Abstract
Shubun style of landscape serves under a special purpose to express the ideal life of Zen monk. It is not a representation of a specific landscape at a certain place, rather an idealized retreat which dwells in the heart (or mind). In the most profound Zen belief, the distinction between mind and matter ceases to exist. Although motifs are derived from Chinese poetry or landscape painting, Japanese works in the 15th century are different from them at the emphasis on the pervasive atmospheric space at the expense of logical clarity. Each figure serves as a signal for the picture to be grasped as a meaningfull whole and the backgroud space sets the place where the mind can play a ideal landscape sight-seeing. In the middle of this century, however, the suggestive style began to change into that of an explicit articulation, which represented more concretely each figure and drew the attention of the viewer more closely to its form. The essential purpose of the picture changed from the setting of the place for the ideal landscape sight-seeing to the expression of the poetic space by realistic figures.
