Japanese Zen Buddhism and the Impossible Painting

Lecture by Professor Yukio Lippit
September 23, 2014, The Getty Center

Created by the Zen monk-painter Josetsu for the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimochi, The Gourd and the Catfish (ca. 1413)—which involved the participation of some 32 Zen monks—has been designated a Japanese national treasure and is celebrated as a Zen masterpiece.

In this lecture, Yukio Lippit considers the ways in which the work mobilizes new modes of artistic representation to pictorialize the nonsensical nature of Zen koans (riddles or paradoxical statements that demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning). Lippit also explores the connections between ink paintings, medieval shogunal culture, and Zen Buddhism's doctrinal emphasis on the concept of emptiness.

Yukio Lippit is Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University.

Learn more about this event at the Getty Research Institute's website: http://www.getty.edu/research/exhibit...