Fengzi Zhen's Calligraphy <Painting>

The Colophon That Outlived Its Painting: Feng Zizhen's National Treasure Calligraphy

Sometime in the sixteenth century, the tea master Sen no Rikyu wrote a short letter about a wide sheet of Chinese calligraphy. The owner was apparently considering cutting it into several narrower hanging scrolls, a common fate for oversized works in the tea world. Rikyu advised against it: the piece should stay as it was. The scroll survived intact, and in 1952 it was designated a National Treasure of Japan as Feng Zizhen bokuseki (gahatsu), the "painting colophon" in the hand of the Yuan dynasty literatus Feng Zizhen. Rikyu's letter, dated only "the sixth day of the first month," is now designated together with it as an attached document.

The work belongs to the Tokiwayama Bunko foundation and is kept on deposit at the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno, Tokyo. It is a single hanging scroll, ink on paper, written in China during the Yuan dynasty, in the fourteenth century.

A Postscript Without a Painting

A colophon, or batsubun in Japanese, is an appreciation written at the end of a handscroll, usually by a later viewer rather than the artist. This one was composed by Feng Zizhen (born 1257; his death date is given variously in the sources) for a handscroll of plants and insects attributed to Yi Yuanji, a Northern Song painter active in the eleventh century. Yi Yuanji built his reputation on close observation of living creatures, above all gibbons and monkeys, but also the small inhabitants of gardens and fields. In the colophon, Feng Zizhen records his admiration for the lifelike quality of the painted grasses and insects.

The painting itself is lost. Only the words written in its honor remain, which gives the scroll its slightly melancholy character: praise for images no one alive has seen. For that reason the work is also known under the descriptive title Yi Yuanji gakan batsu, the colophon to the Yi Yuanji painting scroll.

Feng Zizhen served as an official under the Yuan dynasty and was known among his contemporaries for composing verse and prose at remarkable speed. He signed his works with the sobriquet Haisu, "Sea Millet," and the signature Haisu Doujin (Haisu the Daoist) appears on works in his hand. His calligraphy is distinguished by an energetic, unhesitating movement of the brush, and museum commentary on this scroll points to the vigor of the character forms.

Why a Chinese Literatus's Handwriting Became a Japanese National Treasure

The designation makes more sense once you know how this kind of object reached Japan. From the mid-thirteenth century onward, Zen monks traveled in both directions between Japan and the continent, carrying paintings, ceramics, and above all bokuseki, ink traces written by Chinese masters. Feng Zizhen was not a monk, but he moved in circles connected to that traffic. Another work in his hand, a poem presented to the Japanese pilgrim monk Muin Genkai, is likewise designated a National Treasure, which suggests how directly his brush touched the Japan-bound networks of the period.

Once in Japan, Chinese calligraphy of this kind found a second life in the tea room. A scroll hung in the alcove set the tone for the entire gathering, and writings associated with the continent carried particular prestige. Rikyu's surviving letter about this very scroll, reportedly addressed to a contemporary owner, shows the most influential figure in the history of tea engaging with it as a living object of connoisseurship. The letter praises the calligraphy and states plainly that cutting it would spoil it.

So the National Treasure designation of November 22, 1952 honors several things at once: a rare authentic work by a Yuan literatus, a document of the Song painting it once accompanied, and a witness to four centuries of Japanese collecting taste, from medieval Zen circles to the tea culture of the sixteenth century.

What to Look For

The first surprise is the format. The scroll is unusually wide for a hanging scroll, with the written surface extending to roughly 120 centimeters across. Most calligraphy displayed in Japanese alcoves is tall and narrow; this one spreads sideways like the handscroll it originally concluded. Standing before it, you can mentally reattach the lost painting to its left, unrolling backward into the eleventh century.

Look next at the pace of the brush. Feng Zizhen had a reputation for speed, and the columns of characters keep an even momentum without becoming careless. Ink tones shift as the brush runs dry and is recharged, which lets you reconstruct the order and rhythm of the writing session.

Finally, find the signature. The name Haisu Doujin near the end is the writer stepping forward in person, the eleventh-century painter and the fourteenth-century admirer sharing a single sheet across three hundred years.

One practical note: the scroll is not on permanent display. It appears periodically in thematic exhibitions, most often at the Tokyo National Museum, and has traveled to the Kyoto National Museum and the Kamakura Kokuhokan museum for special shows, including the landmark "National Treasures" exhibition in Kyoto in 2017 and exhibitions marking the 80th anniversary of the Tokiwayama Bunko in 2023. Checking the museum's exhibition schedule before a visit is essential.

The Tokiwayama Bunko Collection

The owner of the scroll, the Tokiwayama Bunko, grew from the private collecting of the businessman Sugawara Tsusai (1894-1981), who began acquiring works in earnest in 1943. The collection centers on Zen monks' calligraphy, Chinese and Japanese painting, Chinese ceramics, and images of the deity Tenjin, and today includes two National Treasures and twenty-one Important Cultural Properties. The foundation takes its name from the Tokiwayama hill in Kamakura where Sugawara lived. Its works are now deposited at the Tokyo National Museum, the Kyushu National Museum, and the Keio Museum Commons, and appear in loan exhibitions across Japan.

Around the Tokyo National Museum

The Tokyo National Museum sits at the north end of Ueno Park, about a ten-minute walk from JR Ueno Station (Park Exit). Chinese calligraphy and painting, including works on deposit from the Tokiwayama Bunko, are usually shown in the Toyokan, the Asian Gallery to the right of the main gate. Photography rules vary by gallery and by individual loan object, so watch for the no-camera icon on labels.

Ueno Park concentrates an unusual number of museums within walking distance: the National Museum of Western Art, housed in a Le Corbusier building inscribed on the World Heritage List, the National Museum of Nature and Science, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. Kaneiji temple and the Toshogu shrine, with its gilded Edo-period buildings, are also inside the park. For a meal, the old shopping street of Ameyoko begins just south of Ueno Station, and the quieter Yanaka district, with its temples and small galleries, lies a short walk northwest of the museum.