So let’s get straight into Zenguy. The picture below is again based on a well-known masterpiece by Sengai. You can view it online if you use the search string “指月布袋画賛”.
The big jolly individual is Hotei, the only one of Japan’s Seven Lucky Gods said to have been modeled on a real person: a Chinese Buddhist priest who lived over a thousand years ago.
Hotei, whose name is literally “cloth bag”, is typically depicted carrying a large bag and also a fan, but in this picture the fan is difficult to include because Hotei needs to have one hand free to point.
What is he pointing at? The viewer is encouraged to imagine with the help of a linguistic prompt. The English you see is Zenguy’s translation of the Japanese that appears in the original Sengai picture.
“How old is the moon? Thirteen seven.”
“Thirteen seven” doesn’t sound like an especially convincing age for the moon, but in fact it is precise. “Thirteen” refers to the 13th day since the new moon. That tells me the moon is nearly full.
“Seven”, meanwhile, refers to the time of day. It is not 7 o’clock but late afternoon, which is when the beautiful “thirteen” moon would be rising above the Eastern horizon as the sun sets in the West.
Nobody describes the moon like that nowadays, but these are the words of a nursery rhyme that would have been familiar to many children in Japan 200 years ago.
Those children (and any other viewer) would also know that the next words are: “Still young.”
By singing the nursery rhyme and pointing, Hotei is indicating a nearly full moon rising in the Eastern sky.
What’s going on in this picture? Well, Zenguy (I can’t speak for Sengai, of course) is drawing attention to the nature of imagination.
Nobody knows for sure what Hotei carries around in his bag, and so I can use my imagination. And you can use yours. And we’ll probably arrive at different conclusions. Who will be right? No one can say.
From the overall context, I may feel I can safely assume that Hotei is pointing at the moon. But maybe he’s just pointing at the words of the nursery rhyme. Whatever. The words of the nursery rhyme enable us to guess that Hotei is in fact indicating the moon.
I can imagine that Hotei and the child (children seem to love Hotei, which makes him seem a bit like an East Asian Santa) are happily singing as they walk together under a clear sky in the late afternoon with a beautiful moon rising.
The viewer can anticipate that they will soon sing “Still young” about the newly emerged moon. In other words, I can imagine hearing them sing something that is not present in the picture.
I can imagine seeing a gibbous moon that is not present in the picture. I can even imagine its rough position in the sky.
I can imagine looking inside Hotei’s bag and seeing something different from what you see in it. Maybe that’s the point of the bag. You can imagine seeing whatever you want inside it.
Is the viewer the only person doing some imagining? Is it possible that Hotei is actually imagining a “still young” moon, and that this is what the child represents?
As Zenguy’s spokesman I can confirm that this is in fact the case.
The child is a figment of Hotei’s imagination. Hotei’s imagination is activated by seeing the moon, and by recalling the words of the nursery rhyme.
At another level of abstraction, the viewer can also imagine that this entire scene has been imagined by Zenguy. The whole picture can be regarded as a figment of Zenguy’s imagination.
If that’s the case, the viewer is in effect looking at nothing. A blank piece of paper.
Or maybe a different picture is hinted at by the one I can actually see. Maybe I am being encouraged to picture that different picture. What picture might that be?
Well, I can imagine that part of Zenguy’s intention in drawing this picture was to draw attention to the fact that a shared understanding of language can result in a moment of shared happiness. If Little Moon and Big Hotei did not share an understanding of the words, they would not be looking happily in tune with each other as they anticipate the next line: “Still young”.
Hotei is assuming that Little Moon will know (has memorized and can recall) the words of the nursery rhyme. And even if Hotei is singing strictly for his own pleasure, and Little Moon is no more than a fantasy, those words are nevertheless being retrieved from Hotei’s memory.
Or from Zenguy’s memory. Or from the viewer’s memory. It all depends on which imaginative viewpoint you would like to adopt.
At any rate, an object of attention occasions the use of words. The interface for words is the mouth. Words can be used to generate a mental image, an imagined scene, an elephantasy. In Mindfield terms, these are all “square” elements of the scene.
Hotei is pointing and naming. He is sharing attention with Little Moon, even if Little Moon is imaginary. Zenguy is encouraging me (or Little Moon) to name the object to which he is drawing my attention. In Mindfield terms, these are all “triangle” elements of the scene.
Memory is the source of the words that Hotei and Little Moon are singing. By singing the same words they are confirming that they belong in the same sphere of shared cultural identity. Also, they are motivated to sing. Their heart is in it. In Mindfield terms, these are all “circle” elements of the scene.
Now Google “The Universe by Sengai”.