AESTHETICS No.13 (2009)

The Japanese Society for Aesthetics / 131

Dürer and Sesshū as Spiritual History:
Godness and Emptiness [1]ŌHASHI Ryōsuke
Ryukoku University, Kyoto

1. The Necessity for and Significance of the Comparative Study of Sesshû and Dürer
Sesshû (1420-1505 or 1507) lived through the Önin War (1467-1477) in Japan, and Albrecht
Dürer, (1471-1528) the German Renaissance. Sesshû was immersed in Buddhist thought andDürer in Christian-philosophical thought. As men of periods of epochal change, both spent an
important part of their lives wandering from land to land, country to country. Sesshû, forexample, after he had finished his training in Zen practice in Kyoto and lived for a short timein Yamaguchi prefecture, went to China in 1467 as a member of the Japanese delegation to the
Ming dynasty, staying there for two years. After his return to Japan, he travelled to Tsukushi
and Oita, both on Kyushu. Finally, he went back to Yamaguchi, where he founded his studio
Tenkai (the studio of the painting heaven-wide opened). But he continued to make trips tovarious places where he produced many masterpieces. Dürer wandered at the age of 19 for his
artisan training. He visited the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria, andproduced many works. After he returned to Nürnberg, he made many further small trips,
which resulted in numerous works.
Sesshû practiced Zen in Shôkokuji temple in Kyoto, where the well known monk-painterShûbun (?-mid. 15 c.) was working. Sesshû held him, together with another monk-painterJosetsu (14-15 c.), in high respect as teacher and master. It will not be necessary to stress that
Kyoto was the capital of Japan and the center not only of politics, but also of religion and art.
It was no wonder that the painting of Sesshû was based on the spirit of Zen. Nürnberg, on theother hand, where Dürer was born and grew up, was called the hidden capital of the Holy
Roman Empire, and was an important center of commerce, humanism, religion, and art.
Because of the two cathedrals, many artists and craftsmen gathered there to engage in therestoration and the production of paintings as well as ornaments for the religious buildings. In
the midst of the religious atmosphere, Dürer came to express the spirit of Christianity. The
comparative reflection on these two painters will concentrate on the artistic expression of thehuman being and nature. The world of Dürer will be characterized with the word “godness”
and that of Sesshû with the word of “nothingness” or “emptiness” in the Zen Buddhist sense.
The former will be interpreted with the help of European philosophy.

2. “Human being” and “Nature” in Dürer
No objection will be raised against the thesis that with regard to Dürer, the portrait isquantitatively as well as qualitatively superior to landscape painting. Because of the limited

132ŌHASHI Ryōsuke

Fig.1: The tree at a stone quarry

Fig.2: Four apostles

Fig.3: Adam and Eve

space, only representative works can be shown here. First, “The tree at a stone quarry” (Figure 1),
which will be compared later with a work of Sesshû. In Dürer’s time, it was not self-evident
that the landscape might become the subject of painting; hence, we see in this work the forefront of the sensitivity for the nature. But we must hesitate to evaluate the work as surpassing
modern landscape painting, such as that of Cezanne. Let us turn our eyes to the portrait
painting in “Four Apostles” (Figure 2) and “Adam and Eve” (Figure 3), where we find that the
depicted figures express not only the iconographic characters at an excellent level artistically,
but also their inner spirituality.
Let us consider “Four Apostles” (Figure 2). All the names of these figures are given in theinscription below of the picture, but can also be identified on iconographic grounds. The manin the foreground left holding the Bible in his hand can be identified as John. His Gospel
begins, as is well known, with the words, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word waswith God, and the Word was God.” The figure in the background holding a key in the hand isPeter, as is described in the Gospel of Matthew, 16: 19: “I (Jesus) will give unto thee the keys ofthe kingdom of heaven.” They are absorbed in the Gospel, John with his intellectuality andPeter, although he was an uneducated fisherman, with the eye of faith. The folds of John’srobes forms elegant arcs converging on the right arm, with which the Bible is held. The
persons at his right are Mark and Paul, as is indicated in the inscription below. But the
inscription does not identify which figure is Mark and which Paul. The man in the foregroundright seems at first to be Mark, because he seems to hold a long staff in the right hand. In
Mark’s Gospel 6: 8, it is stated: “and he (Jesus) charged them (the twelve disciples) that theyshould take nothing for their journey, save a staff only.” Many guidebooks identify him asMark.[2] But when we look more attentively at the picture, we find it is not a staff that thefigure holds but a sword. In that case, we must recall the phrase of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians
6: 17: “And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.” The shield mentioned in
6: 16 of the same letter is also partially visible under the man’s robes. This “armor of God”
which Peter recommended to the Ephesians for “wrestling against the principalities, against
the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual host of wickedness

Dürer and Sesshū as Spiritual History

Fig.4: Duerers self-portrait

Fig.6: Duerers self-portrait

133

Fig.5: Duerers self-portrait

in the heavenly places” (ibid., 16: 12), shows that the person is Paul, as is maintained in otherguidebooks.[3] Thus, the person in the background right must be Mark. His face, like that ofPaul, is no longer directed into the testament, but outward. For, his mind is directed to themission among the folk, as is suggested in Mark 16: 15: “And he (Jesus) said unto them, Go ye
into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.” Both Mark and Paul
dedicated themselves to the mission. The folds of Paul’s robes, which form more dynamic arclines than that of John, look as if they spring and flow out of the closed Holy Bible held inPaul’s hand.
Another pair of persons, Adam and Eve, is also depicted according to the Old Testament(Figure 3). Adam, who was tempted by Eve, shows a kind of hesitation and shyness, while
Eve is totally self-confident. Her confidence is expressed in her alluring pose. Other painters
have tried to copy this work, but no one has succeeded in imitating the sublime beauty of Eve
as depicted by Dürer. The atmosphere of these two nudes expresses a kind of divine
atmosphere rather than a mere eroticism, as in the case of many nude paintings of the modernage.
In order to sound out the inner spiritual state of Dürer, let us look at a series of his
self-portraits. The first one is a self-portrait that he painted at the age of 13 (Figure 4). On thecanvas is written in New High German: “I have made it from a mirror. In the year 1484
when I was still a child. Albrecht Dürer.” (Dz hab ich aws ein spigell nach mir selb kunterfet
Im 1484 Jar do ich noch ein kint was. Albrecht Dürer). In the history of art, it was unusual
at that time for a painter to paint his self-portrait on the basis of his figure in a mirror. In
this work, one can therefore find a precocious self-consciousness in Dürer, but the important
point for us is that his self-consciousness is different from that of the modern age. Note that hemakes a devout gesture of worship, looking upward. This attitude is more clearly to be seen
in his self-portrait painted ten years later, in 1494 (Figure 5). There is an inscription in New
High German: “My matter is so, as is decided on high (My sach die gat / Als es oben schtat)”.
The self-consciousness of Dürer tells us that his own self is determined by heaven andnot by himself. He is conscious that his selfhood is covered with Godness, and this dual

134ŌHASHI Ryōsuke

consciousness may be regarded as one of the characteristics ofconsciousness during the Renaissance. The self in which
Godness is concealed must have divine grace, and just this is
stressed in the self-portrait of 1498 (Figure 6). Dürer produced

Fig.7: Duerers self-portrait

this work when he was 27 years old, though in the inscription
on the canvas he depicts: “I painted it 1498. I was twenty six
years old. Albrecht Dürer.” Monogram (Das malt Ich nachmeiner gestalt/ Ich was sex vnd zwanzig jor alt/|Albrecht
Dürer/Monogramm).
One of the most important and representative works
which expresses the inner spirituality of Dürer is his selfportrait when he was 30 years old (Figure 7). It is said that thiswork intends the expression of the imitation of Jesus. The

inscription reads: “Albertus Dürer, the man of Noricus. I havepainted myself in my own colors in this way in my 28th year.” (Albertus Durenus Noricus /ipsum me propriis sic effin/ gebam coloribus aetatis / anno XXVIII). His eyes look straightahead, but not into ours. The pupils have a gleam, which looks at no object. One can say thatthey present the inner sphere of the Godness of the painter, and draw us into this sphere. It
should be remembered that the way of life called the “imitatio Christi,” begun by Francis of
Assisi, was philosophically developed by Thomas á Kempis (1380-1471) in his writing “Deimitatio Christi”, and spread above all among the monastic order of Francis. Dürer, who wasborn the year in which Thomas à Kempis died, must have been familiar with the thought of
the imitation of Christ. Just in this historical context it is also understandable that the figure ofDürer is depicted in the proportion of the golden section, as has been pointed out by specialists [4], the proportion which is often adopted for depicting divine figures.
For our understanding of this self-portrait in the context of western philosophical thinking,one thing should be pointed out first. The self-portrait has two aspects: the figure of Christ
and that of Dürer. It has two centers, Christ and Dürer. Both must overlap each other, but justbecause of this overlapping, the portrait indicates also the possibility that it differs from thereal image of Dürer, and accordingly, the possibility of the split between human being anddivine being.
For a deeper understanding of the spiritual meaning of this possibility, it will be helpfull
to quote the philosophy of F.W.J. Schelling. In his treatise on the essence of the human freedom, Schelling found the essential character of human freedom in the capacity for committing
evil. It was the same problem as the question, why there is evil in the world, which was
created by the sublime being, God. Schelling’s solution is that the reason for the existence ofevil must be in God, but have a root which is independent of God.[5] The reason lies in “thenature in God,” which is the “ground of the existence of God, but not God, so far as he exists.”
The nature in God is like dark gravity in comparison with light. This dark nature is notseparable from God, but is distinguished from God. These two principles—on the one hand,the blind and egoistic will of the human being as creature, and on the other, the universal willof light—can split apart, so that the principle of the darkness takes the upper hand over the

Dürer and Sesshū as Spiritual History

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light. Then “the possibility of good and evil” becomes real.[6] Only the human being has thesetwo principle in himself, “the deepest abyss and the highest heaven, or two centers.”[7]Dürer, who lived three centuries before Schelling, was of course not conscious of thispossibility. But his self-portrait depicts two centers, Dürer and Christ, or, in the formulation of
Schelling, “the being (das Wesen), so far as he exists” and “the being (das Wesen), so far as it is
the ground for his existence.”[8] With Dürer who believed as Renaissance painter in God, thesplit did not take place. The human being remains similar to Christ without revolting against
God. The human being, which possesses two centers, is superior to other creatures andtherefore to the natural world. The spirit of the human being has superiority over the physicalworld, so that the painting of the human figure became a more important motif than thelandscape or still life. This tendency continued until the beginning of the modern age, whenart came to refuse obedience to religion and attempt to be “art for the sake of art,” l’art pour l’art.
Dürer was a painter who built a fundamental pillar of this tradition before the modern age.

3. “Human Being” and “Nature” in Sesshû
Let us turn to Sesshû. We find in his paintings a tendency opposite to that of Dürer, that is,
the superiority of the painting of the natural landscape—the so-called mountain-river painting—on that of the human figure. Let us look at a self-portrait painted when Sesshû was 71 years
old (Figure 8). It has an inscription in which Sesshû identifies himself as the first monk in the
Tendô temple in China under the Ming dynasty. We see that Sesshû thought of himself not asa mere “painter,” but as a “monk painter” who depicts his inner state of awakening. To what
extent can this work be described as a masterpiece? It is undoubtedly great, but it is surely aquestion whether it is to be judged as superlative in comparison with Sesshû’s mountain-riverpaintings. Some of us will reserve judgment, asking themselves if the depicted figure adequately expresses what the inscribed poem states: “He sharply tells the truth that the flower
as a phenomenon is empty (non-existent), having originally no form and not appearing.”
Although the portrait represents a matureand calm monk-painter, some critics will
miss the inner sharpness and power praisedin the inscribed poem. Might this deficiency
be due to the advanced age of the 71 year old
painter? But six years later, Sesshû accomplished his greatest masterpiece, “Eka cuts
[off his arm at] the elbow.” (Figure 9). It is an
excellent painting of human figures. As we

Fig.8: Sesshus selfportrait

Fig.9: Eka cuts [off his
arm at] the elbow

will note later, however, not only the outerfigure of the human beings, but their inner
nature is depicted, expressed in the paintingof mountain and river. The inner as well as
the outer nature is the subject of the painting.
To see this, it will be helpful to view someŌHASHI Ryōsuke

136

representative mountain-river paintings.
Recalling Dürer’s work “The tree at a stone quarry,” let us
consider Sesshû’s work “Winter painting” (Figure 10), one of the pairof paintings entitled “Mountain-river in autumn and winter.” Theworks of Dürer and Sesshû are similar in constitution in that theline in the middle stretches vertically upward. In the work of Dürer,this line is made by a tree, and in the work of Sesshû, the line of themountain ridge is in the middle. It divides the picture into the rightand left side. The left side is the winter mountain covered with thesnow. The right side is a huge precipice, on which seemingly many
trees are growing, though in reality these “trees” are typical “rockwrinkles,” as is used in the traditional mountin-river painting to
Fig.10: Winter painting
express the cubic effect.[9] But the thick, vertical line in the middle,
vigorously streching into the heaven, can not be understood on the ground of this traditional
painting code, because such a line can not exist in such misty mountains where a haze ishanging. It is obviously the expression of the spirit of the monk-painter, as is written in a Zen
poem: “Cutting both heads simultaneously, the sword stretches onto the heavens, glistening
and cold.” The outer constitution of both works, Dürer’s and Sesshû’s, is similar, but thespiritual atmosphere and tension are quite different. Dürer painted the landscape of the stone
quarry surely with curiosity, but not with much attention to the divinity of nature, which hesaw in the four apostles or in his own self-portrait.
In Sesshû’s mountain-river painting, the external
world is painted as the expression of the inner nature of
the human being. This is clearly seen in the so-called 16
meter long “Long Scroll of Mountains and Rivers (part)”(Figure 11). The mountain to which a Taoist monk climbs
is the place of his practice, and the depicted scenes in themountain are the stages of his mind in practice. The main
Fig.11: Long Scroll of Mountains
and Rivers (1)subject is “nature” and not the mere human being. The
persons who appear in the mountain-river painting arealways very small, while the mountains are high and steep.
But an objection could be raised here: How is it with the masterpiece mentioned before, “Ekacuts the elbow” (Figure 9). Is it not a picture of two human beings, Bodhidharma and Eka?
This scene is well known in the history of Zen Buddhism. Bodhidharma was practicing
alone, always sitting in front of the wall. One day a man named Eka, who became later thesecond patriarch of Zen Buddhism, visited him requesting to become his disciple. Dharma did
not allowed at first Eka to become his disciple. At last Eka, who remained outside of thetemple, cut off his arm at the elbow to show his resolve and the inner state of his mind. Why
has Eka cut his elbow? The dialog between the two is delivered in a quite short form: The
second patriarch Eka asked the master Bodhidharma, “My heart is not yet relieved. Please,
Master, relieve my heart. Bodhidharma said to him, Bring your heart to me, then I will relieve it for you. Eka said, I have sought my heart, but the heart is nowhere to be grasped.

Dürer and Sesshū as Spiritual History

137

Bodhidharma said to him, I have relieved your heart for you”.[10]The subject is the “heart,” which means, first, the mind, and in Buddhism, the Buddhanature or the self of the human being. It is nowhere to be found or grasped, because it is intruth emptiness (sunyata). The work of Sesshû, in which this ungraspable heart should be
depicted, is not quite original in its pictorial motif. There is a forerunner in China, the work of
the leader of the Setsu-school, Taishin. But there is a decisive difference between the two.
With Taishin, the cavern in the mountain offers a mere spatial place in which two masters are
sitting, while with Sesshû the cavern is drawn in a way that is expressive of the inner spiritualstate of the two masters. This should be shown by the structural analysis of the work.
Note at first that the line depicting the right half of the entrance of the cavern repeats theoutline of the body of Bodhidharma sitting in front of the rock wall. The cavern andBodhidharma are similar to each other, indicating that the cavern manifests the heart ofBodhidharma. When we look into the cavern, we see the steps, one above another, towards
the inner recesses, but we cannot see the end. That the heart cannot be gained and is infinitely
deep is expressed visually by the figure of the cavern. In the upper part of the entrance, there
are two curious holes which seemingly were made by wind and rain. The right hole is locatedin a place lying along a line with the jaw and the eye of Bodhidharma. The right hole could
therefore be understood as the visualized form of the mind’s eye, in Japanese-Chinese: hearteye, of Bodhidharma. The left hole a little behind is located in the place under which the headof Eka is drawn. The outline built by the back of Eka and his head, on the one hand, and theline of the wall along with the left hole, on the other hand, are, as in the case of Bodhidharma,
parallel to each other. The left hole may thus be understood as the stylized form of the hearteye of Eka. The two heart-eyes at the entrance of the cavern show that this cavern is no mere
physical form accidentally made by wind and rain.[11] We are reminded here that also in thelast scene of “Long Scroll of Mountains and Rivers,” there is a rock that has the same “heart-eye”
as the entrance of the cavern in the work “Eka cuts his elbow.”
The whole body of Bodhidharma, except his face, is covered with a white piece of cloth,
which has surely the same meaning as the “snow” in the last scene in “Long Scroll of Mountains
and Rivers (part).”(Figure 12) Bodhidharma’s body is a phenomenon wrapped with the whiterobe of the “emptiness”. Eka cut off his arm inorder to show that his “heart” is never to be
grasped. His hand is now also in the mode of theFig.12: Long Scroll of Mountains andRivers (2)“empty hand” which has no substance and does
not come into appearance. Sesshû must have

known the Zen-word, “With empty hands graspa spade, and ride a water buffalo while walking
on foot.” This empty hand of Eka is depicted on the same height as the seat of Bodhidharma.
The thick line depicting the knee and shoulder of Bodhidharma, when it is prolonged, reaches
the head and the right arm of Eka, so that the position of Eka can be seen as that of the“successor” of Bodhidharma.
The eye of Eka has the same quality as that of Dharma in the sense that it does not look atanything outside. It is directed to his own “heart,” like the self-portrait of Dürer, but the heartŌHASHI Ryōsuke

138of the latter expresses “Godness,” while the former expresses “emptiness.” The middle fingerof the left hand of Eka, which was cut off, is directed upwards and its line, if prolonged,
connects with the line of the back of Bodhidharma. It indicates the “upward direction” in Zen
practice. His right hand holding the left hand is covered with a piece of cloth like the body ofBodhidharma. The real body in the sense of emptiness is the origin of his activity, but it must
be concealed as the invisible “heart.”[12] Thus, the work “Eka cuts [off his arm at] the elbow”
can be regarded not only as a painting of “human beings,” but also and in truth a painting of
the inner “nature,” which is expressed as the nature of the cavern in the mountain.
All these works, “Mountain and River Painting in Autumn and Winter,” “Long Scroll of
Mountains and Rivers,” and “Eka cuts [off his arm at] the elbow,” depict the Chinese landscape andthe figure of Chinese human beings which Sesshû himself saw during his stay in China. In order to express his
own “heart,” one more step remains, and this is realizedin his last masterpiece, “Ama no hashidate” (Figure 13),the landscape in the northern district of Kyoto. In thisFig.13: Ama no hashidate

work, all the names of the places elaborately depictedexisted once or exist still today, so that they give clues topinpoint the year of this work. But it is also known that
there is no real place from which one can look down
Amanohashidate from this angle. The work is not arealist painting, but obviously it is also not a fiction.
Usually the realist painting means that a real object is depicted. It aims at “resemblance.”
But, to underscore what seems to be self-evident and banal at first, resemblance means that the
depicted figure is not the real object as itself. Can an artwork, so long as it depicts something,
do so only in the way of “mimêsis”? Can an object in a realist painting never be depicted in its“self”? It is a fundamental and philosophical question, whether there can be no depiction ofthings as mimêsis in the usual sense of the word, that is, as a copy. Should the possibility be
excluded of seeing something in its “self” by way of becoming one with this something? Is it
not possible for a painter to depict something by way of becoming this object?
Let us look into the work “Ama no hashidate” (Figure 13) again. Sesshû paints the wholeview, but at the same time he depicts the small details without distinguishing between nearand far things. The whole view is seen just with its details in close-up, so that the feeling ofreality is expressed in every part. There is still another secret in producing this realistic feeling.
It is the way of depicting human beings, which are seemingly nowhere to be found, though thesmall details are depicted so elaborately. This is not because human beings are too small to be
depicted. It is often the case that in usual mountain-water paintings, the small figures ofhuman beings in high and steep mountains are depicted somewhere. The scale of thelandscape “Ama no hashidate” must enable the depiction of human beings. Truly, they are
depicted, but not in the way in which they can be distinguished as human figures with arms
and legs. For example, we see some boats on the sea, and in the boat small dark points. There
are some points also in the inner part of the temple gate. When we gaze at them attentively,
perhaps with a magnifying glass, we can perceive four persons talking with each other.

Dürer and Sesshū as Spiritual History

139

Sesshû painted, in addition to “Ama no hashidate”, some works in which boats are floating
in a big river, and human beings on the boat are depicted like small dark points. But in theseworks, the details of the landscape are not so elaborately depicted as in “Ama no hashidate.”
What does it mean for us? It means that the landscape “Ama no hashidate” is not the world inwhich no human beings exist, but rather the world where human beings blend in with thenatural world. They are not absent. Rather, nature expresses the way of human existence. One isreminded of the words of the Zen master Dōgen, who wrote: “The present mountains andrivers are the presence of the way of old Buddhas.” Sesshû himself blends in with the landscape “Ama no hashidate” and depicts all as his selfless self, so that he himself, his hand and eye,are present in every tree, every house, every rock and boat. Formally, one can say that all
artworks, in so far as they are produced by the artist, express the hand and eye of the artist.
But it is another problem, if just this banal fact builds the essential character of the work. In“Ama no hashidate” we can feel the presence of Sesshû himself. When we see in the canvas thelandscape of “Ama no hashidate”, then the painter Sesshû retreats and hides himself behind thelandscape. He is “empty” in the sense that he is nowhere to be grasped. But if we see thewhole landscape as the existence of the painter himself and regard it as the presence of Sesshû,as was meant in the words of Dōgen, then the landscape “Ama no hashidate” retreats aslandscape and becomes “empty”. Sesshû reaches the art-world in which the Zen word isrealized: “In having nothing, the inexhaustible all is present”.

Closing reflection
What will come out of the comparative study above of Dürer and Sesshû in view of thespiritual history in Europe and Japan? The two painted worlds could be characterized withthe concepts, Godness and emptiness.[13] The concepts do not indicate two separate worlds,
because Godness is neither an entity nor some being, and the emptiness expresses here the unexhaustible all. The expressions are quite different from each other, but not alien to each other,because the spiritual sphere they indicate are in accordance with each other in the deep layer.
We find there a marvelous accordance expressed six centuries ago by two painters, the one inEurope and the another in Japan.
This fact brings us to a question which goes beyond the range of an aesthetic reflection,
the question about the whereabouts of the spiritual ground of the age past and that of thecontemporary world. The world today has become not only secular but also ‘a-religious’ in thesense that religion as itself no longer possesses the central function of giving the sense to thelife or of forming the world, except in the political context. In the pictorial works of bothpainters is reflected precisely the world of theirs which has become alien to our world, and justbecause of this alien-ness these works put our world into question regarding the significanceof life and nature. A consideration of this question is the original motif of the present
comparative reflection.

140ŌHASHI Ryōsuke

Notes[1] The original Japanese version of this paper was published in: Scheringu nempô (Schelling Jahrbuch),
Vol.15, 2007, pp.19-31. This paper is not a faithful translation of the original. It was presented at
the symposium, organized by Prof. Dennis Hirota and held in Center for Buddhism and Contemporary Thought at Ryûkoku University/Kyoto on 25. October 2007. The text was grammaticallychecked and bettered by Prof. Hirota, and the author is deeply grateful for him. This version
shortens the original and contains some corrections which are designated in annotation 2, 9 and 11.
[2] In the original of this paper the author adopted this interpretation, but here he finds necessary tochange his interpretation.
[3] See for example the following web site which is well-known and regarded in general as reliable:
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/d/durer/1/10/5_4holy2.html. But the reason given in thisweb site for identification of Paul, that Paul was decapitated with sword, is too roundabout. A
direct reference to the Holy Testament should be adopted, as is done here.
[4] Fedia Anzelewsky, Albrecht Dürer. Das malerische Werk. Berlin, 1971. (Japanese edition with thetranslation: Tokyo 1982) : “Das wesentliche Problem bei der Konstruktion ist die Ermittlung desgoldenen Schnittes. Winzinger hat ihn anscheinend rechnerisch festgelegt. Dürer dürfte ihn
konstruiert haben. Er kann dafür zwei Methoden verwendet haben. Beide haben den Vorzug
größter Einfachheit und lassen sich mit “Zirkel und Richtscheit” ausführen. (S. 166 in the Japaneseedition).
[5] F.W.J. Schelling, Philosophische Untersuchungen über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit und die
damit zusammenhängenden Gegenstände, Originalwerke, VII, p. 354.
[6] Ibid., p. 364.
[7] Ibid., p. 363.
[8] Ibid., p. 357.
[9] In the original version (see the annotation 1) the author interpreted them as trees and not as rock
wrinkles. Concerning this part, the interpretation should be corrected on the grounds of the
traditional “code.” The author owes this understanding to Arata Shimao, a well-known Sesshû
specialist. There still remains a problem in that a free, vigorous, vertical line in the middle of thepicture deviates far from this traditional code, as Shimao pointed out, and can not be explainedby it. The right side far away of the precipice deviates also from the appearance of a part of thecliff. It looks like a mountain area with trees, as the author presented at the opportunity of thesymposium for the 600th anniversary of the death of Sesshû, held in the Yamaguchi prefectural
museum on 3. November 2006, together with Shimao. The author presented there an earlier
version of this paper.
[10] See the Kôan collection Kattôshû, Chap. 1 “Relieving the heart of the Second Patriarch.” The same
scene is also given in the 41th question of the Kôan collection “Mumonkan”.
[11] Here, the structural analysis of this picture is more detailed than in the original version of thepaper. This revision is in author’s view one of the important differences between the Japaneseand English version.
[12] The similar case is found in the work of Ryôkai “Sakyamuni-Dharma descending the mountain”. The
hand of Sakyamuni is covered with a piece of cloth. See R. Ohashi, Der Ort des Augenblicks. Zu
den Bildern “Krönung Mariens” und “Sakyamuni”, in: Sein und Nichts, (Mitautor: H. Rombach und K.
Tsujimura), Herder Verlag, Freiburg i.Br. 1981, S. 56-71.
[13] The author is conscious that the word Godness is not given in an dictionary. The more common
expression is “divinity,” which may have too broad a meaning. “Godhead” also comes to mind,
but this may be overly specific as the “God beyond God.” “Godhood” is possible, but rare in
English, and would seem to be reserved for God. In order to be careful and to avoid any bias for
a comparative reflection, the author allows him the curious word Godness”.