Shoki and Oni

Shoki, known as Zhong Kui in Chinese, is regarded as god of the afterlife and of exorcism. His depictions with oni (a type of demon) became prominent among folklore subjects associated with the religious traditions of Shintoism and Buddhism in Japan and Taoism in China. The Chinese deity reached Japan by at least the late Heian period (794–1185), and his popularity peaked in Japan during the Edo period, when people began to hang images of Shoki outside their houses to ward off evil spirits during the Boys’ Day Festival. Depictions of Shoki’s attempts to quell the oni are often quite humorous, especially in Japan.Gessen was a painter-priest of the Jodo sect of Japanese Buddhism during the Edo period. He specialized in human figures and landscapes, developing a personal manner combining a drawn-from-life realism with the literati style. This painting shows Gessen’s artistic ability in capturing the dramatic moment of Shoki arresting an oni. (“Tradition, Transmission, and Transformation in East Asian Art,” curated by Cornell PhD student Yuhua Ding under the supervision of Ellen Avril and presented at the Johnson Museum January 23-June 12, 2016)