Zengetsuyō rakan 禅月様羅漢

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Art History
Iconography

Ch: Chanyueyang Luohan. A type of ink painting of arhats or *rakan 羅漢 associated with the Chinese priest Guanxiu (Jp: Kankyū 貫休, 832-912) that features exaggerated, grotesque figures. According to the Yizhou minghualu (Jp: Ekishū meigaroku 益州名画録; 1006), Guanxiu, also known as Chanyue Dashi (Jp: Zengetsu Daishi 禅月大師), had a dream in which he saw strange images of the sixteen arhats *jūroku rakan 十六羅漢. Upon waking, he made an ink painting of the figures, recording them as grotesquely distorted figures with bulging facial features and copious body hair. This manner came to be known as the Zengetsu style and was widely imitated to the point of becoming one of the major modes of rakan painting in China and Japan. Notable examples in Japan are hanging scroll sets of the Jūroku rakan at Kōdaiji 高台寺 in Kyoto; the Nezu 根津 Museum in Tokyo; and Fujita 藤田 Museum in Osaka.