This handscroll, the only known example by Sengai, is a masterwork featuring important episodes in the lives of historic Zen monks, all immortalized in the artist’s playful style. For example, Kanzan and Jittoku read to each other as their friend Bukan approaches them atop his tame—and bug-eyed—tiger. Another vignette shows the Tang Dynasty sage Kensu (or Xianzi, in Chinese), who was notorious for eschewing vegetarianism and dining on clams and prawns. Another part of the scroll depicts an infamous incident in which the monk Nansen (Nanchuan, in Chinese, 748–835) threatened to flay a cat if his disciples could not properly speak about Zen.

 

—Bradley Bailey