Kanzan and Jittoku

According to legend, Kanzan, literally Cold Mountain, was a recluse and poet who lived on a sacred Buddhist mountain. Jittoku, literally Foundling, was an orphan who grew up in a monastery kitchen and frequently supplied Kanzan with leftovers. This inseparable pair of eccentrics became a favorite subject in Zen paintings. On the right, Kanzan gestures with a brush at Jittoku, who holds a broom and points at an inkstone in his partner’s left hand.

Although Tomioka Tessai is classified as a nanga or literati artist in Japan, the bold, swift brushstrokes he uses to convey the pair’s disheveled and humorous appearances have more in common with Zen traditions. As is common in Zen paintings, structure always exists amidst apparent casualness. Underlying his seemingly random brushwork is a carefully conceived design in which the duo’s playful postures form a rhythmic loop.