for anyone wondering about the enso thing

Zenga in the Twentieth Centuryby Cassady Winston

When Zenga, or paintings by Zen monks in Japan, came to the attention of the Western art world in the 20th century, it sparked a landslide of interest. Zenga was historically neglected by Japanese art historians, and it remained largely marginalized there even as Western artists and collectors extolled its virtues. Art connoisseurs in the U.S. and Europe turned eagerly to the works of Zen artists such as Hakuin, Torei, and Nantembo, and saw in these works formal elements akin to their own artistic investigations. Western connoisseurs were attracted to the reductive forms exhibited in Zenga, and many found Zen precepts a suitable religious underpinning for much of 20th century Modernism. Zenga was, however, a unique marriage of aesthetics and philosophy that was developed under conditions specific to its birthplace.

As an inevitable consequence of this sort of transcultural transmission, the Zenga that came to be understood in the West was not the same as Zenga in Japan. Something is always lost in the translation. Though many Japanese were undoubtedly influenced by Western styles during this time, I will treat the transmission of Zenga to the West as a one-way transfer within this article, and I will therefore borrow the anthropological terms "predecessor" and "successor" cultures to denote the two.[1]

An element of "picking and choosing" is unavoidable as a successor culture inherits foreign forms and fits them to its own needs. A successor culture cannot help but see through its own lens. Criticism has been levied against Western interest in foreign forms for its naïve appropriation, but the problem lies in not is the adoption of forms, but in the lack of proper differentiation between visual forms and philosophy. There is an important difference between formal influence and philosophical influence, and many Western connoisseurs failed to properly distinguish between the two. Many 20th century Western artists had an true understanding of Zenga's superficial forms, and yet some felt qualified to make a wide array of statements regarding Zen Buddhist practice, and Japanese culture in general.

A number of Western artists have expressed genuine appreciation for the visual forms and motifs in Zenga, and the influence on their work is unmistakable. The economy of figural descrīption and simple, uncluttered composition of many Zen paintings appealed to the Modernist drive toward abstraction and minimalism. Western artists had arrived at this point by a different route than Zenga painters, but Zenga's simple forms fit well into the visual and philosophical aesthetic that they were developing. Saisho's depiction of Daruma in Wall-Gazing Daruma (fig. 1) shows an interest in economic representation, the figure's form communicated using the most minimal of descrīption. Daruma's body has melted away, and Saisho gives the viewer only his outline in thick black ink. The artist is drawing here on a long history of representations of Daruma, in which the Zen patriarch's seated figure has become an archetype. By the time Saisho made this painting in the late 19th century, he was able to evoke not only a long tradition of Daruma images, but also a history of related textual and philosophical Zen discourse, with the most minimal of formal descrīption. Saisho's image, together with its didactic text above, is therefore not only an aesthetic work, but one with a instructive message.

Torei's Enso (fig. 2) of 1721-1742 is an example of pure form triumphing over natural descrīption. A sort of continuation of the trend that reduced Daruma to mere outline, enso depictions communicated weighty messages with simple form. Torei's central circle image, enacted speedily with a large brush, is elucidated most inexplicitly by his cursive text at left, "In heaven above and the earth below, I alone am the honored one.[2]" The brushwork present in both the enso and the calligraphy shows a spontaneity that would be most intriguing to 20th century Abstract Expressionists. The artist's physical act of mark-making is very present, as the brush marks leave a clear trace of swift movement of the artist's hand. This is taken a step further in Nantembo's Nanten Staff (fig. 3). The main vertical form similarly shows the brush's quick movement through space, and like Enso, the uncluttered composition makes this subtle effect a central part of the work. But now, at the top of the composition, we see the artist using a ink dripping technique that brings a significant element of chance into play. It is therefore not at all surprising that the Abstract Expressionists would extol such works.

The work of Robert Motherwell shows his reverence to the importance of negative space within a composition. Many of Motherwell's compositions consisted of a central black shape, his abstraction being described as "the process of peeling away the inessential and presenting the necessary."[3] Describing his goals when starting a new piece, Motherwell was quoted, "to end up with a canvas that is no less beautiful than the empty canvas is to begin with."[4] Stephen Addiss, a professor at the University of Richmond who did very much to disseminate Zenga images and history in the West, praised their "simplicity" and "intensity," stating, "the power of all Zen art lies in its elimination of the nonessential.[5]"

Other Westerners have been attracted to Zen Buddhist practice, as opposed to its related visual forms, through a number of different methods. Zen teachings have been brought to the U.S. and Europe by various Japanese monks and scholars, and they have found many willing students. Artists such as John Cage have professed an intimate relationship with Zen beliefs, as related to them by D.T. Suzuki and others. Cage claims that his study of Zen has had a fundamental impact on his work, which he describes as "an exploration of non-intention."[6] There is an important difference between Zen study influencing the aims of an artistic investigation, and the appropriation of Zenga's visual forms for a pre-existing project. In the first case, it is meaning that is imported by a successor culture, while in the second case it is form.

In practice, the lines between Zenga's form-influence and philosophy-influence can become quite muddled. We find some formal influence in Ad Reinhardt's works, as well as some Zen-like philosophical musings in his statements. In 1967 Reinhardt described his signature black paintings (fig. 4) as "free, unmanipulated, unmanipulatable, useless, unmarketable, irreducible, unphotographable, unreproducible, inexplicable."[7] This interest in the anti-intellectual is certainly related to the Zen koan structure, as illustrated by a number of Zenga visual motifs, but his statements are presented in an brainy manner that shows his distance from actual Zen. Addiss, too, is unable to avoid speaking to the philosophical issues at play in Zenga. He makes the general claim that "direct and succinct communication became the single most important feature of the new artistic distillation of the Zen spirit.[8]"

It is of course possible for a representative of a successor culture (i.e. a Western artist or connoisseur) to be interested in both the visual forms of Zen painting and their spiritual content. Perhaps in isolated cases have there been individuals in the West that devoted themselves to a full understanding of both, but on the large scale of macro-cultural transmission, things are messy and elements are diffused organically. When investigations into Zenga's formalism are conflated with an incomplete understanding of the visual forms' historical place in Japanese spiritual practice, the result is a fictional conception of Zen. Thus, many artists speak about Zen, and it is reasonable to question if they truly know what they are talking about. Even Cage, who paints himself as man largely defined by Zen[9], admits in the same article that does not meditate. One wonders what sort of reception this talk would receive in Zen schools in Japan.

This is exacerbated by the fact that the individuals most responsible for introducing Zen to the West, such as D.T. Suzuki and Soen, were very much exceptional to the Japanese Zen tradition. Indeed, as Robert Sharf writes, "the one feature shared by virtually all of the figures responsible for the Western interest in Zen is their relatively marginal status with the Japanese Zen establishment."[10] They were part of an intellectual elite, educated in Western schools and championing a "New Buddhism" (shin bukkyo) that was fashioned with an eye toward an international audience. The Meiji period was a time in which Japanese culture was increasingly presented as cosmopolitan. Proponents of this cultural projection employed many stereotypes to present Japanese culture as unique, and "thus a generation of unsuspecting Europeans and American was subjected to Meiji caricatures of the lofty spirituality, the selflessness, and the refined aesthetic sensibilities of the Japanese race."[11] Indeed, the Japanese intellectual discourse the sprung up during this time surrounding kokumin seishin (a term derived from kokuminsei, or "national character," that came to indicate Japan's superior "national spirit") shows the nationalistic trends of the time.[12] Japan's militarism during the Meiji period can be seen as a manifestation of this.

The transmission of Zenga to the West, and the process of adaptation and reinterpretation that ensued, is a clear illustration of the elastic quality of forms. Absolute duplication of styles – a style consisting of a form with a set meaning – across cultural boundaries is impossible. Forms are, as described by George Kubler in the context of iconographical studies, disjoined from their meanings by the process of transcultural transmission.[13] Kubler points to two key axioms that relate to forms such as Zenga that are recontextualized into a new culture: "that (1) a visible form often repeated may acquire different meanings with the passage of time, and (2) that an enduring meaning may be conveyed by different visual forms."[14] Because form and meaning are so variable, it is inevitable that a style will show up altered in a successor culture.

It is only natural in a modern society for forms and ideas to change as they respond to new contexts. The transmission of both Zenga's visual forms and Zen philosophy to the West has been largely beneficial, as a new population has been exposed to this rich tradition. As noted by Kubler, this sort of transmission inevitably leads over time to a certain degree of bastardization of the original information, and in this case that process was expedited by the social conditions in Japan in the Meiji period. The negative effects of this bastardization can be minimized, but this requires diligence on the part of all players to be specific with their claims. It is important to be skeptical toward any claims of Zen's essential nature, or quintessential "Japaneseness," particularly when forms and ideas have traversed cultural boundaries.

Bibliography

1. Sharf, Robert, "The Zen of Japanese Nationalism," in Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism Under Colonialism, (Chicago, 1995).

2. Yuji, Yamashita, "Reconsidering Zenga: In Terms of American, In Terms of Japanese Art History," in Zenga: The Return from America – Paintings from the Gitter-Yelen Collection, Asano Laboratories (Tokyo, 2002).

3.  Addiss, Stephen, The Art of Zen, Harry N Abrams (1989).
   

4. Educational Broadcasting Corporation, American Masters: Robert Motherwell, Public Broadcasting System, Thirteen Productions, WNET (New York: 2003).

5.  Cage, John, "An Autobiographical Statement," Southwest Review, The John Cage Trust (New York, 1991).
   

6.  Spector, Nancy, GuggenheimMUSEUM Collection: Ad Reinhardt, Guggenheim Museum website, 
   

   http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artistworkmd_133A1.html, December 3, 2003

7. Matsuoka, Hideaki, "From National Character to National Spirit: Prewar Japanese Intellectuals' View on Japaneseness," from Session 102: Paradigms in the Study of Japanese Art History: A Discussion, Part One (panel discussion organized by Cynthea Bogel, University of Oregon, abstract published on http://www.aasianst.org/absts/1998abst/japan/j118.html (1998).

8. Kubler, George, "Period, Style and Meaning in Ancient American Art," p. 144, New Literary History (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970).

9.  Focillon, Henri, The Life of Forms (New Haven, 1941 [originally La Vie des Formes, Paris, 1934]).
   

10. Brook, Timothy, "Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism" (Review), in The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 55, No. 2 (May, 1996), p. 425-428

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[1] These terms are often used to describe cultures that are temporally separated, but they are adequately suited for this discussion of contemporary cultures that are distant in proximity.

[2] Quote attributed to the historical Buddha

[3] Educational Broadcasting Corporation, American Masters: Robert Motherwell, Public Broadcasting System, Thirteen Productions, WNET (New York: 2003).

[4] Educational Broadcasting Corporation, American Masters: Robert Motherwell, Public Broadcasting System, Thirteen Productions, WNET (New York: 2003).

[5] Addiss, Stephen, The Art of Zen, Harry N Abrams (1989), p. 13.

[6] Cage, John, "An Autobiographical Statement," Southwest Review, The John Cage Trust (New York, 1991).

[7] Spector, Nancy, GuggenheimMUSEUM Collection: Ad Reinhardt, Guggenheim Museum website, http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artistworkmd_133A1.html, December 3, 2003

[8] Addiss, Stephen, The Art of Zen, Harry N Abrams (1989), p. 11.

[9] In his "Autobiographical Statement" published in 1991 (and footnoted above), Cage mentions Neti Neti, a Buddhist text by L. C. Beckett, of which he claims that his own life "could be described as an illustration."

[10] Sharf, Robert, "The Zen of Japanese Nationalism," in Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism Under Colonialism, (Chicago, 1995) p. 141

[11] Sharf, Robert, "The Zen of Japanese Nationalism," in Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism Under Colonialism, (Chicago, 1995) p. 141

[12] Matsuoka, Hideaki, "From National Character to National Spirit: Prewar Japanese Intellectuals' View on Japaneseness," from Session 102: Paradigms in the Study of Japanese Art History: A Discussion, Part One (panel discussion organized by Cynthea Bogel, University of Oregon, abstract published on http://www.aasianst.org/absts/1998abst/japan/j118.html (1998)

[13] Kubler, George, "Period, Style and Meaning in Ancient American Art," p. 144, New Literary History (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970).

[14] Focillon, Henri, The Life of Forms (New Haven, 1941 [originally La Vie des Formes, Paris, 1934]).