Calligraphy of an Ensō (Empty Circle)

Fūgai Honkō (1779-1847) was a Zen monk of the Sōtō sect in the late Edo period. He succeeded to the Dharma of Genrō Ōryū. In Bunsei 1 (1818), he took up residence at Entsūin Temple in Settsu Province, and in Tenpō 5 (1834) at the 25th Kōjakuji Temple on the Mikawa Province, in Tenpō 12 (1841), he lived in seclusion at Ujakurō in Naniwa. In the style of Genrō’s legacy, he maintained a rigorous and earnest style, and his students included Morotake Ekidō, Hara Tanzan, and many other Zen masters of the Meiji era.
Along with Zuikō Chingyū and Jakushitsu Kenkō, he is known as a representative Sōtō Zen painter monk and painted caricatures as well as full-scale landscape paintings influenced by the painting styles of Gessen and Ikeno Taiga. Fūgai Ekun (1568-1654?), also known as “Ana Fūgai,” was a painter of the Sōtō sect. Fūgai Ekun is called “Tako Fūgai” because the shape of his signature resembles an octopus.

This is an Ensō (empty circle) by Fūgai. This Ensō is titled “Unpitsu kiku no hō,” which is different from ordinary Ensō in that it describes his brush strokes. The basic idea behind the painting is that the circle is the basis of everything, and that copying it 3,000 times is the first step in learning to paint circles, and that once one has mastered the circle, and can paint other shapes at will. A calligraphy dated April 15, Tenpō 5 (1834), shortly after Fūgai became the resident priest of Kōjakuji Temple.