Soushi　荘子

KEY WORD :　art history / paintings

Ch: Zhuangzi (369?-286? BC). A famous Taoist philosopher, born in Meng 孟, Henan 河南 province. Soushi's real name was Zhou and his scanty biography is found in The Records of The Historian (Ch: Shiji, Jp: SHIKI 史記) by Sima Qian (Jp: Shiba Sen 司馬遷, 145/-89? BC). A government official, Zhuangzi was more devoted to his outside interests: literature and philosophy. He developed the ideas of Laozi (Jp: Roushi 老子), but exaggerated them to the point of paradox. Zhuangzi's writings avoid moral argument and concentrate instead on spiritual liberation through the questioning of all values and conceptions, including the idea of reality. Of the many humorous parables that illustrate his philosophy, the most famous is the butterfly dream in which a philosopher falls asleep and dreams that he is a butterfly. When he suddenly wakes up to find himself a "solid and unmistakable" man, he is uncertain whether he is indeed the philosopher who dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he is a philosopher. This theme was a favorite of Japanese painters, notable examples being those by Murayama Oukyo 円山応挙 (1733-95), Tani Bunchou 谷文晁(1763-1841) and Nakayama Kouyou 中山高陽 (1717-80). It was also parodied by *ukiyo-e 浮世絵 artists who substituted a seductive courtesan for the philosopher.

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