About Sengai

Sengai Gibon was a Japanese monk of the Rinzai school. He was known for his controversial teachings and writings, as well as for his lighthearted sumi-e paintings. After spending half of his life in Nagata near Yokohama, he secluded himself in Shōfuku-ji in Fukuoka, the first Zen temple in Japan, where he spent the rest of his life.
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 .