Gods at leisure: myths, history and intimacy in Su Renshan’s Literati Buddhist Art

Abstract

The study of religious art in the Qing dynasty primarily focuses on the imperial patronage of Tibetan Buddhism and issues of intercultural connections at the frontiers and in the capital. Another area that has received scholarly attention is the Jesuits and the impact of Western art. Buddhist art of the Mahayana tradition is, in comparison, a minor area for researchers, and in part because conventional histories suggest that Chinese Buddhism and its arts peaked in the Song period. In the seventeenth century, however, the revival of Chan Buddhism in southeast China, which was linked to a growing maritime trade in Asia, sees a growing market for Buddhist arts. There is remarkably little scholarship on this subject, and this paper provides only a small window to examine some of the repercussions of this revival in the early nineteenth century. Focusing on paintings by Su Renshan, I will investigate how this artist brings together two unlikely bedfellows: kaozheng scholarship with its emphasis on empirical research, and Buddhism that rests on the intangible nature of faith. Through close readings of a small sample of Su Renshan’s paintings, I will demonstrate how the artists drew on kaozheng methods and the materials often associated with evidential scholarship including engravings and rubbings. By examining his images of gatherings of religious figures when they are at leisure, a question is raised concerning whether we can still consider these works as religious imagery because the gods are not on duty. Instead we have intimate images of communities of religious figures, what do gatherings mean in this new context?