A Group of Luohan

Huá Zǐyòu, a native of Hubei province in China, was known for his paintings of Buddhist subjects, particularly the arhats, known in Chinese as luóhàn (罗汉, 羅漢). Arhats were popular in China due in part to their similarity to native Chinese deities, the Daoist immortals, who were also portrayed as eccentric-looking, highly evolved human beings with supernatural powers. Because the arhats usually appeared in groups (16, 18, or 500), and their iconography in China was not as fixed as it was for other deities, they provided many opportunities for artists to demonstrate their creativity and imagination.

In this painting we see a group of arhats, dressed in monastic robes and carrying characteristic objects such as rosary beads, a monk’s staff, a fly whisk, and a basket of holy texts, or sutras. They are accompanied by a young attendant riding an imaginary beast. To the group’s amusement, two phoenixes have appeared, perhaps summoned by the attendant’s horn. The arhats are shown as wizened ascetics, with rugged features and in one case elongated eyebrows, a sign of great longevity. The deep blue back-ground recalls a refined class of Buddhist sutras written in gold ink on indigo-dyed paper.