanese ink painting tradition. Under Josetsu's influence, Shūbun started studying Chinese

Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...

painting by masters such as Xia Gui and Ma Yuan; consequently, Shūbun's style was an intermediate step between early Japanese artists who imitated Chinese models very closely, and later artists, who developed a national style. Later in life, Shūbun became overseer of buildings and grounds at Shōkoku-ji. In the 1440s he taught the young

Sesshū Tōyō , also known simply as , was a Japanese Zen monk and painter who is considered a great master of Japanese ink painting. Initially inspired by Chinese landscapes, Sesshū's work holds a distinctively Japanese style that reflects Zen Buddhist ae ...

, who became his best pupil and the most highly regarded Japanese artist of his time. Another important pupil may have been Kanō Masanobu, who succeeded Shūbun as the chief painter of the Ashikaga shogunate, and also founded the Kanō school of painting. Shūbun's most well-known painting, designated as a National Treasure in Japan, is ''Reading in a Bamboo Grove'', now kept in the

Tokyo National Museum The or TNM is an art museum in Ueno Park in the Taitō wards of Tokyo, ward of Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the four museums operated by the , is considered the oldest national museum and the largest art museum in Japan. The museum collects, prese ...

. The same museum houses a few other works attributed to Shūbun, among them a pair of titled . Two more pairs of folding screens depicting landscapes of the four seasons are held by the Seikadō Bunko Art Museum. As with many Japanese and Chinese artists of this and earlier periods, many works survive that are attributed to Shūbun, but only for a few is this attribution secure. Contemporary accounts describe Shūbun as a very versatile artist, yet the only extant works with the authorship issue resolved are landscapes.

Notes

References

* Deal, William E. 2007. ''Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan''. Oxford University Press US. * Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005)
''Japan encyclopedia.''
Cambridge:

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

.
OCLC 58053128
* Varley, H. Paul. (2000). ''Japanese Culture.'' Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

External links

Landscapes of the Four Seasons in the Seikado Foundation

attributed to Shūbun
Landscape in the Seattle Art Museum Permanent Collection
attributed to Shūbun
Bridge of dreams: the Mary Griggs Burke collection of Japanese art
a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Tenshō Shūbun (see index) {{DEFAULTSORT:Shubun, Tensho 1414 births 1463 deaths Japanese painters National Treasures of Japan Buddhist artists Japanese Buddhist clergy Zenga

Biography

See also

Notes

References

External links