_At first glance, this bit of ink on a sheet of white paper seems dull and plain, but as one gazes at it, it transforms itself into an image of nature--a small part of nature, to be sure, seen dimly, as though through a mist, but a part that may guide one's spirit to the magnificent whole. Armed with pigments by the dozen, artists have tried for centuries to reproduce the true colors of nature, but at best theirs has been a limited success. The _sumi-e _[ink painting], by reducing all colors to shades of black, is able, paradoxically, to make one feel their genuine nuances. . . . By recognizing that the real colors of nature cannot be reproduced exactly, the _sumi-e _artist has grasped one of the most fundamental truths of nature. He is, therefore, more in tune with her than the painter who tries to engage her in oils and water colors.1 _ Zen painting seems to have been created, like the religion itself, by antischolastic thinkers of the latter T'ang dynasty. The eccentric monks who invented _koan_ paradoxes also seem to have been fond of calligraphy and monochrome painting. These monks, together with non- Buddhist painters at odds with academic styles, loved to outrage their conservative colleagues by flinging ink at the paper and smearing it about with their hands, their hair, or sometimes the body of an assistant. Even those who restricted themselves to the brush delighted in caricature and unconventional styles. The school of painting represented by disaffected Tang literati and Ch'an monks came to be well respected (much like the abstract expressionist school of today) and was given the name of "untrammeled class." During the Sung dynasty, Ch'an monks became respectable members of Chinese society, and gradually three distinct types of Ch'an-influenced painting were established. One, known in Japanese as _zenkiga_, featured didactic figure paintings (_zenki-zu_) illustrating Ch'an parables, depicting Bodhidharma in some legendary situation, recording the critical moment of a _koan_, or simply illustrating a Zen adept practicing self- discipline through some humble task. The second type was portraiture, known as _chinzo_. These solemn, reverential studies of well-known teachers, sometimes executed in muted pastels as well as in ink, clearly were intended to represent the physical likeness of the sitter as closely as possible. They must be ranked among the world's finest portraits. The insight into character in the _chinzo_ is not so harsh as that of Rembrandt nor so formal as that of the Renaissance Florentines, but as sympathetic psychological studies they have rarely been surpassed.