Ding Yunpeng’s Baimiao Lohans:A Reflection of Late Ming Lay BuddhismR I C H A R D K . K E N T

In the summer of , Ding Yunpeng (‒?)completed and inscribed the handscroll Baimiao Lohans(fig. ), an exquisitely executed, fine-line (baimiao) paintingof these senior disciples of the Buddha who were said topossess miraculous powers. The scroll’s title—straightfor-ward, classificatory—indicates the mode of painting andidentifies the subject matter. Certainly the majority of thefigures that make up the composition are lohans and theirattendants, either special guardians or acolytes. And yet,curiously, the scroll concludes with a pair of figures (fig. )that differs from all the groupings that have come before it.For here the late sixteenth-century viewer would haveencountered a person from his or her own world and notfrom some transcendent realm. Staring almost directly outat the viewer is a bearded, elegantly capped and gownedscholar, attended by a long-haired, slightly puckish fellow—similar to several of the lohans’ acolytes—holding a stack ofwhat we may assume are printed sutras, bound and boxed.The inclusion and placement of this scholar figure is strate-gic. He appears immediately prior to Ding’s own inscrip-tion identifying himself as a lay Buddhist believer. Theviewer, at the end of a tour through a panorama of lohans,thus encounters an image and an inscription that bothbespeak lay devotion: a scholar’s act of offering sutras andthe artist’s inscribed testimonial. It may be, then, that thescroll’s conclusion points us to the underlying subject or themotivating force behind the painting. Baimiao Lohans, whenplaced in a larger context of worship and belief, becomes amore complicated document of artistic and religious intent.

By the late sixteenth century, the theme of lohans hadbeen an important subject in Chinese Buddhist art for overhalf a millennium; for Ding Yunpeng, it was a recurrenttheme that he explored with tremendous skill and ingenuityfor over forty years. The subject had its textual basis in asutra that had been translated into Chinese in the seventhcentury and named the sixteen “great lohans” entrustedwith the protection of the dharma (Buddhist law) until thecoming of Maitreya, the Buddha of the future. Since thetenth century, as the number of “great lohans” grew from

sixteen to eighteen and then swelled to five hundred, thesemiracle-working disciples of the Buddha inspired continuingworship and countless portrayals in painting and in sculp-ture. A rich, varied iconography, many elements of whichhave no source in the original sutra but reflect fantasticalelaboration drawn from disparate literary and visual materi-als, evolved over centuries. Ding Yunpeng, one of the mostskilled painters of Buddhist themes during the late Mingperiod, was heir to a tradition of depicting lohans that hadbeen formed by some of the most esteemed artists in thehistory of Chinese figure painting as well as scores of artisanpainters, only a few of whose names were recorded.

Baimiao Lohans, recently acquired by the PrincetonUniversity Art Museum, is one of the finest of the early ex-tant works by Ding.The mesmerizing delicacy of its brush-work notwithstanding, the painting, as suggested above,poses intriguing questions—albeit perhaps to remain unan-swerable—for those who seek to understand better DingYunpeng’s artistic identity:What was his motivation to createsuch a work? To what extent should his terse inscription—“Fawangzi Ding Yunpeng jingxie” (Prince of the DharmaDing Yunpeng reverently “sketched”) (fig. )—be taken atface value as an expression of religious devotion? Or is Ding,as has been argued, more fittingly viewed as a professionalpainter working for hire, despite his family’s former elite sta-tus and Ding’s own high level of education? Alternatively—because he produced paintings for patrons but held therespect of many of the leading scholar-artists of his time, andby no means was constrained in the way that a workshopprofessional or artisan painter would have been—should hebe placed in the more indeterminate, more fluid, and seem-ingly contradictory “category” of a professional amateur?

Moreover, in that this painting requires such close and con-centrated viewing because of its delicate brushwork, oneinevitably is moved to ask:What function did such a paintingserve? The following comments explore these issues.

Like many of Ding’s other Buddhist paintings, Prince-ton’s Baimiao Lohans invites a consideration of Ding’s moti-vation as multifaceted and shaped by the significantresurgence of Buddhism in the latter half of the Mingdynasty.An effort to make a case for a more comprehensive

Opposite: Detail from Baimiao Lohans, figure .

Figure . Ding Yunpeng, Chinese, ‒?. Baimiao Lohans, . Handscroll, ink on paper; . x . cm. Princeton University Art Museum,museum purchase (-).

Figure . Baimiao Lohans, detail of final pair of figures and artist’sinscription.

evaluation of the artist’s possible intent and the meaningsuch a scroll may have held for its contemporary audience isthus better appreciated when set against the backdrop ofBuddhism’s dramatic revivification at this time. I will beginthere, and then turn to Ding’s biography, a small group ofother lohan paintings close in date to this scroll, and thepainting itself. Only after such consideration will the schol-arly gentleman’s oblique gaze out at the viewer at the paint-ing’s end receive the nod of recognition that it may deserve.

LATE-MING IMPERIAL NEGLECT ANDBUDDHIST RESURGENCE

When Ding Yunpeng painted Baimiao Lohans, the Wanliemperor, Zhu Yijun (‒), or Shenzong, his post-humous temple name, had been on the throne eight years

(he was only nine when he acceded to the throne). Duringthe first decade of his reign, until , his proclivity towardthe surly indolence and nearly complete disregard for impe-rial responsibilities that characterized the rest of his reignwere held in check by Zhang Juzheng (‒), whoserved for a decade as both Grand Secretary and a demandingtutor to the young emperor. Although the Wanli emperormay have chafed under Zhang’s strictures, the presence ofsuch an active and determined Grand Secretary broughtabout an unparalleled efficiency in the bureaucracy and anaccumulation of treasury reserves for the first time in thesixteenth century. Upon Zhang’s death in , the Wanliemperor, encouraged by Zhang’s enemies at court, easilyfound good reason to condemn posthumously his strictteacher, persecute Zhang’s family, and begin his slide into along period of cynical neglect of imperial duties, whicheventually left the civil administration understaffed becauseof a perverse unwillingness to fill vacant posts. This im-pending collapse of imperial engagement with the politicalorder was to have profound consequences for ethicallyminded members of the educated class—Ding Yunpengamong them—who wished, if not to participate in, at leastto support a morally upright civil bureaucracy. Dated as it is,Ding’s Baimiao Lohans belongs to a small group of paintingsfrom the early portion of his career and thus was producedduring the far less problematic years of the Wanli emperor’sreign, but nonetheless during a period of considerable socialchange.

The late Ming gave rise to a cultural milieu marked byincreasing urbanism and a drastically changing, more flex-ible socioeconomic order, which in turn fueled new in-tellectual activism and tolerance. Advocates of bothBuddhism and Neo-Confucianism sought to forge an ecu-menism that would serve, above all, to shore up traditionalinstitutions; they also had to devise new means to answerthe needs of an increasingly literate population seeking toorient itself with reference to traditional values in analtered social environment. As the Wan-li emperor’s reignprogressed and the emperor lost almost complete interest inthe affairs of government, late-Ming social dynamism, withits inherent threat of instability, was only intensified by anenormous political tension and anxiety. Indeed, whilebeyond the scope of this essay, Ding Yunpeng’s later lohan

paintings betray much of this atmosphere of foreboding(fig. ).

Although the Wanli emperor increasingly had littleinterest in governance, he did choose to patronize Bud-dhism, effectively restoring what had been the general pat-tern of the Ming emperors, with the striking exception ofthe Jiajing emperor (r. ‒), who pointedly perse-cuted Buddhism in favor of Daoism.The empress dowager,however, was the far greater force for imperial patronage ofBuddhism, sponsoring two of the four most importantlate-Ming Buddhist masters: Hanshan Deqing (‒)and Zibo Zhenke (‒). A third,Yunqi Zhuhong(‒), deliberately kept himself well away from thecenters of political power, devoting himself to making hisYunqi monastery outside of Hangzhou, as Yü Chün-fanghas documented, “a model of religious cultivation andVinaya observance.” The fourth prominent master of thelate Ming, Ouyi Zhixu (‒), was a generationyounger than these three and thus played a significant roleafter they and Ding Yunpeng had passed from the scene.

In contrast to Zhuhong, Deqing, who enjoyed extensivecontacts with members of the civil bureaucracy along withthe personal support of the empress dowager, appears con-sistently to have advanced such strategic political relation-ships to further the Buddhist cause. Zhenke, much like hisfriend Deqing but in the end more rash in his politicalactivism, made journeys to the capital and also cultivated theempress dowager’s patronage with a similar aim. Zhenke’spolitical involvement reflects one aspect of late-MingBuddhism that, while different in form and degree from itsinfluence on the careers of Zhuhong and Deqing, never-theless contributed to its decidedly new vigor. On the onehand, all of these prominent monks, exact contemporariesof Ding Yunpeng, worked to revitalize monastic institutions;on the other, they also strongly promoted a Buddhist praxisthat synthesized a spectrum of devotional practices (Chanmeditation, Pure Land invocation or nianfo, and scripturalstudy), thereby answering the needs of monks and nuns butreaching, as well, a larger lay audience, including a growingnumber of the educated elite. Just as the Northern SongBuddhist master Yongming Yanshou (‒) had donebefore them, all three looked for inspiration broadly andsynthesized metaphysical theories enunciated in the doctrinal

Figure . Ding Yunpeng. Buddha Image (Lohans), . Hanging scroll,ink on paper; . x . cm.Taipei, National Palace Museum.Reproduced in Guoli gugong bowuyuan, ed., Wanming bianxing zhuyihuajia zuopin zhan (Style Transformed:A Special Exhibition of Works byFive Late Ming Artists) (Taipei, ), .

teachings of the Tiantai, Huayan, and Weishi (ConsciousnessOnly) Buddhist schools.

What undergirded this twofold vision of flexibility inpractice and doctrinal complementarity was an unswervinginsistence on the practitioner’s quality of mind (“one mind”or yixin, being the requisite mental state). From this per-spective, while it is the enlightened teacher’s role to try topoint the student toward the appropriate means to realizeessential purity of mind, it is the student’s responsibility tobe steadfast in his or her efforts, whatever the student’s prac-tice might be. Zhenke, whose words may speak fairly herefor Zhuhong and Deqing as well, addressed the issue ofright effort in this manner:

This key link cannot be given to you by the Buddhas orpatriarchs, by enlightened teachers or Dharma masters.Allthey can do is to provide encouragement and assistance. . . .It is up to you yourself—for you cannot depend on anyoneelse’s power. Even if we have the sage teachings of the GreatCanon, these too are no more than words to encourage andassist us.

Lay Buddhism in other eras had flourished in China, butthe lay movement during the late Ming, much like its Neo-Confucian counterpart, was different in its broader appealto many segments of a society that was becoming increas-ingly complex and urbanized. It was also more highlyorganized than anything that had occurred in the Tang andSong periods. From records like Peng Shaosheng’s (‒

) Jushi zhuan (Biographies of Lay Buddhists), whichincludes accounts of over one hundred lay Buddhists activeduring this period, it is evident that the lay movement wascentered at this time in the coastal areas south of the YellowRiver and south of the Yangtze, present-day Jiangsu andZhejiang provinces. Not surprisingly, this region was thegeographical heart of both the elite culture of the literati ingeneral and Neo-Confucian learning specifically. It wasfertile ground for the kind of harmonious synthesizing ofthe three philosophical traditions of Confucianism, Daoism,and Buddhism especially advocated by these Buddhist mas-ters. By and large, the notable late-Ming lay Buddhists,whose lives were recorded by Peng, were officials or schol-ars from this region’s elite class. Some of those listed, like theeminent and catholic scholar Jiao Hong (‒), who

was acquainted with Deqing and also may have been afollower of Zhuhong’s teachings, featured significantly in themiddle portion of Ding Yunpeng’s life, as did the promi-nent teacher Zhenke.

From the profiles of these lay Buddhists and the mannerin which they sought and expressed a religious life, wemay find at least supporting evidence for what we doknow—however lacking in particulars—of Ding Yunpeng’slife as a lay Buddhist. Citing Peng, Yü Chün-fang haswritten of these late-Ming lay Buddhists: “They were PureLand believers who practiced the repetition of the name ofBuddha [nianfo] and the ‘release of life’ [fangsheng]. Theywere also interested in Chan and scriptural studies. . . .Finally, they were also fervent devotees of mantra recita-tion.” And there were other devotional practices as well:the copying out of sutras, which, when combined with self-mortification, could be in the worshiper’s own blood;ascetic or self-mutilating practices, such as the burning ofincense on parts of one’s body or even the burning off of afinger or an arm; and arduous pilgrimages to sacred moun-tains and celebrated temples. It is fair to assume that someof these diverse devotional practices, though apparently notthose that now seem more bizarre, played a part in DingYunpeng’s life.

“[HIS CHARACTER] WAS UNAFFECTED,YET HIDDEN . . .”

Ding Yunpeng, a native of Xiuning in the prosperousprefecture of Huizhou (present-day Anhui province), camefrom a family that for generations enjoyed gentry respect-ability but had fallen on hard times as Ding approachedadulthood. Nevertheless, judging from the circle of laterassociates and patrons—including Zhan Jingfeng (‒

ca. ), Gu Zhengyi (fl. ca. ‒), Wang Zhideng(‒), Mo Shilong (fl. ca. ‒), Chen Jiru(‒), and Dong Qichang (‒)—amongwhom Ding moved after leaving his home prefecture fromthe mid-s and settling in the bustling market town ofSongjiang (present-day Jiangsu province), it is apparent thathe possessed an education on a par with that of many who

succeeded in winning a place as an official, the cherishedbut often disappointed hope held by most members of theliterate class. There is no evidence, however, that Dingaspired to sit for even the lowest level of national examina-tions in order to qualify for the provincial-level juren degree,the first step toward attaining an official career. Instead, heappears to have been circumscribed in his ambitions, relyingupon his artistic and literary talents to procure enough of alivelihood that permitted him both to further his reputationas an artist of significant and versatile accomplishments (hewas adept at painting, in various styles, both figures andlandscapes) and to lead a life far more responsive to, in thewords of Sewall Oertling, “the call of the open road.”

While Ding’s wandering—from Xiuning to Songjiang, backto Huizhou, then to Nanjing, down to Fujian, back toHuizhou, on to Yangzhou and Suzhou (after which the trailvanishes)—should not be idealized, it appears to have beenalmost the natural expression of a personality governed byaesthetic and spiritual imperatives more than by a desire forsocial position, wealth, or even family ties.

In many respects, Ding’s commitment to lay Buddhism,evidenced by inscriptions throughout his career overtlyidentifying himself as a disciple, is mirrored by his choice ofan existence that might be characterized as one long pil-grimage; indeed, he frequently resided in temples both atthe beginning of his career and, based upon the last recordswe have of his whereabouts, a decade before its end. Andwhile he probably survived by means of painting, his lifeand career, as Oertling first argued, should not be reducedto the status or category of a mere professional painter;

rather, as my reading of the evidence also suggests, his iden-tity was far more complex and profoundly shaped by adevout Buddhism. Indeed, it could be said that, aside fromhis enormous artistic talent, Ding’s existence was not sodifferent from other, committed lay Buddhists of the Mingperiod. Although he may have painted Buddhist themes insome kind of barter arrangement for his temple lodgings, itis significant that there is only one surviving record thatspecifically links his production of a painting to the requestof a temple abbot.

This lack of information about the recipients of themajority of his extant Buddhist paintings contrasts withDing’s projects for which there were verifiable arrangements,

notably three major, wood-block printed publications towhich he contributed illustrations: Fang Yulu’s (fl.‒)Fangshi mopu (A Manual of Mr. Fang’s Ink [Stick Designs]) of; Jiao Hong’s (‒) Yangzheng tujie (CultivatingUprightness Illustrated and Explained) of ; and ChengDayue’s (‒) Chengshi moyuan (Mr. Cheng’s Garden ofInk [Stick Designs]) of .

Ding’s participation in these endeavors as a respectedartist-illustrator resulted, in part, from his having establishedhis reputation during the pivotal years of the late s andearly s in Songjiang.At this time, Songjiang was an in-creasingly wealthy urban center, a cultural magnet for thosewho embodied or wished to be seen as embodying schol-arly cultivation. It was during these crucial years that Dingboth refined his art and evidently struck a balance betweenhis identity as a serious lay Buddhist and what I have chosento term a professional amateur. Princeton’s Baimiao Lohans,when viewed within this specific context as well as thebroader currents of Buddhism as it underwent a pronouncedrenewal, may then be appreciated as perhaps a mirror of thisbalancing act.

The small group of extant paintings from this period,roughly from to the early s, serves as testimonyenough for the level of artistry Ding had achieved by thistime, whether in painting landscapes (fig. ) or Buddhist fig-ures. Moreover, inscriptions about him by members of hiscircle attest to the recognition he was awarded. Accordingto an inscription by Dong Qichang (‒), whobecame the greatest embodier and arbiter of literati valuesin Songjiang, on another handscroll of lohans that mayhave been produced slightly earlier than the PrincetonBaimiao Lohans:

In ‒ Ding Yunpeng resided in Songjiang at theChan Hall of Mashi [temple]. He was thirty years old.His [grasp of] the way of painting had begun to enter themarvelous class; and thus it can be said [his] skill [attained]the highest level and was as intricate as heaven’s. . . .

Dong continues, commenting that Ding’s later paintingfailed to maintain this level of excellence, a sentiment heexpressed again in an inscription on the Nelson-AtkinsMuseum’s handscroll Five Forms of Guanyin (fig. ), which isalso close in date to the Princeton handscroll. Apparent in

Dong’s remarks, however, is the fact that he preferred Ding’sfiner style, whether colored or baimiao, from roughly thefirst half of his career.This figural style was largely derivedfrom the tradition emanating from the Northern Songmaster Li Gonglin (ca. ‒) and continued by Yuanexemplars of figure painting like Zhao Mengfu (‒

): Ding’s painting was said to compare favorably withboth these artists’ works (see below). When Ding deliber-ately turned to other artistic models from the past to createan expressionist archaism, as he did in the latter half of hiscareer, Dong Qichang withheld or tempered his praise,revealing more about Dong’s own aesthetic assumptions andbiases than about Ding’s artistic development.

There is evidence that Ding’s study and mastery of earlierpainting had begun before he left Xiuning, but the years hespent in Songjiang were crucial because of his access to thecollections of his compatriot Zhan Jingfeng (who may haveemployed him early on), Gu Zhengyi, and possibly WangShizhen (‒). Ding’s evident interest in cullingfrom and transforming past styles is well reflected in his

Figure . Ding Yun-peng. Waterfall at theWintry Cliff, .Hanging scroll, inkand slight colors onpaper; . x .cm. Beijing PalaceMuseum. Reproducedin Wai-kam Ho andJudith G. Smith, ed.,The Century of TungCh’i-ch’ang, ‒,vol. (Kansas City,), , plate .

Figure . Ding Yunpeng. Five Forms of Guanyin Together with the Complete Lung-yen Sutra Written byYu Jo-ying, detail, ca. ‒. Handscroll, ink and colors on paper; . x . cm (overall).Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, purchase: Nelson Trust (-).

lohan paintings because of the number of them that sur-vive—more than from any other artist of the period. Briefmention of several, in different formats, with or withoutcolor, close in date to Princeton’s Baimaio Lohans, will serveto underscore the diverse approach that Ding appears al-most effortlessly to have brought to bear in his formulationof the theme.

Datable to ‒, and often cited as the earliest of hismore ambitious lohan paintings, is the seventeen-leaf albumLohans, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, that Dingpainted, as the inscription informs, for the layman GuZhongxiu while the painter resided at the Mashi temple(fig. ). Ding explicitly states the painting was produced sothat Gu could show reverence to the lohans depicted in it.This sentiment is echoed in the accompanying colophonby the poet and calligrapher Wang Zhideng, written thesame year, which further explains that Gu had requested a

Figure . Ding Yuntu (Ding Yunpeng). Lohans, ‒. Leaf of -leaf album, ink and colors on paper; each leaf . x . cm.Taipei,National Palace Museum. Reproduced in Guoli gugong bowuyuan,ed., Lohan hua (Catalogue for the Exhibition on Paintings of Lohans)(Taipei, ), .

Figure . Ding Yunpeng. Five Lohans, . Hanging scroll, ink onpaper; dimensions unknown. Shanghai Museum (current locationunknown).

painting that could be used as votive offering. In a remarkthat points to one more dimension of the patron’s motiva-tion in having Ding produce such a gorgeous series ofimages,Wang also links its proper reverence (“the burningof white sandalwood incense and the performance of rites”)with a material benefit (“in future times fields of blessingwill be boundless”).The lohans and their attendants in six-teen of the leaves are executed in ink outline and jewel-like,brilliant colors that perhaps add to the efficacy of the offer-ing in the way Wang imagines it for Gu. (The seventeenthleaf depicts a muscled guardian, much like an echo of thefigure that appears in the colored first leaf, in ink outlinealone.) In what may be the earliest affirmation that Ding’sartistry should be seen in relation to Song and Yuan masterfigure painters,Wang extols Ding for having realized a levelof inspirational samadhi (sanmei, “perfect absorption”) thatplaces him not only on a par with Zhao Mengfu, who hadderived his figure style from Li Gonglin, but also hasenabled Ding to surpass Li himself. Finally,Wang’s referenceto the state of samadhi need not be assumed as mere hyper-bole. Ding’s inscription refers to himself as an “untonsuredmonk” (faseng), suggesting that at this time his life was oneof serious Buddhist practice.

A year later, in , Ding painted solely in ink a largehanging scroll of five lohans seated beneath two wintry,wraith-like pines in a mountainous setting that instantly re-calls the Northern Song landscape tradition associated withLi Cheng (‒) and Guo Xi (ca. ‒) (fig. ).

In keeping with the dominant motif of the towering pines,which acts as such a strong signifier of the Li-Guo tradition,Ding has included a fissured cliffside—with its “devil-faced”configurations—that partially frames the lohans along thepainting’s right-hand side. The scene has a bleak, desolatefeel to it. Unaffected, the lohans sit with serene composure,as if contentedly listening, as the only cowled member ofthe group reads from an unrolled sutra.Two monkeys, onemaking an offering of what looks to be a peach, approachthe lohan who reads the lesson. In the immediate fore-ground, a kneeling, somewhat martial-looking worshiper,who has laid down his arms, pays homage to the lohandirectly opposite him.The painting, though entirely in ink,is one of Ding’s most dramatic lohan compositions and is

Figure . Lin Tinggui, Chinese, active second half of the th century.Lohans Feeding a Hungry Spirit, . Hanging scroll, ink and colors onsilk; . x . cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Denman WaldoRoss Collection (.).

quite unlike any others that survive because of what appearsto be a pointed allusion to the more theatrical manner ofrepresenting the lohans in stark, haunted landscapes. Thisconvention was developed by Buddhist artisan painters likeLin Tinggui (fl. late th century) and Zhou Jichang (fl. lateth century), who flourished in the Southern Song work-shops of Ningbo (present-day Zhejiang province) and pro-duced large sets of scrolls for temple lohan halls (fig. ). Asin these twelfth-century models, Ding has integrated thefigures into a compelling landscape setting, preserved thebasic manner of grouping the figures and some of the sameindividual lohan types; for good measure, he has includedsubsidiary figures such as the beguiling monkey and kneel-ing, vaguely exotic worshiper.

The scroll is of inestimable help in providing furthersupport for dating to around the same period the signed,but undated, Eighteen Lohans, a baimiao handscroll in theNational Palace Museum, Taipei, that similarly integrates

lohans into a landscape setting. While the two works differsignificantly in their landscape settings, they show a strikingsimilarity in the delicate, detailed manner with which thelohans are described.The figure style is the key point of cor-respondence. In both paintings, to render the figures (seenparticularly well in the unpatterned garment folds of Eigh-teen Lohans), Ding uses long, unmodulated lines alive withtensile strength and energy; the figures are thereby imbuedwith an understated, but nevertheless palpable, volumetricreality, in keeping with the manner (at least as far as we canknow it) of Li Gonglin’s baimiao, which Ding perhaps morethan any other late-Ming figure painter was able to realize(figs. , ). In pleasing contrast to the cleanness of the linesthat delineate the lohans’ bodies and the robes they wear,Ding meticulously depicts their facial features; wrinkles,stubble, beards, bushy eyebrows, gap-toothed mouths—allare painstakingly rendered, a prelude perhaps to the precisionof the Princeton scroll.

Figure . Ding Yunpeng. Eighteen Lohans, detail, ca. ‒early s.Handscroll, ink on paper; . x . cm (overall).Taipei, NationalPalace Museum. Reproduced in Guoli gugong bowuyuan, Lohan hua, .

Figure . Eighteen Lohans, detail. Reproduced in Guoli gugongbowuyuan, Lohan hua, .

Figure . Eighteen Lohans, detail ofscroll’s conclusion.

Figure . Eighteen Lohans, detail of landscape.

Figure . Eighteen Lohans, detail ofChinese scholar and lohan.

The difference in the rendering of the landscape settingbetween this work and the hanging scroll results fromDing Yunpeng having followed in Eighteen Lohans the calli-graphically looser but more repetitive Wu school manner ofShen Zhou (‒),Wen Zhengming (‒), andtheir followers. During the first half of his career, Dingalternately worked in the landscape idiom favored by theWu school, apparent in the ‒ album done for GuZhongxiu, or—reining in the Wu school-derived, almostpointillistic detailing of hillock surface and foliage pattern—reached back to Song precedent, as evidenced by the

Lohans.Thus, by the late s, Ding already had the capac-ity in his handling of the landscape setting to vary antiquar-ian references—to conjure up the ghosts of Li Cheng andGuo Xi or to call forth the more recently departed guidingspirits of Wu school masters.

For the landscape setting of Eighteen Lohans, it is apparentto what extent Ding deliberately chose to employ the Wuschool manner, much informed by an appreciation of theYuan master Huang Gongwang (‒), of first describ-ing the outer contours of frequently arrowhead-shapedboulders (horizontally or vertically arrayed) with a slightlytwisting brushline in silvery-toned ink, then adding dry,undifferentiated modeling strokes along the interior con-tour lineations, and finally applying a random sprinkling ofpepper-like dian (fig. ). Throughout the scroll, Ding ismore fastidious in the careful repetition of foliage patterns.The seemingly artless and improvisatory manner of thelandscape setting nevertheless provides a perfect visual foilfor the linear control and elegance in the depiction of thelohans. Moreover, as carefully as Ding organizes the land-scape elements to frame assorted groups of lohans or to pacethe viewer’s progression through the scroll, he succeeds inmasking or deflecting attention away from this deliberate-ness by the offhand character of the brushwork itself.

One facet of Ding’s accomplishment in this scroll is toimpart to the unfolding of the landscape an almost organicquality. Indeed, the scroll ends in such a way as to reinforcethis organic trait by its appearing unfinished. The middle-distance landscape elements drop away, leaving only fore-ground elements to create a repoussoir for the lohans andthe bearers of tribute. Finally, with the last pair of lohans,who stand as if lost in thought as they ponder the words of

an unrolled sutra, completely oblivious to the two worshiperspaying them homage, the painting virtually fades back intothe paper itself. Immediately after the last figure, and as iffloating along the painting’s upper margin, a series ofloosely drawn, scalloped hills appear and thus present to theviewer a vision of an indeterminate shoreline beyond a vastexpanse of undelineated water (the dull white of the paper),as if to suggest that the entire scroll’s preceding sequence oflohans represents their slow, contemplative journey into aland left unspecified but, for the Buddhist believer, poten-tially anywhere and at any time (fig. ).

Before turning to Princeton’s Baimiao Lohans, paintedeither just before or after the Eighteen Lohans, one moredetail from this scroll should be brought forward for con-sideration. Nearly at the scroll’s midpoint, there appears anespecially hunched and aged lohan, leaning against a staff,who is accompanied and supported by a Chinese scholar inblack gauze headdress; the two figures appear to be emerg-ing from a grotto (fig. ).This figure is the only one in theentire scroll who is not an otherworldly, exotic saint, at-tendant, or worshiper; moreover, he gazes almost directlyout at the scroll’s viewer, as if to invite the viewer to meetthat gaze and acknowledge a sameness—if not of gender,though likely, then of social station and religious aspiration.Who is this figure? Obviously, there can be no definitiveanswer.The face we see could be that of a patron who hadrequested the scroll; and Ding, in that time-honored gestureseen for centuries in Chinese Buddhist painting, has slippedthe donor’s image into the painting as a discrete compli-ment.Yet, if this were the case, it does seem strange that theinscription, unlike that of the ‒ album, names norecipient and simply states that Ding has “reverentlysketched” (jingxie) it, as if making the painting was a medi-tative exercise akin to the copying out of a sutra, a task heperformed not only to become a better painter but also(if we give credence to the language Ding uses again andagain in his inscriptions on Buddhist themes) to gain karmicmerit through the state of mind he brought to theendeavor.

Eighteen Lohans, because of the fineness of its baimiao,comes closer to Princeton’s scroll than any other extantpainting in Ding’s surviving oeuvre. In addition, because ofthe almost strategic inclusion of the Chinese scholar that

provokes the issues of interpretation I raise above, the scrollserves to complicate and enrich our sense of Ding Yun-peng’s artistic identity and achievement.

“THE DAZZLING BRILLIANCE OF THEIRPRESENCE”

Writing in the early eighteenth century, Jiang Shaoshu, theauthor of Wusheng shishi (Chronicle of Soundless Poems), usedthe phrase that serves as a title for this section to describethe riveting nature of Ding’s depiction of bodhisattvas andlohans. It is highly doubtful that Jiang was referring to awork as subtle as Baimiao Lohans; but it seems reasonable tosurmise that had he the opportunity to view such a paint-ing, Jiang would have affirmed Ding’s talent for using a pic-torial style requiring a degree of close looking like fewothers and yet, because of the underlying skill, captivatingbecause of the figures’ presence.

Continuing to reside in the Songjiang area the summer hepainted the Princeton scroll, Ding created a work unequaledin his oeuvre for the gossamer fineness of its brushwork. Inthis case, he shifts away from the type of baimiao seen inEighteen Lohans that would have been readily associated

with the Song literati tradition stemming from Li Gonglin,perhaps best exemplified by the handscroll attributed to Li’sfollower, Fanlong (fl. ca. early th century), in the FreerGallery (fig. ). Instead, Ding chooses to work in a variantthat had become known as apparition painting (wanglianghua), said to originate with the obscure monk-painter Zhiy-ong (‒), which had been practiced by Song-periodChan painters from roughly the mid-twelfth century. Dis-tinguished by extremely pale ink lines, and hence its ghostlyquality, the style is characterized by figures placed againstwhat becomes a metaphorically suggestive blank backgroundor in a landscape setting that is suggested in the most mini-mal way.The only contrasting element, as we see in Ding’spainting, is the use of occasional accents of darker ink tonal-ity, often lending a powerful effect to the figures’ eyes andpupils.But in this scroll,Ding also seems to have been testinghis mettle as a painter by stripping almost any evocation oflandscape and atmosphere as he returns to the most archaicmode of figural representation.Accordingly, the lohans andtheir various attendants are arrayed in a kind of processionagainst the empty ground of the paper (four of the lohansare shown seated on highly schematized rock daises, theonly suggestion of landscape); in this pictorial convention,spatial reality is merely implied by the positioning of the

Figure . Fanlong,Chinese, active early thcentury. Lohans, detail, firsthalf of th century. Hand-scroll, ink on paper; . x. cm (overall).Wash-ington, D.C., Freer Galleryof Art.

figures in relation to one another and by occasional props,such as the mats upon which some of the lohans sit.

Judging from the nature of this scroll’s composition andconsidering it in relation to the works discussed thus far,Ding Yunpeng during this phase of his career appears tohave had a remarkably strong penchant for reconceiving thetheme of lohans each time he painted it. From this period,we may not have a single critical pronouncement or state-ment of intent aside from relatively self-effacing inscriptions(Gu Zhengxiu, the recipient of the ‒ album, remainsthe only named patron from this period), but the survivingscrolls testify to Ding’s restless and incessant probing of this

theme as he recast it in different modes and stylistic idioms.Within scrolls as well, it would appear that he set himselfminor formal conditions or restrictions to test his ingenuity,all the while engaged in a highly personal struggle to placehimself in relation to a larger tradition—evident in thePrinceton scroll—with what may be termed both a delicatewit and a self-effacing grace.

To view just the opening section of Baimiao Lohans issufficient to impress the examiner with Ding’s artistry atwork here.The scroll begins with a pair of elaborately gired,celestial guardians, each lifting a heavy sword but still show-ing hands raised in a gesture of adoration (fig. ).While the

Figure . Baimiao Lohans, detail ofWeituotian.

first guardian cannot be identified specifically, the second,looking directly out toward the viewer, corresponds in hispose and the attribute of the vajra sword laid across his fore-arms to the standard form for the Lokapala Weituotian(Sanskrit: Skanda). These figures, although subordinate tothe lohans whom they serve and protect, had well-establishediconographic features and thus provided Ding an opportu-nity to display his easy command of linear complexity.

The last leaf of the ‒ album also offers a study ofa guardian-king, but Ding has far surpassed that renderingin this work, lavishing an exceptional degree of detail oncoiffure and dress (i.e., Ding’s depiction of their demon-mask epaulettes and buckles), as he follows an iconographicprecedent well established at least as early as the Tang period.

Over the centuries, models for the iconography of suchsubsidiary deities had been both preserved and disseminatedin the form of paintings and, especially, frontispieces or otherillustrations to block-printed sutras; Ding would have hadany number of such sources available for study. In the case ofWeituotian (the second of the pair who stares arrestinglystraight out at the viewer), Ding may be quoting the wood-cut illustration that appears at the end of the imperiallysponsored edition of Amogravajra’s translation of the Fodingdaweide chishengguang rulai tuoluoni jing (fig. ).

Although there is much in the Princeton scroll worthy ofdetailed comment, the remaining remarks will focus ononly a few of its high points and distinctive qualities. Onesuch high point follows immediately after the guardian-generals: the huge, tusked, sutra-bearing elephant that isattended by obviously foreign grooms (fig. ). The pres-ence of this motif in a scroll devoted to lohans, where it isnot normally seen, raises iconographic questions. Its appear-ance here,moreover, is significant with regard to Ding’s laterrenderings of a variant of the motif as the centerpiece of“Washing the Elephant” (saoxiang), a theme for which hecontributed a design to Fang Yulu’s Fangshi mopu in the lates; he also painted it in in the form of a hangingscroll now in the National Palace Museum,Taipei (figs. ,

). Ding’s inclusion of the elephant in Baimiao Lohans isthus the earliest extant rendition of the motif in his oeuvre.

Here, as in the Washing the Elephant, the viewer’sperspective is one of looking slightly down upon the greatbeast as it is shown in the midst of lumbering forward andturning its head toward the opening of the scroll. Quiteremarkably, both the elephant’s baggy skin and its swinginggait are suggested by gently wavy exterior contour linesthat, in concert, describe a lumpy, almost palpably swellingovoid; this shape, stretching from the scroll’s lower marginto its top, utterly dominates this section and necessarilyreinforces the viewer’s impression of the massiveness of theelephant. The kinesthetic quality of the lines delineatingthe body’s shape is further enhanced by the repetition ofinterior lineation that frequently describes catenary curves,particularly well seen in the patterns that suggest the foldsof skin covering the elephant’s legs and head. Such linearpatterns are plainly equivalent to the drapery folds referredto in Chinese as choudie (“overlapping” or, in Alexander

Figure . Weituotian, Chinese, .Woodblock print from editionof Amogravajra’s translation of Foding daweide chishengguang rulai tuoluonijing. Reproduced in Sören Edgren et al., Chinese Rare Books in AmericanCollections (New York, ), , plate c.

Soper’s translation,“close-set parallels”).This kind of pat-tern, usually characterized as the wet-drapery mode, wasassociated at least as early as the Northern Song periodwith the Cao figure style of the Northern Qi painter CaoZhongda (fl. ca. ‒) and was contrasted with the greatTang master Wu Daozi’s (fl. ca. ‒) more free, flowingmanner of depicting the garments of his figures.

Here Ding’s effective use of repeated linear patterns,although still rather understated, shows his interest in whatOertling has termed a “manneristic style,” which from

onward the artist will use with increasing frequency. Thismannered style appears in various permutations (such as the

more pronounced pattern of “moving clouds and flowingwater” [xingyun liushui], as in the Washing the Elephant),and often Ding employs it in a single work in conjunctionwith a more classical and descriptive use of line that drawsfar less attention to itself.

Both Oertling and Julia Andrews have discussed thevarious sources to which late-Ming artists like Ding Yun-peng and Cui Zizhong (d. ) may have turned in paint-ing the theme of “Sweeping [or “Washing”] the Elephant,”of which this sutra-bearing elephant is a variant: the attri-butions to Qian Xuan (ca. ‒after ) and later wood-cut illustrations based on a work supposedly by Yan Liben

Figure . Baimiao Lohans, detailof sutra-bearing elephant.

(ca. ‒). I need not review their thorough examina-tion of this problem. However, the appearance of this motifin a work as early as , about three years after Ding hadleft Huizhou for Songjiang, adds further basis to the surmisethat Ding knew the painting on this theme attributed to YanLiben that Ding’s mentor, Zhan Jingfeng, records as beingin Wang Daokun’s (‒) collection. Wang effectivelybegan his long retirement from public office in , return-ing from the capital to Huizhou to tend his aging parents.

Just at this time, during the early and mid-s, Ding evi-dently was assiduously refining his knowledge of earlypaintings and, more than likely, would have already made aname for himself in his native region. It is probable that dur-ing these years he might have had access to Wang’s collec-tion for study.

Furthermore, the description of the Yan Liben attributionin Zhan’s catalogue entry, even though a mixture of exactmeasurement and impressionistic response, offers some in-

Figures , . Ding Yunpeng. Washing the Elephant, . Hanging scroll, ink and colorson paper; . x . cm.Taipei, National Palace Museum. Reproduced in Gugongbowuyuan, ed., Gugong minghua xuancui (Masterpieces of Chinese Painting in the NationalPalace Museum) (Taipei, ), plates a-b.

sight concerning the elephant’s rendering that suggests adegree of similarity with Ding’s. Zhan mentions that theartist has used an “orchid-leaf outline-brush method” (amannered style not normally associated with Yan Liben),which may have inspired Ding’s variation, whereby heretained the catenary repetitions but eliminated the pro-nounced modulation of line; he also notes that Yan’s con-ception realized an “antique elegance and subtle delicacy”(yizhi guya chongdan). Zhan writes, somewhat obscurely butwith poetic enthusiasm, that “the big elephant resembled ahuge, unfinished jade gui tablet [a kind of ceremonial tabletrounded at the top and square at the bottom].”While Yan’scomposition, according to Zhan’s record, was crowded withaccompanying attendants, the elephant itself seems to tallywith what Ding Yunpeng accomplished in the scroll.

The crucial point to be drawn from a consideration ofDing’s rendering of this motif specifically and from theentire scroll in general is his consistent orientation—evenwhen painting in the most delicate baimiao imaginable—toward a highly eclectic synthesis of styles (from an overtlydynamic and mannered idiom to one of classical restraintand subtlety), modes (degrees of ink tonality and presenceor absence of setting), and sources (well-regarded attribu-tions to old masters and anonymous woodcut illustrations).No single work, from this or Ding’s later period, will possessall the possible permutations of these factors, but notable isthe extent to which so many appear in any given painting.

But why should Ding include this particular motif andgive it such prominence in a painting of lohans? In otherlate-Ming and Qing lohan paintings, including one ofDing’s from , white elephants appear but as distinctlysubsidiary motifs. For instance, in an undated handscroll inink and colors by Ding’s contemporary Wu Bin (fl. ca. ‒

), there is an extravagantly caparisoned elephant, bear-ing a throne, clearly the mount for a royal worshiper whohas come from afar to pay homage to the white-robedGuanyin; in this scroll, the motif is one more bit of exoticathat underscores the theme of reverence to be accorded tothe lohans and necessarily to the bodhisattva Guanyin.

In Baimiao Lohans, Ding Yunpeng displays his purposefulinventiveness by the way in which he alters a motif that forthe Buddhist viewer of his time had associations with twowell-established themes: portrayals of the bodhisattva Puxian

(Sanskrit: Samantabhadra) with his six-tusked white elephant,described so compellingly in the visualization sutra GuanPuxian Pusa xingfa jing (Sutra on the Practice of Visualizing theBodhisattva Samantabhadra), and in “Sweeping the Ele-phant,” a theme that had no specific textual basis and thuslong before the Ming period had no absolutely fixed mean-ing. However, the association of the white elephant—two-tusked or six-tusked—with Puxian or Samantabhadra wasprobably strong enough that the motif carried genericallyauspicious significance.As Andrews remarks, Samantabhadrais portrayed in the Lotus Sutra as protector of the sutra itself;thus “the bodhisattva may have been perceived as a protectorof the tripitaka as a whole.” Ding Yunpeng hence appro-priately adds to the elephant a garlanded load of sutras.Thisalteration and the prominent use of the motif of the whiteelephant in a painting devoted to lohans confirms, at leastvisually, Andrews’s surmise. From beginning to end, thescroll celebrates the guardians and protectors of the dharma.

Finally, the tone of this portion of the scroll deservescomment. In contrast to the stern, martial seriousness of theguardian-generals who open the painting, Ding hasdepicted the sutra-bearing elephant with smiling, human-like eyes that serve to imbue the beast with a jolly, roly-polybenevolence, expressive of its role as bearer of texts intendedto foster liberation. Some of the sutras may even be readingmatter for the lohans (as is customary, two of the lohanslater in the scroll are shown perusing sutras), although ofcourse they long ago transcended the need to be liberated.Indeed, the keeper who carries a crook must step lively tostay apace with this elephant eager, it would seem, to dis-charge its merciful mission. Ding’s artistry easily elicits sucha response to this scene. For this is not simply whimsicalcaricature, but rather, an ingenious and moving conceptualresponse to answer thematic needs.

The overt playfulness of Ding’s rendering of the elephantis then modulated to a more understated drollery that char-acterizes the sequence of lohans. Ding first presents a seriesof seven lohans, shown standing, and then a series of eleven,shown seated, an arbitrary division based on posture thatDing may have imposed on himself as a minor formal chal-lenge.Almost to be expected from what seems to have beenhis penchant for variation, throughout he introduces differ-ing kinds of robes, hair and facial features, facial expressions,

stance and gesture, and figures’ placement in the pictorialspace vis-à-vis one another, in order to maintain visualinterest and a strong continuity. Most of the lohans’ activitiesare fairly low-key, typical of a baimiao rendering, and in keep-ing with established conventions.The one partial exceptionis the first lohan, depicted holding a vial from which issues aribbon-like cloud, in turn surmounted by a many-storiedhall (fig. ). Since this feat is shown occurring immediatelyafter the sutra-bearing elephant, the magical structure con-jured by the lohan may symbolize the lohans’ power tocreate at will repositories for the Buddhist teachings.

In accord with the usual treatment of figures in themode of wangliang hua, the specialty of Chan monk-paintersduring the Southern Song and Yuan (as well as in Japan theMuromachi-period monk-painters who followed theirexample), Ding injects a sly humor into the characteriza-tion of the lohans, either by the way they are shown inter-acting with their pets (the penultimate lohan holds a chowon his shoulder) or by the obvious visual correspondencebetween master and mascot (the pop-eyed, whiskered lohan

and his “Cheshire-cat” tiger) (fig. ). Indeed, not until thelate Ming period does this type of visual wit becomeincreasingly present in baimiao lohan painting. In the case ofDing Yunpeng, it appears mostly in the paintings producedduring the first half of his career; its comparative absence inhis later paintings is one more aspect of the haunting, expres-sive archaism that he employed in the face of a much starker,politically dangerous reality.

But let me now return to the scroll’s final pair of figuresfor, as mentioned earlier, this conclusion raises a number ofoverarching, interpretive issues.The attendant of short stature,who holds the sutras, looks respectfully up at the gentlemanin the typical dress of a scholar-official (fig. ).The latter isnot so different from the figure who appears in EighteenLohans, although he is more fully (and resplendently) ren-dered.Who is this capped and gowned personage, depictedpossessing an obvious air of earthly authority but no hintof supernatural identity? And why are he and his attendantshown concluding a sequence of immortal beings whosepurpose it is to protect and perpetuate the dharma?

Figure . Baimiao Lohans, detail of conjuring sutra hall.

As noted above, at this time Buddhist masters likeZhuhong and Deqing encouraged a variety of worshipfulpractices: ritual performance of releasing life (fangsheng),recitation both of the Buddha’s name (nianfo) and entiresutras, and discussion and explication of sutras, as well as thecopying out of sutras in blood or otherwise. Moreover, asTimothy Brook has documented, late-Ming gentry patron-ized Buddhist monasteries not only on an exceptionallywide scale but in a great many ways; elite lay Buddhists, inaccordance with their political position, financial where-withal, or literary and artistic talents, shielded monasteriesfrom political threat, provided funds for buying land andconstructing buildings, or wrote poems and essays that lentluster to the eminence of particular monasteries or masters.

Noted calligraphers like Dong Qichang and Chen Jirucontributed inscriptions. In a similar fashion, Ding Yun-peng more than likely painted Buddhist themes. Given hisdevout faith, it stands to reason that at times he may havepainted solely for himself, as a spiritual exercise; and at

times, as a means to live, he painted for patrons (other layBuddhists and, although the evidence is largely lacking,abbots and prominent monks of the temples where heresided).

Keeping in mind how thoroughly Buddhism (just as didConfucianism or Daoism or a melding of the three) shapedlate-Ming elite culture, it seems reasonable then to view thisrobed and robust figure at the end of Baimiao Lohans as Ding’sown self-portrait or a portrait of some other lay Buddhistwho had commissioned him to produce the picture. Thesutras that this figure’s attendant proffers may be ones towardwhich Ding himself—or his patron—had contributed fundsfor printing. But of course the image need not be inter-preted so literally. More broadly speaking, its symbolicmeaning of devotion to the dharma derives from its place ina procession of lohans whose sole purpose was to protectand serve the dharma. Appearing after such a sequence ofotherworldly exemplars of this role, the figures of the schol-arly gentleman and his attendant together express, in a more

Figure . Baimiao Lohans, detail oflohan and tiger.

mundane fashion, the lay Buddhist ideal of participating inthis endeavor through a dissemination of sutras.

Interestingly, the scale of this standing figure is slightlysmaller than that of the lohans, standing or seated; and thusDing observes long-established conventions of icono-graphic hierarchy. In doing so, he still depicts the figure witha surprising degree of realism, as delicate as the lineation is,so that one reads the image not simply as caricature or ageneralized, shorthand sketch but as a recognizable portrait.In only a few other works by Ding do figures elicit this kindof response to the same degree, and even then it is ques-

tionable whether the depiction in these works can compareto this uncannily compelling portrait of a scholar, whichDing himself very much was. But regardless of how, in theend, one interprets this final motif (as self- or patron’s por-trait), the very act of painting the scroll provided Ding yetanother opportunity to express his own commitment to thedharma—this he makes quite clear in his terse inscription—and, whether or not another may have commissioned it, toenjoy, as was believed, the merit to be gained from makingsuch a picture.

GLOSSARYbaimiao ??

Cao Zhongda ??? (fl. ca. ‒)

chan ?

Chen Jiru ??? (‒)

Cheng Dayue ??? (‒)

Chengshi moyuan ????

choudie ??

Cui Zizhong ??? (d. )

dian ?

Ding Yunpeng ??? (‒?)

Dong Qichang ??? (‒)

fangsheng ??

Fangshi mopu ????

Fang Yulu ??? (fl. ‒)

Fanlong ?? (fl. early th c.)

faseng ??

fawangzi Ding Yunpeng jingxie ????????

Foding daweide chishengguang rulai tuoloni jing ??????????????

Guan Puxian Pusa xingfa jing ????????

Guanyin ??

gui ?

Guo Xi ?? (ca. –ca. )

Gu Zhengyi ??? (fl. ‒)

Gu Zhongxiu ???

Hanshan Deqing ???? (‒)

Huang Gongwang ??? (‒)

Huayan ??

Huizhou ??

Jiajing ?? (Zhu Houzong ???; ‒, r. ‒)

Jiang Shaoshu ??? (fl. early th c.)

Jiao Hong ?? (‒)

jingxie ??

Jushi juan ???

Li Cheng ?? (‒)

Li Gonglin ??? (ca. ‒)

Lin Tinggui ??? (fl. late th c.)

lohan ??

Mashi [si] ??[?]

Mo Shilong ??? (fl. ca. ‒)

nianfo ??

Ningbo ??

Ouyi Zhixu ???? (‒)

Peng Shaosheng ??? (‒)

Puxian ??

Qian Xuan ?? (ca. –after )

sanmei ??

saoxiang ??

Shen Zhou ?? (‒)

Shenzong ?? (Zhu Yijun ???; see below)

Songjiang ??

Tiantai ??

Wang Daokun ??? (‒)

Wang Shizhen ??? (‒)

Wang Zhideng ??? (‒)

Wanli ??

wangliang hua ???

Weishi ??

Weituotian ???

Wen Zhengming ??? (‒)

Wu Bin ?? (fl. ca. ‒)

Wu Daozi ??? (fl. ca. ‒)

Wusheng shishi ????

xingyun liushui ????

Xiuning ??

Yangzheng tujie ????

Yan Liben ??? (ca. ‒)

yixin ??

yizhi guya chongdan ??????

Yongming Yanshou ???? (‒)

Yunqi Zhuhong ???? (‒)

Zhan Jingfeng ??? (‒ca. )

Zhang Juzheng ??? (‒)

Zhao Mengfu ??? (‒)

Zhiyong ?? (‒)

Zhu Yijun ??? (‒, r. ‒)

Zhou Jichang ??? (fl. late th c.)

Zibo Zhenke ???? (‒)

N OT E S

The author thanks Cary Y. Liu, curator of Asian Art at the Princeton UniversityArt Museum, for encouraging him to write this essay.Thanks are also due to ananonymous reader for the Record of the Princeton University Art Museum whosecomments helped the author to improve it.

. Prior studies that consider in depth or in passing Ding Yunpeng’s life andartistic achievement are as follows (in chronological order): Stella Lee,“Figure Painters of the Late Ming,” in The Restless Landscape: Chinese Paint-ing of the Late Ming Period, ed. James Cahill (Berkeley, ), ; RichardBarnhart, “Survivals, Revivals, and the Classical Tradition of Chinese Fig-ure Painting,” in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Chinese Paint-ing, ed. National Palace Museum (Taipei, ), ‒; Chu-tsing Li,“Ting Yün-p’eng, Bodhidharma Crossing the Yangtze River on a Reed,” in AThousand Peaks and Myriad Ravines: Chinese Paintings in the Charles A.Drenowatz Collection, Artibus Asiae, suppl. (Ascona, ), ‒;Yu-hoTseng Ecke, “Ting Yün-p’eng,” in The Dictionary of Ming Biography,‒ [hereafter DMB], ed. L. Carrington Goodrich and ChaoyingFang (New York, ), ‒; Guoli gugong bowuyuan, ed., Wanmingbianxing zhuyi huajia zuopin zhan (Style Transformed: A Special Exhibition ofWorks by Five Late Ming Artists) [hereafter Style Transformed], exh. cat.,National Palace Museum (Taipei, ); Sewall Jerome Oertling II, “TingYun-p’eng:A Chinese Artist of the Late Ming Dynasty” (Ph.D. diss., Uni-versity of Michigan, ); James Cahill, ed., Shadows of Mt. Huang: ChinesePainting and Printing of the Anhui School, exh. cat., University Art Museum,Berkeley (Berkeley, ), passim; James Cahill, The Distant Mountains: Chi-nese Painting of the Late Ming Dynasty, ‒, A History of Later Chi-nese Painting, ‒, vol. (New York, ), ‒; Sewall J.Oertling, “Patronage in Anhui During the Wan-li Period,” in Artists andPatrons: Some Social and Economic Aspects of Chinese Paintings, ed. Chu-tsingLi, exh. cat., Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kan. (Lawrence, ),esp. ‒; Marsha Weidner,“Buddhist Pictorial Art in the Ming Dynasty(‒): Patronage, Regionalism & Internationalism,” in Latter Days ofthe Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism, ‒, ed. Marsha Weidner, exh.cat., Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kan. (Lawrence, ), ‒;Richard K. Kent,“Depictions of the Guardians of the Law: Lohan Paintingin China,” in Weidner, Latter Days of the Law, ‒; Richard K. Kent,“The Sixteen Lohans in the Pai-miao Style: From Sung to Early Ch’ing”(Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, ), ‒; “Ting Yun-p’eng(‒):‘Eighteen Lohan in Pai-miao Fine-Line Style’ ,” KaikodoJournal (), ‒, ‒.

Any writer about Ding Yunpeng’s art is deeply indebted to SewallOertling’s dissertion, noted above. In this groundbreaking study, Oertlingdid much to restore the artist’s rightful reputation as a man whose circle ofpatrons, friends, and acquaintances included many of the most notable literatiof the time, who looked upon Ding as nothing but their equal. Oertlingalso did much to group chronologically Ding’s lohan paintings and to illu-minate, by a detailed analysis of style, the major shift in his handling of thetheme and the sources upon which Ding drew.

. Ding Yunpeng’s death date is not entirely certain, but it may have occurredafter or even as late as .The evidence for either date is inscriptionson two paintings whose whereabouts are not presently known. See the dis-cussion in Style Transformed, (English trans., ).The editors of this cata-logue find the date more credible.

. Da aluohan Nandimiduoluo suo shuo fazhuji (A Record of the Abiding of theDharma Spoken by the Great Arhat [Lohan] Nandimitra), Taisho shinshu daizokyo(repr.,Taipei, ), no. .

. For an overview of this evolution, see Kent,“Depictions of the Guardians ofthe Law: Lohan Painting in China,” ‒.

. James Cahill took this position, writing that Ding “seems unambiguously tohave been a professional artist”; see Cahill, Distant Mountains, . See alsoShan Guoqiang,“The Tendency Toward Mergence of the Two Great Tradi-tions in Late Ming Painting,” in Proceedings of the Tung Ch’i-ch’ang InternationalSymposium, ed.Wai-ching Ho (Kansas City, ), ‒.

. To refer to Ding as a “professional amateur” intentionally blurs the prob-lematic dichotomy of professional and amateur that both traditional Chinese critics and more recent Western historians of Chinese paintinghave superimposed upon ranks of artists, especially of the Ming and Qingperiods, who fall into neither category with consistency; see James Cahill’silluminating discussion in The Painter’s Practice: How Artists Lived and Workedin Traditional China (New York, ), passim. For an excellent and moretheoretical perspective on this problem, see Craig Clunas, “Artist and Subject in Ming Dynasty China,” Proceedings of the British Academy

(), ‒.. Ray Huang, “The Lung-ch’ing and Wan-li Reigns, ‒,” in The

Cambridge History of China, vol. , The Ming Dynasty, ‒, ed. DenisTwitchett and John K. Fairbank (Cambridge, ), pt. , esp. ‒.

. Ibid., esp. .. The Donglin (East Grove) movement that arose from the academy of the

same name in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, during the first decade of the seven-teenth century is the most notable instance of this concern for an invigor-ated sense of morality among members of the officialdom. See FrederickW. Mote, Imperial China, ‒ (Cambridge, Mass.,), ‒.

. Ibid., . One facet of this changing social environment was the emergenceof, as Mote characterizes it, a “vigorous new merchant ethos” that permittedsuccessful merchants and elite scholar-officials to blend into one elite class.

. Ibid., esp. ‒.. Richard Hon-chun Shek,“Religion and Society in Late Ming: Sectarian-

ism and Popular Thought in Sixteenth-Seventeenth Century China”(Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, ), ‒, .

. The milieu of the Wanli emperor’s court is well portrayed in Ray Huang,: A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline (New Haven,); see esp. chaps. and .

. See Kent, “Sixteen Lohans in the Pai-miao Style,” ‒. The painting,dated , that serves as fig. is entitled A Buddha Image by the editors ofStyle Transformed. A later copy datable to is entitled Yingzhen (“Re-sponders to Truth,” i.e., lohans). I suspect lohans, in reality, are the subject ofthe painting.

. Yü Chün-fang,“Ming Buddhism,” in Cambridge History of China, vol. , TheMing Dynasty, ‒, pt. , ed. Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank(Cambridge, ), .

. Zhuhong wrote of his wariness of officialdom and credited his father withhaving admonished him to keep clear of anything having to do with it. In-deed, he traveled to the capital only once, around , and that was solelyto pay his respects to two noted Chan masters; see Yü Chün-fang, TheRenewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis (NewYork, ), ‒.

. Yü, Renewal of Buddhism, , chap. passim; for the history of Yunqi, whichhad been a monastic site beginning in the late tenth century and was rebuiltby Zhuhong and his followers in , see pp. ‒. Zhuhong’s emphasison monastic discipline led him to compose a number of “primers” fornovices and monks that focused on such matters; see the entry by YüChün-fang, in DMB, vol. , .The slightly later and fourth great Bud-dhist leader of the period, Ouyi Zhixu (‒), took a similar stronginterest in the study of monastic discipline and composed a treatise con-cerning it entitled the Binyi jiyao (Essentials of Discipline); see the entry byHerbert Franke, in DMB, vol. , .

. Sung-p’eng Hsü, A Buddhist Leader in Ming China:The Life and Thought ofHan-Shan Te-ch’ing (University Park, Penn., ), , , .

. Deqing claimed that he sought the sponsorship of the imperial family chieflybecause he hoped eventually to restore the Baoen temple in Nanjing, wherehe had first studied Buddhism and had taken the tonsure; in doing so, hewould fulfill the vow he had made to his first teacher, Xilin, in . He didnot make this wish known to the empress dowager until ; see ibid., .

. More politically outspoken and perhaps less inclined or less careful to dis-tance himself from potential imbroglios than Deqing, in the end Zhenkeinadvervently became ensnared in the struggle over Wanli’s successor,incurred the wrath of the emperor, and died from the beating he receivedin prison. See Herbert Franke’s entry, in DMB, vol. , . For an account ofZhenke’s arrest and subsequent death in prison, see J. Christopher Cleary,“Zibo Zhenke:A Buddhist Leader in Late Ming China” (Ph.D. diss., Har-vard University, ), ‒.

. As noted by Hsü, Buddhist Leader in Ming China, , ; Cleary, “ZiboZhenke,” ‒;Yü, Renewal of Buddhism, , .

. For Chu-hung’s use of this term, see Yü, Renewal of Buddhism, ‒.. The translation mostly follows that by Cleary in “Zibo Zhenke,” .. Shek characterizes the changes occurring in orthodox Buddhism at this time

as “a process of laicization”; see “Religion and Society in Late Ming,” .. See the biographical entry by Rufus O. Suter in Eminent Chinese of the

Ch’ing Period (‒), ed.Arthur W. Hummel (Washington, D.C., ),‒.

. Ibid., ‒; (Shi) Shengyan,“Mingmo di jushi fojiao,” in Huagang foxue bao,no. (), , ‒;Yü,“Ming Buddhism,” .

. (Shi) Shengyan,“Mingmo di jushi fojiao,” .. Yü, “Ming Buddhism,” ‒.Yü makes it quite clear that all four great

masters, as to be expected, gave Buddhism “the highest place in the hier-archy” (p. ).

. For Jiao Hong’s involvement with Buddhism, see Edward T. Ch’ien, ChiaoHung and the Restructuring of Neo-Confucianism in the Late Ming (New York,), ‒, ‒; for his exposure to the teachings of Zhuhong, see Yü,Renewal of Buddhism, , ‒. Jiao Hong may also have been acquaintedwith Zhenke, who evidently knew Ding Yunpeng well.

. There survive at least two colophons by Zhenke on paintings that datefrom and , during the years Ding was working for Jiao Hong inNanjing; see Oertling,“Ting Yün-p’eng,” ‒, and “Patronage in AnhuiDuring the Wan-li Period,” in Li, Artists and Patrons, . Since the publica-tion of Oertling’s work, additional evidence documenting Zhenke’s rela-tionship with Ding has been published; see Jin Shen, “Jiaxing cang yu youguan Ding Yunpeng di shiliao,” in Meishu yanjiu, no. (), ‒.

. Oertling,“Ting Yün-p’eng,” ‒; Kent,“Sixteen Lohans in the Pai-miaoStyle,” esp. ‒.

. Yü, “Ming Buddhism,” . The romanization in the original has beenchanged to pinyin.

. Ibid., , .. The opening phrase from Dong Qichang’s epitaph for Ding; cited and

translated by Oertling,“Ting Yün-p’eng,” ‒.. The circumstances of the family’s decline are murky, but it may have had

much to do with the death of Ding’s father in the early or mid-s; seeOertling,“Ting Yün-p’eng,” ‒.

. It is worth noting that only two of the above people with whom Ding asso-ciated at this time attained an official position. Gu Zhengyi briefly served ina minor position in Beijing as a drafter in the Central Drafting Office; seeJason Kuo’s catalogue entry in The Century of Tung Ch’i-ch’ang, ‒,

ed.Wai-kam Ho and Judith G. Smith, exh. cat., Nelson-Atkins Museum ofArt, Kansas City, Kans. (Kansas City, ), vol. , . Dong Qichang, in

contrast, was the most successful of the group, occupying a number ofhigh-ranking positions throughout his career; see Celia Carrington Riely,“Tung Ch’i-ch’ang’s Life,” in Century of Tung Ch’i-ch’ang, vol. , ‒

and, for Dong’s relationship specifically with Gu Zhengyi, .. Joseph P. McDermott, “The Art of Making a Living in Sixteenth Century

China,” in Kaikodo Journal (Autumn ), .. Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (Stanford,

), . See also Ichisada Miyazaki, China’s Examination Hell:The Civil Ser-vice Examinations of Imperial China, trans. Conrad Schirokauer (New Haven,), ‒.

. Oertling,“Ting Yün-p’eng,” .. Ibid., ‒.. Ibid., ‒; Oertling notes that in Ding was living on Tiger Hill in

Suzhou at a place he referred to as the “Residence of Auspicious Clouds”(Jiyunju), which perhaps was a “simple lodging or room in one of themonasteries.”

. The Cleveland Museum of Art’s landscape painting Tiandu xiaori (MorningSun over the Heavenly Citadel), dated to , may very well have been pro-duced not only to praise its recipient, as the inscription suggests, but also toearn Ding’s keep. See the catalogue entry by Henry Kleinhenz and NoraLiu in Wai-kam Ho et al., Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting:The Collectionsof the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Cleveland Museumof Art, exh. cat., Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Kans., andCleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, ), .

. Writing about Ding Yunpeng’s Bodhidharma Crossing the Yangtze on a Reed,Chu-tsing Li came to this conclusion; see Li, A Thousand Peaks and MyriadRavines, .

. Yü Chün-fang, “Ming Buddhism,” in Cambridge History of China, vol. ,pt. , chap. , esp. . See also Timothy Brook, “Communication andCommerce,” in Cambridge History of China, chap. , ‒.

. Jin Shen, “Jiaxing cang,” . Jin cites Zhenke’s “Preface on Having SentVenerable Ching of Baoshan to Visit Ding Nanyu,” which speaks of AbbotChing requesting a painting (or paintings) from Ding. For a translation, seeKent,“Sixteen Lohans in the Pai-miao Style,” .

. Oertling, “Ting Yün-p’eng,” ‒; Hiromitsu Kobayashi and SamanthaSabin,“The Great Age of Anhui Printing,” in Cahill, Shadows of Mt. Huang,‒; Oertling,“Patronage in Anhui During the Wan-li Period,” ‒.

. William Atwell, “Ming China and the Emerging World Economy,c. ‒,” in Twitchett and Mote, Cambridge History of China, vol. ,pt. , ch. , .

. Recorded in Bidian zhulin shiju baoji () and cited in Style Transformed, .. Wang Zhideng made the comparison in an inscription that accompanies

Lohans, the album dated to ‒.The assessment continued to be passeddown by Jiang Shaoshu, Wusheng shishi (ca. ); Huashi congshu [hereafterHSCS], ed. Zhongguo shuhua yanjiu ziliao she (Taipei, ), .

. See Oertling,“Ting Yün-p’eng,” ‒, for Zhan’s ties to and remarks aboutDing; see also Oertling, “Patronage in Anhui During the Wan-li Period,”. For Gu Zhengyi’s role as a collector and teacher whose influence wasalso important for Dong Qichang, see James Cahill, “Tung Ch’i-ch’ang’sPainting Style: Its Sources and Transformations,” in Tung Ch’i-ch’ang, vol. ,esp. , and Celia Carrington Riely, “Tung Ch’i-ch’ang’s Life,” in vol. ,esp. . Through Ding’s association with Zhan, he might have had theopportunity to study paintings in Wang Shizhen’s important collection.From until ,Wang was living in his native place of Taicang, east ofSuzhou, and not serving in an official position; see Louise Yuhas, “WangShih-chen as Patron,” in Li, Artists and Patrons, . As Yuhas notes, Wangwas a patron of You Qiu (active ‒), another careful and adept studentof baimiao painting and its tradition.

. There is only one recorded inscription by Ding addressing the art historicaldimension that the subject of lohans posed and enlivened for him. Hereports that his hanging scroll Lohan Emerging from the Mountains(Yingzhen chushan tu) was produced in part as a response to his remem-brance of a lohan composition said to be by Wang Wei.That painting wason the theme of lohans crossing water.The irony is that Ding’s composi-tion, at present known only through old published photographs, features atowering mountainscape at the base of which appears the minuscule, barelyreadable figure of the lohan; obviously Ding’s response to the earlier com-position was idiosyncratically freewheeling. For a translation of Ding’sinscription, see Oertling,“Ting Yün-p’eng,” ‒.As Oertling notes, thepainting is reproduced in Sogen minshin meiga taikan (Tokyo, ), ; foranother reproduction, see Jiaoyuba dierci quanguo meishu zhanlan hui zhuanji,diyi zhong: Jin Tang Wudai Song Yuan Ming Qing mingjia shuhua ji, exh. cat.,Nanking Art Gallery (Nanking, ), plate .

. Curiously, the painting is signed Ding Yuntu, an anomaly that has yet to beexplained. However, the colophon by Wang Zhideng names Ding Yunpengand the circumstances behind the execution of the painting; one slight dis-crepancy is that Wang speaks of a “scroll” of “Sixteen Lohans,” which is notthe current format. See the commentary and reproduction in Style Trans-formed, ‒. Both accompanying colophons by Wang and Chen Jiru aretranslated by Oertling; see “Ting Yün-p’eng,” ‒.

. See Liu Lin-sheng’s entry, in DMB, ‒.. The painting, as far as I am aware, has never been published.When I had the

opportunity to study it in , it was in the collection of the ShanghaiMuseum (no. ). I am not sure of its present whereabouts.The imagereproduced here is from a small photograph of the scroll that I obtained atthat time.Regrettably, I have no photographic details to show Ding’s metic-ulous rendering of the figures. My notes from that viewing record theastonishing manner in which Ding had depicted all the peculiarities offacial features, including gaps between the teeth, the wrinkled folds of skin,and the long eyebrow strands, for example, of the lohan who reads the sutrato his assembled comrades.

. Wen Fong, The Lohans and a Bridge to Heaven, Freer Gallery of Art OccasionalPapers , no. (Washington, D.C., ), passim;Fong,Beyond Representation:Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, th‒th Century, exh. cat., MetropolianMuseum of Art, New York (New York, ), ‒;Wu Tung, Tales fromthe Land of Dragons: ,Years of Chinese Painting, exh. cat., Museum of FineArts, Boston (Boston, ), ‒.

. The editors of Style Transformed assign the painting to Ding’s late period, ca.‒; see cat. no. , . Oertling first suggested an earlier date; see“Ting Yün-p’eng,” .The Shanghai () and Princeton scrolls, whichhe did not have the opportunity to include in his study, make such a datingall the more reasonable. Oertling gives the title as “Sixteen Lohans.” StyleTransformed entitles it Eighteen Lohans, as I do here.

. Oertling,“Ting Yün-p’eng,” ; Cahill, Distant Mountains, .. Such a reading of the scroll obviously suggests a metaphorical dimension of

the imagery that cannot be supported by textual documentation.. The aim of gaining merit through actions such as the making of images (or

having such images made), the copying of sutras, and other kinds of offer-ings was as indelibly a part of Chinese as Indian Buddhism. See JohnKieschnick, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture (Princeton,), chap. , passim.

. Shimada Shujiro, “Moryoga,” Bijutsu kenkyu, no. (Dec. ), ‒, andno. (Feb. ), ‒; for an English summary of Shimada’s discussion,see Yoshiaki Shimizu, “Problems of Moku’an Rei’en” (Ph.D. diss., Prince-ton University, ), ‒. For more recent remarks, see Helmut Brinkerand Hiroshi Kanazawa, Zen: Masters of Meditation in Images and Writings,

trans.Andreas Leisinger, Artibus Asiae, Suppl. (Zurich, ), ‒.. See the catalogue entry for the painting in the Kaikodo Journal (Spring

), . See also Louis Frédéric, Buddhism, trans. Nissim Marshall (Paris,), ‒.

. For a discussion of the edition of this work, see Sören Edgren et al., ChineseRare Books in American Collections (New York, ), ‒. Concerningsuch palace editions, the question arises as to what extent they were dis-seminated outside Beijing, where the blocks were manufactured and stored.Although these editions were produced for imperial use, they may haveincluded distribution of copies to important monastic centers. For a briefcomment on such editions and the governmental offices associated withthem, see, as cited by Edgren,K.T.Wu,“Ming Printing and Printers,”HarvardJournal of Asiatic Studies, no. (), .

Ding most likely drew on the same model for the celestial guardian thatappears at the end of the Nelson-Atkins Museum’s Five Forms of Guanyinand is datable to just about the same time; see Ho et al., Eight Dynasties,‒.

. For Ding’s involvement with this theme, possible sources, and its meaningin the late Ming period, see Oertling, “Ting Yün-p’eng,” ‒. For itsobscurity of meaning in the Song and Yuan periods and its possible mean-ing in later periods, as well as comments on possible sources for artists likeDing Yunpeng and Cui Zizhong, see Julia Andrews, “The Significance ofStyle and Subject Matter in the Painting of Cui Zizhong,” (Ph.D. diss., Uni-versity of California, Berkeley, ), ‒.

. Reproduced in Style Transformed, ‒.. Kuo Jo-hsü’s Experiences in Painting, trans.Alexander C. Soper, Studies in Chi-

nese and Related Civilizations, no. (Washington, D.C., ), , , n;Tuhua jianwen zhi, in HSCS, chap. , .As Soper points out in n, GuoRoxu is quoting Huang Xiufu, Yizhou minghua lu, in HSCS, chap. , .

. Guo Roxu, Tuhua jianwen zhi, in HSCS, .. Oertling,“Ting Yün-p’eng,” see esp. ‒.. Ibid., ‒;Andrews,“Significance of Style,” , ‒.. Zhan Jingfeng, Zhan Dongtu xuanlan bian (Beijing, ), chap. , ; cited

also by Oertling and Andrews.. Angela Hsi,“Wang Tao-k’un,” in DMB, vol. , .. Andrews gives a helpful paraphrase of the description; see “Significance of

Style,” ‒. Oertling argues that Ding may also have based his design onthis theme for the Fangshi mopu on the painting in Wang’s collection; see“Ting Yün-p’eng,” ‒.

. The scroll is reproduced both in details and entirely in Style Transformed,, ‒.

. For a history of the transmission of this sutra to China and a discussion ofits contents, see Alexander C. Soper, Literary Evidence for Early Buddhist Art inChina, Artibus Asiae, Suppl. (Ascona, ), ‒.

. Andrews,“Significance of Style,” .. There may be a textual basis for this motif that I am not aware of. Midway

through the baimiao scroll of lohans attributed to Fanlong (fl. early thcentury) in the Freer Gallery, at the point at which a lohan is shown staringout across an expanse of water, a minute pagoda is depicted in the distance,as if floating on an ocean spume; below it, pictured along the scroll’s border,amid the waves, there are fishes carrying rolled sutras in their mouths.Somewhat closer to Ding’s representation of this motif is its presence in abaimiao scroll in the National Palace Museum,Taipei (no. B), attributedto Qiu Ying (early th century) but clearly a much later work, probablyfrom the Qing period. In this work, a lohan is shown riding on the back ofa fantastical lion in order to cross a roiling river; as he does so, he points hisindex finger into the air, conjuring a cloud-supported worship hall.

. See Kent,“Sixteen Lohans in the Pai-miao Style,” ‒.

. For devotional practices among the laity, see Yü, Renewal of Buddhsim,esp. ‒, ; Hsü, A Buddhist Leader, ‒; Shi Shengyan, MingmoZhongguo fojiao zhi yanjiu, ; and Shi Shengyan,“Mingmo di jushi fojiao,”Huagang foxue bao, no. (Dec. ), ‒. Basing his remarks on the infor-mation contained in Peng Shaosheng’s “Jushi juan,” Shengyan points outthat for lay Buddhists of the gentry class the two most important sutras werethe Jingang jing (Diamond Sutra) and the Lengyan jing (Surangama Sutra),both strongly associated with the Chan school.

. Timothy Brook, Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of GentrySociety in Late-Ming China (Cambridge, Mass., ), ; see also chaps. ‒

passim.

. Ibid., .. Oertling comments on Ding’s “ability to convey personality and emotion”

and cites a few works that he believes especially show this, but I have nothad the opportunity to study any of the paintings he mentions; see “TingYün-p’eng,” ‒.The set of lohan paintings that Ding produced in

in collaboration with Sheng Maoye (active ‒), in a private collec-tion in Kyoto, are often cited for their realistic portrayal of the lohans (Dingproduced the faces); see Stella Lee, “Figure Painters of Late Ming,” inCahill, Restless Landscape, .