Kichizan Mincho

JAPAN, Hyogo; Muromachi period

Kichizan Mincho, also known as Kitsusan Mincho or Hasoai, was born in Awaji (present day Hyogo). He was a painter and Zen monk of the Rinzai school who practiced under Zen Master Daido Ichii, and later entered and served at Tofukuji Temple in Kyoto.
Skilled in painting portraits of Buddhist and Daoist figures, Kichizan’s works followed the style and techniques of the Chinese artist, Li Gonglin of the Song dynasty (960–1279), and Yan Hui of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368). His style, forceful and extensive, expressed cloth folds with rough strokes and hairs with fine lines. Greatly admired by Ashikaga Yoshimochi, his works were influential on later Zen Buddhist painters. Since he was a temple painter, his works were mostly large-scale or continuous scrolls.
Kichizan’s works include two different paintings of the Five Hundred Arhats, collected at the Nezu Art Museum in Tokyo and Tofukuji Temple in Kyoto. Other masterpieces include a portrait of National Master Shoichi, Parinirvana, and Avalokitesvara in a White Robe, Thirty-Three Manifestations of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, and Bodhidharma, all of which are also kept at Tofukuji Temple. Another Avalokitesvara in a White Robe is kept at MOA Museum of Art in Shizuoka. He also painted a set of seven paintings entitled the Sakyamuni Buddha Triad and Thirty Patriarchs of Zen Buddhism, kept at Rokuoin Temple in Kyoto. A portrait of Zen Master Daido Ichii was painted by him as a memorial to his teacher, and is now kept at the Nara National Museum.