Bean Vine, mid-18th century
Itō Jakuchū 伊藤 若冲 (1716–1800)
Inscribed by Musen Jōzen 無染淨善, 1693–1764
Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
Hanging scroll, ink on paper
125.7 x 47.9 cm; 192.1 x 61.6 cm (mounted)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Lita Annenberg Hazen Charitable Trust Gift, in honor of Cynthia and Leon Polsky, 1985, 1985.97
The green vine puts forth blossoms,
And its pods are like half-formed swords.
The bean and stalk are inseparable;
Both were born from the same roots.
—trans. John T. Carpenter
Jakuchū, a celebrated Japanese artist, lived a century after Ingen. He was born into a wealthy
greengrocer’s family in Kyoto and later became a lay Ōbaku Buddhist monk. His art is often
inscribed by his Zen monk friends, here a poem by the Ōbaku monk Musen Jōzen. The
painting represents more than mere brush-play. It celebrates a humble vegetable that Ingen
introduced to Japan and, in fact, is still known in Japanese as “Ingen-mame,” or “Yinyuan’s
beans.”