Bodhidharma Crossing the Yangtze River on a Reed

Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism, traveled from India to China to spread Zen, and after conversing with Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty, crossed the Yangtze river on a single reed. This painting depicts that story. The folds in the robes that the Budhidharma wears are painted using a technique that utilized the properties of the Chinese gasenshi paper to create ink strokes very close together without the ink merging, leaving a space between them that looks like a white line. The technique is known as sujime-gaki, and is not possible to achieve without great control of the ink and its consistency. Jakuchū displayed a surprising amount of skill with this technique.