Overview
Rough-hewn smiling Buddhas by the wandering monk Mokujiki, rediscovered by Soetsu Yanagi.
About this place
Mokujiki Shōnin (木喰上人, 1718 – 6 July 1810), also recorded as Mokujiki Gogyō Myōman (木喰五行明満), was a Japanese Buddhist monk, itinerant sculptor, calligrapher, painter, and poet of the late Edo period. Beginning in his early sixties, he carved more than a thousand wooden Buddhist statues—each inscribed on the reverse with the date of completion and his religious name—which he left at temples, shrines, and villages across Japan during four decades of nationwide pilgrimage. His mature works are characterized by rounded forms, smiling expressions (bishō-butsu, 微笑仏), and the deliberate retention of chisel marks on unvarnished single-block wood. This late style—most fully developed after age eighty—is regularly contrasted with the vigorous, angular carving of the earlier itinerant monk-sculptor Enkū (1632–1695), with whom Mokujiki is habitually paired in Japanese art scholarship and exhibition. Largely forgotten after his death, his works were rediscovered in the early 1920s by the philosopher and art critic Yanagi Sōetsu, whose research directly inspired the coinage of the term mingei (民藝, "people's craft") in 1925 and the subsequent Mingei movement.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source ja.wikipedia.org ↗Key facts
Founded / opened：1800s Architect / artist：Mokujiki Highlights / collection：Smiling wooden Buddhas Genre：Sculpture, Antique art and Buddhist art
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