Bodhidharma (Daruma) Bust Portrait

With few but immensely powerful brushstrokes, Bodhidharma is captured here in bust portrait, the bushy beard hair and the characteristic headdress rendered in dense, almost calligraphic black, while the face and hand are colored in warm earth tones.

Unlike many finely detailed depictions, this Bodhidharma appears raw and immediate, almost like a single energy-charged brushstroke that captures the charismatic presence of the first Zen patriarch. Here too, a reed stalk is suggested, a reference to the legend of his river crossing.

This reduced, expressive pictorial language stands in the tradition of Zenga painting, in which Buddhist monks and painters captured religious motifs in a spontaneous, meditative brush style. The kakemono is painted on paper, fitted with jikusaki made of synthetic material, and was presumably created in the Shôwa period.