ABSTRACT
Many historical surveys of Japanese art, including both those written in Japanese and their largely derivative Western-language counterparts, contain a section devoted to a distinct genre of painting called chinzō (also pronounced chinsō, Chin: dingxiang), comprising portraits of Chan and Zen Buddhist monks. The chinzō genre, such surveys explain, flourished in Song (960–1279) and Yuan (1279–1368) China and was first introduced to Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) in conjunction with the wholesale transmission of Chan (Zen) Buddhist institutions and practices. By all accounts, the oldest and finest surviving examples of chinzō include more than a dozen portraits of eminent Chan masters produced in China and brought to Japan by returning Japanese pilgrims. Among these, the portrait of Wuzhun Shifan (1178–1249) carried to Japan in 1241 by Wuzhun's Japanese disciple Enni Ben’en (1202–1280), and several portraits of Zhongfeng Mingben (1264–1325) that found their way to Japan in similar fashion, are often cited as paradigmatic of this genre. 1 In addition to these Chinese works, there is also a body of extant portraits produced in Japan following continental models that are considered worthy of art-historical note by dint of their antiquity, state of preservation, and perceived artistic quality. Altogether, some seventy Chinese and Japanese chinzō dating from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries are designated ‘National Treasures’ (kokuhō) or ‘Important Cultural Properties’ (jūyō bunkazai). The total number of chinzō held as valuable works of art in Japanese museums and temple collections today, including those with no official designation and a great many that were produced during the Tokugawa period (1615–1868), is roughly ten times that number. 2
