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The Sixteen Arhats Scroll 

Wu Bin (吴彬)
Artist Wu Bin (吴彬)
Date ca. 1591-1610
Medium Color on paper, size: 32.1×415.4 cm
Collection
Copyright Public domain. Free for personal & commercial use.

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About the Artist

Wu Bin (吴彬)
Wu Bin (吴彬)
Chinese (1937-unknown) · Ming Dynasty (1368–1644)
a late Ming dynasty painter, revolutionized religious art with his Sixteen Luohan series. Renowned for blending Song-Yuan brushwork with surreal imagination, he pioneered a "Mannerist" style. His Luohan figures, characterized by exaggerated features and ethereal drapery rendered in iron-wire strokes, inhabit mystical landscapes of S-curved mountains and spiraling clouds. Wu’s works infused Buddhist philosophy, using motifs like grotesque rocks and ancient trees to symbolize cosmic unity. His visionary aesthetics, bridging spiritual abstraction and formal distortion, influenced Qing eccentrics like Bada Shanren and Japanese Zen painting, cementing his legacy as a precursor to Eastern Baroque expression.

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Artwork Story

Conceptual Foundation
Arhat (Sanskrit: अर्हत्, Arhat; Pali: Arahant) – Enlightened disciples of Śākyamuni Buddha entrusted to preserve the Dharma beyond Nirvana, as recorded in Xuanzang’s 7th-century translation of The Mahāyāna Sūtra on the Abiding of the Dharma (法住记). This Ming Dynasty masterpiece visualizes the canonical sixteen:

  1. Piṇḍola Bhāradvāja
  2. Kanakavatsa
  3. Kanaka Bhāradvāja
  4. Subinda
  5. Nakula
  6. Bhadra
  7. Kālika
  8. Vajraputra
  9. Jīvaka
  10. Panthaka
  11. Rāhula
  12. Nāgasena
  13. Aṅgaja
  14. Vanavāsi
  15. Ajita
  16. Cūḍapanthaka

Artistic Context
Painted by Wu Bin (1550-1643), a revolutionary figure in Ming Buddhist art, this handscroll reimagines traditional iconography. Known by his sobriquet Zhi’an Faseng (“Monk of the Branch Hut”), the Fujian-born artist served as a court painter under Emperor Wanli, later rising to Ministry of Works official.

Stylistic Innovation:

  • Rejection of archaic compositions
  • Distorted, otherworldly physiognomy
  • Dynamic interplay of ink washes and mineral pigments
  • Psychologically charged expressions transcending conventional arhat depictions
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Scroll Composition
Prefatory Text: “Manifestations of the Perfected Ones” (應真變現) by calligrapher Mi Wanzhong
Colophon: Heart Sutra inscription by Tang Binjun

Cultural Synthesis:
While rooted in Indian Buddhism, the arhat concept underwent Sinicization:

  • 9th-century evolution into Eighteen Arhats via Chinese folk additions
  • Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE) artistic proliferation
  • Ming reinterpretations blending Chan philosophy with literati aesthetics

Iconographic Significance
Wu’s grotesque yet profound portrayal reflects:

  1. Late Ming religious syncretism
  2. Commercialization of Buddhist art in Jiangnan
  3. Literati’s existential response to dynastic decline

The Metropolitan Museum’s acquisition (Accession No. 1989.141.1) preserves this pivotal work where:

  • Esoteric mudras merge with landscape painting conventions
  • Gold-leaf haloes contrast with ink-splashed rocks
  • Each arhat embodies a Mahayana paramita (perfection)

Scholarly Note: The “Eighteen Arhat” adaptation—incorporating Chinese folk deities like the Taming Dragon and Subduing Tiger Arhats—demonstrates Buddhism’s localization, paralleling Guanyin’s feminization in East Asia. Wu Bin’s visionary distortion prefigured 17th-century individualist painting movements.

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