Bokuseki and chinsō (Zen calligraphy and portraits)

In Japan, bokuseki means above all the writing of senior Zen monks. It includes hōgo, in which a master writes out the essentials of awakening for a monk in training; geju, Buddhist teaching in Chinese verse; yuige, the verse a monk leaves his disciples before death; letters (sekitoku); and certificates of a disciple's awakening (inkajō). They were written for the teaching, not to be enjoyed as calligraphy, so what matters is who wrote them and what they say, and skill with the brush is generally not the point. A chinsō is a portrait of a Zen monk, at first painted and later also carved; the sitter is often seated on a chair draped with a robe, holding a bamboo staff or a fly whisk. A master would sometimes give a disciple a portrait inscribed in his own hand as part of the certificate of succession, and the disciple revered it as the master himself. When tea gathered a following in the Muromachi period, bokuseki became the hanging scroll a tea room could least do without.

Where a portrait's label says jisan (“self-inscribed”), the words above the figure were written by the sitter himself. If the room also has bokuseki by the same monk, compare the hand in the two places.

From this writing, can you tell what kind of person wrote it?

• Tea bowl 茶碗→Daitokuji has close ties with tea masters such as Sen no Rikyū.