The sixth patriarch cutting the bamboo by Liang Kai, Southern Song period/13th century

[Photo/emuseum.jp]

Liang Kai was a Chinese painter of the Southern Song Dynasty. The personalities of the characters are connected tightly with the simple, direct and joyful lines in the painting. It was originally housed in the Old Summer Palace. And then it was handed down to Japan, after the Ashikaga clan, to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Nishihongan temple, and the Sakai clan in Wakasa. And now it is preserved at the Tokyo National Museum.