自牧宗湛（上）

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  • Jiboku Sotan (Part 1)

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Sôtan (1420-1481) was a Daiô school Zen monk of the Rinzai sect, and he was a Kyoto-based painter during the mid Muromachi period. While it is known that his secular family name was Oguri, his birthplace and family's social standing are not known. Sôtan is known to have studied Zen under Yôsô Sôi of Daitoku-ji, and it is believed that he studied painting from the monk-painter Shûbun of Shôkoku-ji. He created a landscape painting with inscriptions by four Zen priests from the Chinese poetry salon of Reisen-in, Ken'nin-ji, in 1459. In 1462, he painted the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang on shôji sliding doors at Shôsen-ken, a building in the Untaku-ken of the Unchô-in subtemple of Shôkoku-ji temple. By that time Sôtan had already been highly praised for his genius at painting by Ashikaga Yoshimasa, the 8th shogun of the Muromachi shogunate. That same year (1462), Sôtan became a monk under Shunpo Sôki at Daitoku-ji and was dubbed Kan’ô Sôtan. Around the end of the same year he built a hermitage at Aneyakôji-Nishinotoin in the market district of Kyoto, and his new home was named Jiboku-an by Kikei Shinzui, a priest who lived at Inryô-ken in the Rokuon-in subtemple of Shokoku-ji. The following year Sôtan was appointed painter to the shogun, a position that, like that of Shûbun, the previous generation of official painter to the shogunal family, entailed the receipt of a monthly stipend and year-end bonus. In 1466 Sôtan participated in the trip to Arima (present-day part of Kobe city) for recuperative bathing taken by Kikei Shinzui, Taga Takatada, and other high-ranking members of the shogunate. Sôtan painted a view of the hot springs village as seen from in front of the Amida-dô Hall in the town. This is important as a record of an outdoor sketch of a specific landscape in Japan. During the Ônin Civil War, Sôtan evacuated to the Muromachi Palace, where the emperor and the shogun were temporarily both residing. There is one incident known from this time, when Sôtan had trouble with his hand and the shogun ordered the official doctors to heal him. Such incidents indicate the importance of Sôtan to the shogun. Records show that in addition to his work on the Shôsen-ken sliding door paintings, Sôtan also created sliding door paintings for the Takakura Palace (the later incarnation of the Karasuma Palace, which would eventually become the Imadegawa Palace), the Untaku-ken, the New Izumidono Building of the Muromachi Palace, the residence of Ino'o Yukitane, and Yôtoku-in subtemple of Daitoku-ji. The paintings for the New Izumidono Building of the Muromachi Palace were created on a commission from Ashikaga Yoshimasa to commemorate Retired Emperor GoHanazono's visit. Sporadic records of paintings by Sôtan remain until 1473, and it can be surmised that he also received a considerable stipend for his main work commissioned by Ashikaga Yoshimasa for the Kokawa Palace and the reconstructed Muromachi Palace. It is difficult to imagine that Sôtan would not have been active in the renovation of temple buildings at Daitoku-ji. Sôtan died in 1481 at the age of 69, just before Ashikaga Yoshimasa began work on the Higashiyama Palace. Sôtan had a son named Kei Gessen (also known as Kitabô) who was also a monk-painter. However, Sôtan's position as shogunal painter was not inherited by his son, he was succeeded by Kanô Masanobu in his role of official painter to the shogunal family. Kanô Masanobu was immediately put to work the wall paintings for the new Higashiyama Palace. In later years, what would become the Kanô school of painting hastened Japanese painting along the path to the premodern era. Sôtan was not only an intermediary between Shûbun and the Kanô school, he was also the central painter of Ashikaga Yoshimasa's reign as shogun. Regardless of whether or not original works remain by Sôtan, his importance in art history cannot be overemphasized. The study of Sôtan, not only the study of Shûbun, is essential for a detailed understanding of the culture that matured and flourished during Ashikaga Yoshimasa's shogunate. To understand that culture, one also must go beyond a consideration of the wasteful public cultural projects initiated by Yoshimasa, a political failure who turned his back on the world in his search for pleasure, to consider a culture not in tandem with the political failure and also not encompassed by a prejudiced term “Higashiyama Culture.” Thus this article aims to organize available research materials and examine them in detail in order to create a basis for future study on Sôtan.

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