Enku, Sculptor of a Hundred Thousand Buddhas

Download or read book Enku, Sculptor of a Hundred Thousand Buddhas written by Kazuaki Tanahashi and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 1982 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is a magnificently illustrated collection of the sculpture of Enku, a seventeenth-century monk, now emerging as one of the most important sculptors in the history of Japanese art. Although hundreds of years old, Enku's work has been justly compared to modern Western expressionist art. The composition is abstract and the form simple, unique and free from traditional iconography. Details were abbreviated with an economy of strokes and the style created such a rought and direct quality that Enku's work seems extremely "modern." The author traces Enku's life and the development of his art-- reproducing many of his fine sculptures. There is also a rich sampling of Enku's poetry and the varied folklore that surrounds him.