Jakabffy Imre szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 13. (Budapest, 1971)
HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM - MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Horváth, Tibor: Notes to the Iconography of the White-robed Kannon
four versions of this kind with larger or smaller differences) ihe silling posture is always the lalita-sana and the feel are usually visible. The depiction of the robe with ils many folds is also similar in ihese paintings. In the silling position and the representation of the robe, our picture of Kannon. with its puritanic style, stands ihe nearest lo that trend, of which the Much'i's Kannon in Daitoku-ji is the mosl magnificent example. As we have seen so far no exact equivalenl of the Kaution picture in our museum can be found in the iconographical handbooks or in the set of 33 Kencho pictures, which means that a more correct identification is not possible. All we can say even after this study, by way of identification, is that the picture can be called Kannon or White-robed Kannon. We can also call ihe painting — Kannon sitting on a Hock, bul ibis is nol an iconographical identification, as it is based merely on the theme of the picture. I believe that ihe identification of the 33 Kannon pictures could only be facilitated if each temple had kept ihe list, on which the names of the Kannons were written. We can still rely on the contemporary iconographical handbooks and on the scrolls too. the data of which I was nol acquainted with. Until we resume our research, we must accept the view that the depiction of Kuan-yin (Kannon) looking at the moon, goes back to the Gandavyuha (Avatamsaka or IIua-yen-Kegon-) Sutra, right to the Fang period, and thai the depiction of the White-robed and Weeping Willow Kuan-yin originate from this 19 . The 33 depictions of Kuan-yin developed on ihe basis of chapter XX1\. of the Saddharmapundarika (the Lotus Sutra). hollowing the popularity of ihese images, the three Kannon pictures mentioned above were the most widely used, and became aller some time the characteristic [homes in ink painting, being more or less independent of the iconographical specifications. It is because of this that the most of ihe ink painters, and especially those in the Kano school of painting, in the Edo period, from ihe beginning of the I7lh century lo the middle of ihe Dili century, math 1 and collected the sketches of the Kannon pictures. I should like here to mention only two such examples, the scroll and album of Kano Tanyu (1602 —1674) which are in the Kyoto National Museum, and those of Tani Buncho (1761—1840), which were printed from wooden-blocks in separate books in 1800. 19 Jan Fontéin and Money L. Hickman, Zen. Painting and Calligraphy, catalogue, Boston. Museum of Fine Arts. 1070. 47. 129 9 Iparművészeti Múzeum Evkönyve
