Like many of Fūgai’s Daruma portraits, this example showcases his haunting figural style, which employs carefully brushed details in light gray ink, accented by darker black flourishes. This technique can be traced to the “ghost” or “apparition” paintings made by Chinese monk-painters during the Song Dynasty, which were highly influential for early Japanese monk-painters. Despite his very traditional subject matter and style, Fūgai did not follow the typical trajectory of a Zen monk, giving up temple life for a solitary existence in the wilderness, a tendency that can perhaps be discerned in his spare compositions of single figures.

—Bradley Bailey