Portrait of Keinan Eibun
Not on view
This image of a seated monk is an example of chinsō, a genre of naturalistic portraiture reserved for high-ranking Zen Buddhist monks or abbots. Subjects were typically shown seated in a carved lacquer chair and wearing official robes, including the elaborate kesa, or master’s vestment; the details of their facial features were carefully reproduced. Chinsō portraits were precious artifacts of the master-disciple relationship central to Zen, and may also have been used in Buddhist ceremonies.
Keinan Eibun (1365–1454) was at one time abbot of the Nanzenji Temple in Kyoto, and his inscriptions appear on several extant hanging scrolls, including on a posthumous portrait of the shogun Ashikaga Yoshinori (1394–1441). Here he is depicted at the age of seventy-nine.
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