Arhat Holding Pagoda

Arhat Holding Pagoda (羅漢, Rakan) is a 1917 hanging-scroll painting by Hashimoto Kansetsu in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art, depicting an arhat (Japanese rakan; Sanskrit arhat) — one of the enlightened disciples of the historical Buddha who serve as protectors of the Dharma — holding a miniature pagoda. The subject belongs to a long East Asian Buddhist painting tradition: arhats appear in groups of sixteen, eighteen, or five hundred in Chinese and Japanese painting from the Song dynasty onward, often as eccentric, sometimes grotesque figures whose deep meditation manifests outwardly in unusual posture and expression. Kansetsu's treatment draws on the Song models he studied during his China travels, especially the eccentric arhat painting tradition associated with Chan Buddhist painters such as Liang Kai and Muqi, and combines those references with a nihonga discipline of ink and color on paper learned through Takeuchi Seihō. The painting is signed Kansetsu (関雪) and is one of the most important Kansetsu works in an American institutional collection.