Nansen Cuts the Cat in Two

A monk with a long beard and tousled hair fills the tall format. He holds a sword in one hand and raises the other high, pinching a small cat. Rough brushwork that makes full use of dark and light ink gives even his flowing robe a sense of energy. The signature and seal are at the lower left.

The subject, Nansen cutting the cat, comes from a story about the Tang-dynasty Chinese Zen monk Nanquan Puyuan (Nansen Fugan in Japanese). When his disciples were arguing over whether a cat has Buddha-nature, Nansen cut the cat to end the quarrel at its root. When he later put the same question to his senior disciple Joshu, Joshu put his sandal on his head and walked out, and Nansen is said to have lamented that the cat would have been spared had Joshu been there.

The museum says that, judging from the worn state of the signature and seal, the work can be dated to Shohaku's early thirties. It presents one scene of a difficult Zen exchange through the strong presence of a single figure.