Word: zen
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...many forms of Buddhism, the one best known in the West is Zen. Its guiding principles of inward meditation versus doctrine, of emphasis on the visceral and spontaneous as against the cerebral and structured, of inspiration rather than linear "logic," were seized on by the early beatniks, taken up by many of the young today, and were incorporated into the mystique of America's counterculture. But what kind of art did Zen provoke in China and Japan? In a brilliant show that took a year to assemble, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts has provided a definitive survey...
...casual gallerygoer, Zen art might not appear vastly different from classical Oriental art and indeed is customarily exhibited as part of its main body without special classification. In fact, Zen is distinctive for two reasons: 1) it was created largely by Zen monks, who did not consider themselves primarily artists, to illustrate a philosophical Zen concept; 2) it had to be done with maximum spontaneity. In Zen, as opposed to the controlled symmetries of scholarly painting, the inky brush spatters and runs on the paper in a kind of ecstatic exuberance-a sort of Oriental forerunner of action painting...
This sense of revelation, bursting through the simplest acts and objects, was central to Zen art. A night heron, painted in the early 16th century...
...Zen distrust of theory and doctrine was summed up by Liang K'ai, an artist of the early 13th century, who captured in a few exquisitely jagged brush strokes an illiterate patriarch, howling with glee, tearing up a sutra, or sacred text. It is an Oriental parallel to St. Paul's remark that "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life...
...order to understand what Zen art is see the Museum of Fine Arts Zen show first. Then you can observe the Zen in context of other Oriental art at the Fogg show. The MFA has captured the spirit of the Oriental. Like the Japanese who hang a single painting in the tokonoma (a small alcove in the house), the MFA has hung a single aspect of Oriental art: Zen art. The Fogg has taken a Western perspective and shown the Oriental from prehistoric times through the 19th century...