Fudo-myo-o (Acalanatha)

The Fudo-myo-o (Acalanatha), wearing an expression of wrath and sitting on his rock throne surrounded by flames, has been painted in sober, dark yellow tones. This is a painting that is more strongly decorative than religious.

The Fudo-myo-o (Acalanatha), one of the Five Great Myo-o (vidyaraja) who vanquishes those outside the Buddhist faith, has been depicted in Buddhist painting as the embodiment in color of the different forms of anger, e.g., the Red Fudo, Blue Fudo, and Yellow Fudo. The Yellow Fudo shown in this work by Kobayashi Kokei holds a sword to subdue evil in the right hand and a rope in the left, crossing his legs with the left on top. In this case, however, the artist did not specifically aim to represent the Yellow Fudo but merely chose the dark, brownish yellow based on considerations of balance within the color scheme as a whole. Kobayashi, in other words, perceived this Fudo not as a Buddhist image, but strictly as a Japanese style painting (Nihonga). He has given much careful thought to both his lines and his colors by, for example, skillfully distinguished between the thin lines indicating the hair, the firm, red lines outlining the body, the abstract lines expressing the texture of the rocks, and the lines indicating the flames, which are made to fade out gradually on one side. At the same time, he has placed an area of black between the yellow of the body and red of the flames, and by depicting the garment in separate areas of light blue, white, and red, he has distanced his vermilion lines from the red cloth. When it was displayed in an exhibition celebrating the 2,600th year after the accession of Emperor Jinmu, this work caused contoversy from the viewpoint of its identity as a Buddhist image: that, however, may have been exactly what the artist had inteded to do. (Writer : Masato Satsuma Source : Selected Masterpieces from The University Art Museum, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music: Grand Opening Exhibition, The University Art Museum, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, 1999)