Mang Vang
An Artistic Examination of “Neighbor”
When one thinks of Zen, one tends to think of black and white calligraphy paintings, tea ceremonies, or dry rock gardens among others, but rarely woodblock prints. So can a woodblock print be Zen? Before we can answer this question, we first have to have an understanding of what Zen is.
Zen signifies the Buddhist practice of opening and letting go of oneself to become one with nature or the universe through calmness and tranquility. It can be translated as “meditation”, “contemplation”, or “immersion” (Brinker and Kanazawa, 12). However, Zen has no absolute definition and “everyone is entitled to his or her own view” (Westgeest, 13-14). Thus, to define what Zen is would be a contamination to its essence and its “enlightenment clarity” (Brinker and Kanazawa, 12). On the other hand, Zen has been known as “‘a teaching without words’” for the visual art conveys the spiritual emotions that reveal the “Zen Mind” (Seo and Addiss, 15-16).
There are seven qualities that distinguish Zen art from others and these qualities are: 1) asymmetry, 2) simplicity, 3) unadorned loftiness, 4) spontaneity, 5) spiritual adept, 6) unworldliness, and 7) inner serenity (Brinker and Kanaza, 38). In other words, if a woodblock print embodies these seven qualities in any shape or form, then it is Zen. Then one can safely say that Micah Schwaberow’s woodblock print, which accompanies William Stafford’s poem, Neighbors, is a work of Zen aesthetic because it meets these seven traits.
The print is not symmetrical, for the four edges of the print are rocky, curvy, or indefinable as in the nature of mountains. The edges are not straight and visible to lock the composition within the rectangular space. Even the clouds, are organic in their shapes. They seem to flow freely in the clear and vast open sky unbound by earthly gravitation. Thus, in this aspect, the print is Zen. It also personifies simplicity because it is black and cool gray, a color that blends into white when standing at a distance. The print consists of two layers and thus, in this too, it is simple in comparison to other woodblock prints that consist of six and more layers of multicolor.
There is no loftiness emanating from the print because it has no name. It is merely an ambiguous, shadowy reflection of Neighbors, the poem. In a way, it is content with its existence. Also, with or without the poem, it does not scream out that it is of mountains. In this sense, the imagery is abstract and fleeting, like T.D Suzuki wrote, “[J]ust when you imagine you are catching a glimpse of it (Zen), it disappears” (Westgeest, 11). Thus, Micah Schwaberow’s print is Zen in this quality as well.
The fourth quality, spontaneity, implies energy. Although Schwaberow’s print lacks the bursting kind of energy, it has its own source of energy. That is in its quietness; its energy gently flows out like a sweet whisper in the wind. This quiet energy is a direct connection to its spiritual adept. One can stare at the print, search its surface for that fleeting meaningful existence, and feel at peace, swimming in that calm spiritual pool of energy.
Unworldliness is associated with Zen because the image exists only at that moment when one looks at it. It does not exist in a place in the world but in the art itself. In this sense, Schwaberow’s print is Zen because it lacks details that link it to the world. It is an image composed from the mind and spirit for the imagination, a tool that allows one to leave the world behind. In a way, to achieve unworldliness is to achieve inner serenity. Therefore Micah Schwaberow’s print is Zen.
William Stafford’s poem, Neighbors, adds another Zen dimension to the simple woodblock print. For instance, Zen arts are meant to be contemplated and not just viewed (Awakawa, 16). The poem, in this case, acts as a koan to provoke the viewers to “immerse” themselves into the visual and to “contemplate” the meaning behind it. From the two verses of the poem, one can ponder deeper. One can draw the connection that the two verses symbolize the neighborly relationship between nature and humans. The first stanza talks of the mountains and their habits. The second stanza talks of the narrator, a human, and that the human is friend with a mountain. When one views the two stanzas as one complete poem, meaning both nature and human merging into one being of sameness, then one can ascend to another level. In this higher level, one then can view the poem, which is of words–a humanly habit of conversation, as the neighbor of the universe—the woodblock print depicting fleeting imagery of silent mountains and clouds.
As Westgeest states, “The feeling of unity with Nature is very important in Zen. This primarily amounts to an awareness that Man himself is also part of Nature” (12). Once reaching the second level of connecting the poem and print as one, then one can climb up to the level of being a neighbor oneself to both the poem and print. For example, when one reads and examines the print, one is standing near it and facing it, being in the state of immersing and contemplating why the whole composition is the way it is. Thus, the viewer is the neighbor of the whole visual frame. All in all, the poem—the embodiment of a koan that emphasizes “superanatural symbols—such as mountains, animals, and other natural imagery” (Heine, xiii), makes Micah Schwaberow’s woodprint more Zen.
Bibliography
Awakawa, Yasuichi. Zen Painting. Trans. John Bester. Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd, 1970.
Brinker, Brinker and Kanazawa, Hiroshi. Zen Masters of Meditation in Images and Writings. Trans. Andreas Leisinger. Zurich: Artibus Asiae Publishers, 1996.
Heine, Steven. Opening a Mountain. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Seo, Audrey Yoshiko and Addiss, Stephen. The Art of Twentieth-Century Zen. Boston: Shambhala, 1998.
Westgeest, Helen. Zen in the Fifties. Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers, 1997.