The Art of Zen: Paintings and Calligraphy by Japanese Monks 1600-1925

The Art of Zen brings together the great masterpieces of painting and calligraphy created by Japanese monks, who turned to visual imagery as an aid to meditation, as an expression of enlightenment, and as the purest form of transmitting Zen principles. Created spontaneously, Zen art ranges from intensely brushed calligraphic poems and emphatically gestural abstract shapes to roughly hewn, often humorous portraits of the Zen patriarch and his famous followers-all shown here to full advantage and many published for the first time. The accompanying text explains the fundamentals of Zen culture and includes numerous translations of Zen prose, poetry, and sayings