Sengai – Monk and Artist in Tokyo Kill

In Tokyo Kill by Barry Lancet the hero, Jim Brodie, is also an art dealer specializing in Japanese art. A part of the book involves a new ink painting coming on the international art market from the Japanese monk artist, Sengai. Where it had been for decades plays a role in the story.

What intrigued me was Lancet’s description of the painting:

The painting depicted a chubby Zen monk, maybe even Sengai himself, skipping through a graveyard, doing a jig, a bottle of sake in one hand, while three roughly sketched tombstones seemed to sway in the background. It was a joyful, smiling, silly frolic. Uninhibited and not afraid to look foolish. On the side was an inscription that read      

        Above the sorrow, dance.

                 In the lingering merriment
                Infinity’s echo

A humourous Zen painting was distant from the austere ink paintings I associate with Japanese art and sent me searching for information on Sengai.

Sengai Gibbon (1751 – 1847) is a fascinating man. Becoming a monk at the age of 11 he gained fame as a Zen scholar in his 20’s when he gained his certificate of enlightenment when as stated on the http://darumamuseumgallery.blogspot.ca/2007/10/sengai-gibon.html blog:

        … he answered the koan (a Zen riddle calculated to
        trigger insight) "Why did the Patriarch come from the
       West?" with the poem:

 

            Sakyamuni (Buddha) entered extinction 2,000 years 

            ago;
            Maitraya (The Messiah-like Buddha) won't appear  

           for another billion years —

           Sentient beings find this hard to understand,

           But it's just like this —

           the nostrils are over the lips.

Subsequently, as an abbot he was noted for his modesty and his sense of humour.

"If by sitting in mediation,
one becomes Buddha..."

He refused to be limited in his artistic spirit:                        

        As an artist Sengai was not only an outsider to the
        established art schools and academies, but a free spirit,
         whose manifesto expounded that painting was not a
        subject that could be limited by rules. This philosophy
        is apparent at first sight in any of his paintings, which
        look sketchy, improvised and perhaps — to the Western
        eye — unfinished. careful studies of light or color
        impressions here; expression is all! And yet they each
        convey some profound Zen principle or aphorism in an
        easily understandable form, much like the pithy insight
        seen in parables, proverbs or political cartoons.

His personality shines through in his reaction to the equivalent of 19^th Century Japanese tourists:
       
       In his old age he became more and more popular and was
       frequently deluged by visitors bringing sheets of  paper for him
       to inscribe. His amused response is expressed in another poem:

            To my dismay
            I wonder if my small hut
            is just a toilet
            since everyone who comes here
            seems to bring me more paper!

You cannot help but wish you could have met this profoundly thoughtful and exuberant monk.

I have known Benedictine monks since I was a teenager and have seen in several that combination of intellect and humour. I believe the discipline of their order lets them concentrate their thoughts and their faith filled lives makes them joyful.

In our era Sengai is noted for his work titled The Universe, a copy of which is below. I expect it has fascinated numerous contemporary artists as it appears to be a 20^th Century rather than 19^th Century work