拍品 70
70
A Gigaku Mask of Suikoju
These masks represent two of a number of varied and colourful characters of the masked dance drama called Gigaku, of which some are grotesque, some of Indian and Persian appearance, some from Buddhism and some from Brahmanism.According to the Nihon Shoki, Gigaku was brought to Japan by one Mimashi, an immigrant from Baekche, Korea in 612AD. It originated in the Chinese kingdom of Wu, or Kure in Japanese, and was also known as Kure no Uta Mai [Song and Dance of Kure]. The drama was performed in the recently built temples of Nara which were then the centres of learning and culture, and the Nihon Shoki further records that envoys from Silla were entertained with a performance of Gigaku at the Kawahara temple in 692. Masks of the period survive in the Horyuji and Todaiji temples, with more than a hundred preserved in the Shosoin repository, some with ink inscriptions of dates and the names of the characters. Among them some are dated 9th April 752AD showing that they were used in celebrations accompanying the ‘Eye Opening’ ceremony for the great bronze Buddha in the Todaiji in that year. The Todaiji records indicate sixty musicians and four ‘Gigaku Masters’ present at the ceremony.Although Gigaku has not been regularly practised for several centuries, the content of the drama was recorded in the Kyokun Sho written by a dancer of the Kofukuji temple in 1233. In the first act a shishi, a huge lion mask, enters led by two masked shishiko boy attendants, they are followed by the long-nosed Chido who may have performed a cleansing ritual. The royal Goko of the southern Chinese kingdom of Wu is accompanied by the beauty Gojo who attracts the lewd attention of lumpy-faced Konron (lot 71), assailing her with indecent gestures with a phallic wand. Konron is chastised by the Buddhist Kongo Rikishi who dances with his attribute vajra. The bird-like Karura (Garuda) who among the eight guardians of the Buddha devours poisonous serpents follows, then the bearded Taikofu wearing a tall Persian hat accompanied by his son Taikoju offering prayers to Buddha. Then enters Baramon, a Brahman devotee who dances with a flowing cloth in a ludicrous representation of the act of washing nappies, and finally the drunken Persian king Suiko dances with several merry young male attendants, the Suikoju (lot 70).With the cessation of relations with China during the Heian period (794-1185) and the increasingly sombre nature of the Pure Land and esoteric Buddhist sects, the light-hearted pantomime of Gigaku was rejected by the temples in favour of the formal rituals Bugaku and the Pure Land Gyodo procession of bodhisattvas, although the latter is still led by light-hearted shishi dancers and the long-nosed tengu who derives from the original Chido of Gigaku.The Property of a European Gentleman
A Gigaku Mask of Suikoju

Heian - Kamakura period (late 12th - 13th century)

細節
A Gigaku Mask of Suikoju
Heian - Kamakura period (late 12th - 13th century)
The mask of wood decorated with a form of pigmented gesso with lacquer and colour
25cm. high

榮譽呈獻

Anastasia von Seibold
Anastasia von Seibold
+44 (0)20 7752 3127

拍品專文

This mask is carved from a single piece of wood and, although a layer of gesso is fairly intact, little pigment remains of what was probably a vivid fleshy colour. Since there were several youthful male dancers in the role of Suikoju a considerable number of masks are of the character are preserved in the Nara temple collections, of which this present example is believed to be a typical example.

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