torial counterpart to the concern with issues of lin-
eage and transmission that figures so prominently in
early Chan textual sources. In a similar vein, images
of monks carrying hoes or chopping bamboo have fre-
quently been related to the premium that Chan is said
to place on the value of manual labor. While these
kinds of explanatory strategies are relatively straight-
forward, most attempts to define Chan art also intro-
duce other important issues concerning Chan ideals
that merit further scrutiny—in particular, iconoclasm
and self-expression.
Art and iconoclasm
One of the most distinctive attributes of Chan, as char-
acterized in popular accounts, is its emphasis on ec-
centric and iconoclastic behavior, and images that
celebrate these qualities are among the most com-
monly cited examples of Chan art. This repertoire
would include portraits of such Tang dynasty figures
as Hanshan and Shide—the wild poet of Cold Moun-
tain and his impish sidekick—and the monk Bird’s
Nest, who took up residence in a tree, as well as other
subjects equally noted for their unconventional ap-
pearance and frequently outlandish conduct.
In several well-known instances, the notion of icon-
oclastic behavior is not merely figurative. One paint-
ing, attributed to the thirteenth-century painter Liang
Kai and executed in monochrome ink in an abbrevi-
ated manner, purportedly shows the sixth Chan patri-
arch HUINENG (638–713) tearing up sutras with
apparent gusto and evident glee. Another work, by the
early fourteenth-century painter Yintuoluo, depicts
“The Monk from Danxia Burning a Wooden Image of
the Buddha.” In most situations, one would expect
such acts of desecration to be met with shock and dis-
approval, but what is noteworthy in this context is that
ripping up a sacred text and burning a religious statue
are presented not as acts of blasphemy but rather as
manifestations of spiritual nonattachment. The philo-
sophical basis for this view is cleverly demonstrated by
the literary accounts of the incident depicted in Yin-
tuoluo’s painting.
Once, the monk from Danxia was staying at the Huilin
Monastery. The weather was very cold, so the Master took
a wooden statue of the Buddha and made a fire with it.
When someone criticized him for doing so, the Master
said: “I burned it in order to extract the sacred relics it
contained.” The man said: “But how can you extract the
sacred relics from an ordinary piece of wood?” The Mas-
ter replied: “Well, if it is nothing more than a piece of
wood, then why scold me for burning it?” (Fontein and
Hickman, pp. 36–37)Quite apart from the obviously intentional humor of
the anecdote (and of its pictorial representation), this
inversion of sacred and profane is clearly meant to
demonstrate in a graphic way the Chan school’s avowed
independence from words and images.Art and expression
In the examples cited thus far, Chan art is essentially
defined as a function of representation: Subject mat-
ter (or, more precisely, the correlation between picto-
rial content and Chan doctrine) is given precedence
over style and authorship. A somewhat different,
though complementary, approach, postulates that
there are levels of meaning that can be generated byCHANARTAnother Japanese depiction of Bodhidharma. (Japanese scroll
painting, late sixteenth century.) © Copyright The British Museum.
Reproduced by permission.