The Sixteen Luohans
This scroll depicts the journey of Luohans, Buddhist spiritual beings, on the path to enlightenment. Luohans possess supernatural powers, such as communicating with lions and tigers. Here, the Luohans cross vast distances and tumultuous waters with the help of animal companions. The beasts also aid the Luohans’ spiritual crossing or deliverance. The painter depicted the Luohans’ robes in spontaneous strokes, bold and fast like the Chan (Zen) Buddhist notions of unconstrained thought and the sudden enlightenment.
Walter Hochstadter;
Purchased from Walter Hochstadter by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1950.
Wai-Kam Ho, et al., Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and The Cleveland Museum of Art. (The Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, c1980), 86-89, no.68.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 319.
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008). 346, fig. 193.
