Beauty to Dust

FIRST CONTEMPLATION
The newly departed

FIRST CONTEMPLATION
The newly departed

"Her accustomed colour in everyday life has faded during her illness, and her fragrant body, as if asleep, has the appearance of somebody who has just passed away. Loved ones and friends of old are left behind and are still here, but whereto has her soul at dusk flown away?

We see flowers that suddenly wither during the third month of spring and the leaf of life easily falls at a certain moment in autumn. Old age and youth really have no fixed boundaries. What comes later and what come earlier are hard to get away from, whether fast or slow."

SECOND CONTEMPLATION
The swollen belly

SECOND CONTEMPLATION
The swollen belly

"It is difficult to tell the name of the newly departed with swollen belly. It only appears after seven days. Her pretty complexion becomes sallow and loses its beauty. First her black hair falls out and the hairs attach themselves to the roots of the grass.

Her six intestines putrefy in what remains of the coffin and her four limbs, swollen and straight, are lying on the open plain. It is quiet on the open plain. Nobody accompanies her and alone she follows the road leading to Hades. Her soul is there."

THIRD CONTEMPLATION
Blood-smeared

THIRD CONTEMPLATION
Blood-smeared

"Her bones broken and her flesh to [in?] pieces she stays in the Northern Mang. Her appearance has changed inconceivably. Her rotted skin has come loose and shows a deep purplish blue colour. Purulent blood suddenly flows. It leads to the putrefaction of her intestines.

The world is unstable and appears and disappears like the sun. The body is impure. This becomes evident at this moment. From here relatives and friends have gone into the void. The soughing gusts of wind and the cool breeze seem to ask for clothing."

FOURTH CONTEMPLATION
Confused

FOURTH CONTEMPLATION
Confused

"Although washed by rinsing it with the waters of the sea, how could it be pure when reflecting on its confusion? White worms are wriggling darkly in her body. How numerous do the bluebottle flies fester on her flesh!

The wind carries the stench over a distance of two or three miles, and the moon shines upon her naked corpse during four or five watches. How sad are the new and old bones near the brushwood! As the years go by, one no longer knows their names."

FIFTH CONTEMPLATION
Devoured

FIFTH CONTEMPLATION
Devoured

"On the wide plains people are scarce. What is there? Wild beasts fighting for the corpse cannot be kept off. In the morning one sees the form of the swollen and rotting belly. In the evening one hears the howling of the tigers and wolves devouring it.

Hungry dogs bark and destroy the piled up earth. Greedy birds flock together after having left the woods of their villages. The high expectations of present-day life are a dream among dreams. Should one not be ashamed of it?"

SIXTH CONTEMPLATION
Blue-black

SIXTH CONTEMPLATION
Blue-black

"How depressing is it at the accumulated old graves! All colour has gone, but the joints remain linked. When the year is young the remaining flesh lies on the grass of spring. How blue-black are the remains of the skin in the evening wind!

On the places washed clean by the continuous autumn rains the bones are slowly uncovered. When once the morning sun will shine, it will pierce the skulls. These elements make them be wild things. Alas! For many kalpas they are sunk in the Yellow Springs."

The seventh painting of the series Nine Contemplations is missing but the Chinese poem is still intact.

SEVENTH CONTEMPLATION
The remaining together of the whit bones

"Before one fundament decays it is very rotten, but when the five limbs are opposed to each other they destroy this body. A wine jar, empty and broken, still lies next to her pillow, and her threadbare clothes, just tidied away, decay to dust.

In former times she was a woman with a pink face who had gone to the imperial court. Now she is a person with white bones on the open plain. Whilst clouds and rain darken the moon above the plain, weeping people are keeping watch the whole night over the spirit of her corpse."

EIGHT CONTEMPLATION
The scattering of the bones

EIGHT CONTEMPLATION
The scattering of the bones

"Creeping herbs finally tie up her bones, although they are lonely and scattered. Scattered there and abandoned here, they are hard to find even when one is looking for them. Separated, nails and hair fill the open plain and the skull is rotting at the edge of a rock.

On rainy evenings, when it is cloudy in the West, it rots year after year. In stormy weather, when it is dark in the East, it everywhere goes to ruin. Suddenly it becomes earth on the plain of the Dragon Gate. One does not know to whom, disgraced or honoured, the coffin formerly belonged."

NINTH CONTEMPLATION
The old graves

NINTH CONTEMPLATION
The old graves

"The five aggregates may by nature all be empty, in their course and at their end, during his whole life one loves this person. Remaining at the burial mound, the mysterious soul flies in the moonlight of the night and having left the corpse the ignorant soul rustles in the autumn wind.

The name remains, without form, at the edge of the pine-clad hills. The bones turn to ashes in the grassy marsh. The inscriptions on the stones are obliterated and indistinct. At the graves of the ancients tears redden (the eyes)."

Epilogue

The print series ends with a short poem in Japanese that emphasizes the impermanence of human existence.

Come visit the MAS in Antwerp to experience the enigmatic beauty of Morishige's Nine Contemplations.