Monday, January 21, 2008

Miyamoto Musashi

Calligraphy and paintings by Miyamoto Musashi, who wrote A Book of Five Rings (Gorin no shô)

A cormorant, ink on paper
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A dragon (detail of a large painting)
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Horse
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The god, Hotei, contemplating two fighting cocks. Hotei is one of the gods of good fortune.
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The calligraphy on the left is Senki, the War Spirit. It reads, "The Moon in the cold stream like a mirror." The drawing on the right shows Daruma (Bodhidharma) the father of Zen Buddhism in China and Japan
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A shrike
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One side of a screen
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The other side
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Not by Miyamoto, but an imaginary depiction of what he might have looked like
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Also not by Miyamoto, this is the character Earth (or Ground) by Dr. K. Itoh (Earth is the first book in Five Rings)
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The character Void by Dr. K. Itoh (Void is the last book in Five Rings)
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Sources: About half the images are scans from the book. The others came from an image search. Ultimately, most are reproductions of works held by the Eisei Bunko museum in Tokyo (described here).

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