About Ōtagaki Rengetsu

Ōtagaki Rengetsu was a Buddhist nun who is widely regarded to have been one of the greatest Japanese poets of the 19th century. She was also a skilled potter and painter and expert calligrapher.
Maruyama Ōkyo by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.

Buddhist artists – The creative Buddha Mind

During the Pre-iconic phase (5th–1st century BCE) artists were reluctant to depict the Buddha anthropomorphically, and developed sophisticated aniconic symbols to avoid doing so (even in narrative scenes where other human figures would appear). This tendency remained as late as the 2nd century CE in the southern parts of India, in the of the Amaravati School. In Tibet the vast majority of surviving artworks created before the mid-20th century are dedicated to the depiction .