Jin Dashou
Song Buddhist painter of Arhats
Jin Dashou(金大受) (once known as Xi Jin Jushi(西金居士)) was born in 1100 and died in 1200. He was a 12th-century painter from the Southern Song Dynasty, hailing from the west of Cheqiao, Ningbo, Zhejiang, and is considered a representative Buddhist painter from Ningbo, Zhejiang. He, along with Zhang Sixun, Lu Xinchong, and Puyue, is recorded in Japanese Muromachi period documents, specifically in the 'Juntai View Records'. His paintings inherited the techniques of Wu Daozi and Li Gonglin, featuring delicate and smooth brushwork, lively and expressive figures, restrained brushstrokes, accurate forms, and skillful use of intermediate colors with a natural and harmonious style. He painted the 'Sixteen Arhats', each piece signed "By Jin Dashou from West Cheqiao, Mingzhou of the Great Song", created before the first year of Qingyuan (1195). These works were passed to Japan and became treasured items at Sesshu Tada-in. Of the 16 existing 'Sixteen Arhats', 10 are in the Tokyo National Museum, 1 is in the Gunma Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, and the other 5 are estimated to have been lost abroad, with their current locations unknown.