Ancient Buddhist painting can help you

understand the art of Zen

For months, conservators at the Asian Art Museum in San

Francisco were hard at work fashioning a display case for Six
Persimmons, the 13th-century ink painting at the center of their
upcoming exhibit, “The Heart of Zen.” Its owner, the Kyoto
National Museum in Japan, had provided the conservators with
an extensive list of requirements concerning not just the material
and measurements of the case itself, but the quality of the air
inside it.
Even to seasoned museum workers, the demands of the Kyoto
team appear extreme, bordering on unreasonable. That is, until
you consider the history of the art involved. Painted on a scroll
by the famed Chinese monk Muqi, Six Persimmons is as fragile
as it is coveted. For centuries, this minimalist still life of autumn
fruit was owned by a wealthy Japanese family that only
displayed it during their exclusive tea ceremonies. After ending
up in the hands of Daitoku-ji, a Buddhist temple in Kyoto, it was
moved to the National Museum — not to be displayed, but
stored. “Heart of Zen” not only marks the first time Muqi’s
masterpiece will be shown to the public since 2019, when it was
exhibited at the Miho Museum, but also the first time it will be
shown outside Japan.
The reasons for the painting’s coveted status are manifold.
Although age and inaccessibility are part of the equation, those
aspects pale in comparison to its status as a peerless illustration
of Zen Buddhist philosophy. Created by an individual who is
thought to have reached Enlightenment, Western and Japanese
critics alike praise Six Persimmons for helping viewers find
inner peace with its soft colors and quiet composition.

It’s an enticing and popular interpretation, and yet — as the San

Francisco exhibit hopes to show — it may not be as historically
accurate as many think.

The secrets of Zen Buddhism

Despite becoming one of the most famous Chinese painters of

all time, Muqi struggled to find success in his home country.
Born during the final days of the Southern Song dynasty, the
monk’s idiosyncratic style — calligraphic renderings of
mundane subjects like food, trees, and animals — clashed with
the tastes of the Song, who preferred complex and
representational art rich in worldly symbolism. The qualities that
made Muqi an iconoclast in the eyes of fellow Chinese were
received as forward-thinking in neighboring Japan, where his
work would inspire painters for centuries.
Glancing at Six Persimmons, it’s difficult not to think about Zen
Buddhism. Born in China but cultivated in Japan, it rejects the
study of ancient, esoteric scripture in favor of meditation.
According to Zen Buddhists, Enlightenment was a product of
unflinching introspection, not devotion to rites and rituals. By
depicting a fruit that, in Chinese culture, was devoid of
connotations, Six Persimmons forces the viewer to appreciate
the subject for what it is, rather than the ideas it could represent.
The result is a painting that cannot be analyzed, only
experienced — the same way one interacts with rolling clouds or
flowing water.

The persimmons, abstract in form and painted without shadows,

float inside a depthless void. Yuki Morishima, an assistant
curator at the Asian Art Museum who helped prepare the “Heart
of Zen” exhibit and had been able to see Six Persimmons only
once before in Japan, says she was as impressed with the
painting’s negative space as she was with the positive space,
with the actual persimmons. Her reaction evokes the Zen
concept of groundlessness, which calls for the need to accept
life’s inherent unpredictability.

If Muqi’s persimmons possess any symbolism, they are

symbolic in the broadest sense of the word. The fruits
themselves represent impermanence and the search for nirvana.
Just as Enlightenment arrives after a lifetime of meditation, so
do persimmons ripen in the fall, the season of death and decay.
If preserved, their soft, sour flesh can be turned into a hard,
sweet candy, mirroring the way a Zen Buddhist transforms
suffering into serenity.

Six Persimmons: an aesthetic or a way of life?

A closer look at Muqi’s critical reception indicates that his

current reputation as an enlightened artist is a misconception.
Originally, Morishima tells Big Think, Six Persimmons was
treated as little more than decoration. Its first owners, Japan’s
Tsuda family, displayed it at their ceremonies not to prompt
some kind of spiritual discussion, but because its subject matter
matched the type of food they would have served their guests.

In a 2021 article from the Korean Journal of Art History, South

Korean art historian Heeyeun Kang explains how Six
Persimmons acquired its present-day significance. Arriving in
Japan along with Zen Buddhism itself, Muqi only started to
become recognized as an explicitly Buddhist painter when the
Japanese elite decided to establish Zen as an explicit aspect of
Japanese identity.

Spearheading this push for reidentification, Japanese critics like

Okakura Tenshin, Aimi Kōu, and Awakawa Yasuichi likened Six
Persimmons to the crucifixes found inside Christian churches —
icons that seek to convey through visuals what the New
Testament expresses with words. When Zen Buddhism started
gaining popularity in the West, a popularity that endures to this
day, European and American writers accepted this new and
highly marketable interpretation of Muqi’s work without a
second thought.

Although Six Persimmons may not be the intentional Buddhist

masterpiece many believe it is, this doesn’t mean the painting is
any less impressive as a work of art. An optical counterpart to
poetry, Muqi’s simplistic brushwork evokes emotions that are
anything but simple. Standing in front of the scroll has a similar
effect as meditating or opening the Calm app on your
smartphone.

The longer you look, the more the struggles and anxieties of
ordinary life begin to fade away, leaving only beauty,
contentment, and a strong awareness of being. Just being.