An exhibition of ink paintings and calligraphy by Zen Master Hakuin, which opens today at Japan Society, presents an overview of a major figure in Japanese art who is virtually unknown to American audiences today. It also shows that Zen teachings can not only be approachable but also humorous and memorable. The title of the exhibition, The Sound of One Hand, derives from the famous Zen teaching, or koan, which was first posed by Hakuin: "Two hands clap and there is a sound; what is the sound of one hand?"

Organized by Zen scholars Audrey Yoshiko Seo and Stephen L. Addiss, the show presents 69 scroll paintings by Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768) from private and public collections in Japan and the U.S. Unlike most Japanese brush artists of his time, Hakuin was self taught. Perhaps for this reason his paintings, which range from fluid, spidery linework to bold figurations that have an architectonic quality, are highly ideosyncratic, and would not be easily mistaken for work by any other artist of the Edo period, which ran from 1603 to 1868.

Hakuin Ekaku, Otafuku Making Dango. Ink on paper. Shinwa-an Collection. Courtesy Japan Society.

Hakuin was also a master calligrapher who stretched and distorted his brush strokes when it served the message he was trying to convey. For example in the image above, the skewered dumplings (dango) being cooked by Otafuku is drawn the same way as the character that represents dango in the calligraphy to the left. In other paintings of that time, calligraphy was generally added after the painter finished his work, whereas for Hakuin, the messages were just as important as the figures he painted. "Hakuin integrated painting and calligraphy in a manner that had never been done before. Characters would become part of a drawing, or a drawing would be entirely composed of characters," notes co-curator Stephen Addiss.

The paintings were done to further the study of Zen Buddhism and to inspire Hakuin's students to persist in their quest for enlightenment. While this was a difficult course accompanied by a spartan way of life, the pursuit as seen by Hakuin was not without pleasure - and humor. In a painting of three blind men crossing a narrow bridge that has no handrails, they stretch and grope their way across, using long bamboo poles in an awkward balancing act. What they can't see is that there is a gap in the surface before the bridge reaches solid ground. Perhaps Hakuin was saying that sometimes you just have to go on blind faith.

Although Hakuin lived in a rural monastery, it was near the old Tokaido, one of the main roads of Japan. He was worldly in a way that many Zen masters were not, and depicted some of the eventful moments he had witnessed along the highway. In a painting of three Korean equestrian acrobats doing flips as their horses gallop along, he writes that the quest for enlightenment is never ending; always jumping on, jumping off. Another scroll includes the saying, "If you don't hear the sound of one hand, the rest is rubbish." Perhaps the most obscure one, "You can't do anything you want - it's a squid's life," is meant to reassure his disciples that he understands that life is difficult - and that nobody is perfect. While each painting in the show is unique, seen together the scrolls offer a continuing thread of ideas about life and learning.

The Sound of One Hand: Paintings and Calligraphy by Zen Master Hakuin continues at Japan Society through January 9, 2011. The exhibition will then travel to the New Orleans Museum of Art (February 12 to April 17, 2011) and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (May 22 to August 17, 2011).

Tomorrow, Saturday, October 2 at 1:00 pm, curators Audrey Yoshiko Seo and Stephen L. Addiss are joined by Matthew Welch of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and David Rosand, Meyer Shapiro Professor of Art History at Columbia University for a discussion moderated by Joe Earle, Vice President and Director of Galleries. Japan Society, 333 East 47^th Street, NY, NY. Please visit the website for information.

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