artistic practice as well as by artistic product—levels of
meaning, that is, that are a function of the creative act
itself. From this perspective, an explicit connection
would be drawn between the so-called splashed ink
(pomo) mode of painting, characterized by rough and
seemingly improvisational brushwork, and the em-
phasis on intuition, immediacy, and sudden enlight-
enment commonly associated with orthodox Chan
teachings. In other words, the meaning of such works
is located in the manner of execution, and does not de-
pend on nor arise from any particular subject matter
or iconography.Some writers go even further, suggesting that there
are artworks that embody Chan content (or essence)
in a way that transcends issues of subject matter, style,
and function altogether. According to this account, a
new kind of painting developed in China during the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the Chan monas-
teries clustered around the West Lake in Hangzhou.
Executed by monk-painters, such works came to be
seen both as a form of religious practice and as a record
of the painter’s spiritual achievement. As the well-
known art historian Michael Sullivan describes it, “In
seeking a technique with which to express the inten-
sity of his intuition, the Chan painter turned to the
brush and... proceeded to record his own moments
of truth” (p. 148). From this point of view, in short,
the unique and ineffable quality of Chan painting is
nothing less than the embodiment of the enlightened
mind of the painter.The artist who is most often used to exemplify this
ideal is the thirteenth-century Chinese monk Fachang,
better known as Muqi, whose Six Persimmonsis un-
doubtedly the most frequently reproduced and best-
known example of Chan painting. Although this small,
sketchy, monochrome painting might not seem like
much at first glance, it has been repeatedly hailed as
the greatest Chan painting of all time. Appropriately
enough, it was Waley who first rhapsodized about the
work, declaring Six Persimmonsto be endowed with “a
stupendous calm” (p. 231). For Waley, as for later
commentators, this quality stands as a manifestation
of the painter’s spiritual achievement, as a living ex-
pression of the painter’s original mind (Pallis, p. 44).
Put bluntly: Six Persimmonsis a great Chan painting,
the argument goes, because Muqi was profoundly
awakened.Ultimately, this idea of the work of art as the phys-
ical embodiment of the spiritual realization of its
maker lies behind the claims that a somewhat unlikelyCHANART
Bodhidharma Meditating Facing a Cliff,China, late Song dynasty
(960–1270). Hanging scroll, ink on silk, 116.2 x 46.35 cm. ©
The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2003. John L. Severance Fund,
1972.41. Reproduced by permission.