Muxi
Zen ink master influencing Japan
Muxi(牧溪), whose common surname was Li(李) and Buddhist name was Fachang(法常), was also called Muxi(牧溪). He was from Sichuan. He was born in the third year of the Kaixi era during Emperor Ningzong's reign in the Southern Song Dynasty (1207) and died in the 28th year of Zhiyuan during Emperor Shizu of the Yuan Dynasty (1291). When he was young, he passed the imperial examination, but later, dissatisfied with the corruption in the court, he became a monk and studied under Wuzhun Shifan(无准师范), the abbot of Jingshan Temple. Near the end of the Southern Song, he served as the abbot of Liutong Temple in Lin’an (now Hangzhou). He was skilled at painting tigers and dragons, apes and cranes, reeds and wild geese, landscapes, and figures. His works were all done with quick brushstrokes and ink dots, with simple and direct expression, no fancy decoration, and full of Zen spirit. His paintings weren’t highly valued in China during the Song and Yuan periods, but in Japan, he was greatly respected and called 'a great benefactor of Japanese painting,' with a profound influence on the development of Japanese ink painting. In the first year of the Chunyou era (1241), he gifted three scrolls—Guanyin, Pine and Ape, Bamboo and Crane—to a Japanese monk named Shōichi(圣一) from the same school, and after that, many of his works circulated in Japan. His representative works include Old Master Laozi, Pine and Ape, Returning Sailboats on a Distant Shore, Eight Scenes of Xiaoxiang, Six Persimmons, and Chestnut.