Kakemono Kanzan and Jittoku

With disheveled hair, tattered robes, and exuberant expressions, two familiar figures of East Asian art appear in this kakemono: Kanzan and Jittoku, the eccentric sages who, in both Chinese and Japanese tradition, are regarded as the embodiment of unconventional wisdom and joie de vivre.

One carries a long staff with a gourd, the other leans laughing against his companion. The expressive faces with their exaggerated expressions and the loose, almost caricature-like brushwork are characteristic of depictions of these two figures, who are deliberately shown outside social conventions and courtly etiquette. Their unrestrained laughter is emblematic of a wisdom that reveals itself not through form and etiquette, but through the spontaneous recognition of the essential.

Motifs of Kanzan and Jittoku were highly popular in Zen-influenced painting, as they offered a refreshingly unacademic counterpoint to austere scholar figures. For collectors of humorous yet philosophically charged subjects, this kakemono is a lively addition.