Sengai was a Japanese Zen priest. He died in 1837 at the age of 87.
I first saw examples of Zen paintings by Sengai in the early 1980s, shortly after I arrived in Japan. For some reason I went to an exhibition featuring his pictures at the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, in the Marunouchi district of Tokyo. Idemitsu Sazo, the founder of Idemitsu, was a great collector of Sengai’s art.
I liked what I saw, especially because some of Sengai’s pictures were clearly intended to get a laugh, or at least a smile. A vacantly happy frog. A cute dog. A startled cat.
Sengai was a playful Zen priest. I liked that idea.
When I first encountered his pictures, I had no idea what specific story or message they were intended to convey, but Sengai’s love for life shone through all of them.
Much later I read that the last thing he said was, “I don’t wanna die.” That struck me as a likely story. I could imagine Sengai whispering those words with a faint smile, giving his gathered friends a last chance to chuckle before they broke down in grief.
As the years went by, I found myself drawn again and again to shows featuring the work of Sengai.
I began to learn more about some of the pictures, and to see them in my own way. Eventually, I started to tell myself stories about the pictures. And sometimes, those stories were different from the stories I read in the exhibition catalogues.
Over the years I’ve bought several reasonably priced reproductions of Sengai pieces. For a long time, actually, I’ve been hoping to hold a Sengai show of my own, featuring only reproductions of his work. It seems a Sengai sort of thing to do.
But I’ve never quite summoned up the courage to go through with the plan. One factor in my hesitation is a strong desire not to misinterpret Sengai.
In my laughable Dao De Jing translation, I use the phrase “taking wordless as your watchword” (please see 019, which I’ve edited heavily since the mail was initially sent out).
Sengai may not have followed the “wordless as watchword” injunction to the letter, but he was clearly sensitive to the inappropriate appropriation of language, especially in the service of dogma. Even if Sengai himself had deep convictions, he never seemed to take the dogma out for a walk. Or if he did, he took care to disguise it as a joke.
If I held an exhibition of Sengai’s work, I’d want to say serious things about it. I’d make an earnest effort to draw your attention to Sengai’s importance. But would that show appropriate respect to Sengai, who took pains not to be seen as serious or important?
Sengai achieved an impressive level of conventional technical mastery as an artist, but he ended up trying to subvert his own skill. In his later work, he dashed paintings off in what seems to have been a deliberate attempt to depict things “badly”.
Ironically, this approach boosted the unique visual impact of his pictures. A brilliant one-stroke dog. Otherworldly moon-faced children. An ink circle, revered symbol of enlightenment, that Sengai encourages you to think of as a simple cake to have with your tea.
His fun paintings were a big hit with people in Hakata, which is where he spent a good part of his life, based at a temple called Shofukuji. The temple’s still there. On one occasion Sengai is said to have “complained” that having so many people running up to him all the time brandishing pieces of paper made him feel like a toilet.
Japanese history contains many fascinating figures that I would love to speak with, but no one comes close to Sengai. For me, he stands head and shoulders above the rest. A man who once declared that he was not an artist is, for me, one of the greatest artists of all time.
But my main reason for wanting to meet him is that I think he would reduce me to tears of laughter.
Sengai’s art is profoundly important. Yet Sengai made fun of it. And it seems that making fun of something was something that Sengai took very seriously. So how should I respect that legacy?
Fortunately, an alter ego is coming to the rescue. Let me introduce him. His name is Zenguy. And he has a certain skill that I think even Sengai would have envied. He is genuinely hopeless at art.
I will end this post with an example of Zenguy’s art. It was inspired by a self-portrait produced by the great man himself. I encourage you to search for it online (and also to visit Idemitsu Museum of Arts the next time they feature the work of Sengai).
I plan to use Zenguy’s art from time to time to illustrate aspects of NowHow and the Mindfield.
Hm... I think Zenguy knows what’s up, Adam. But then again he ain’t showing it.