Five Hundred Arhats No.105 · The Venerable Adorned Worthy | Traditional Hand-Painted Chinese Ink Zen Buddhist Figure Painting | 100×50cm

Five Hundred Arhats · No.105 The Venerable Adorned Worthy

'Adorned' means adorning body-mind with ethics, absorption and wisdom, and 'worthy' is a person of the way; the name marks one who disciplines himself with strict order, whose deportment is complete and whom the community respects. The venerable moves with composed gravity and ordered robes, possessing the upright model of one who keeps precepts strictly, is the same within and without, and embodies the Dharma in his very person.

Painted by Li Zongyi in the freehand Chinese ink (xieyi) tradition, the brushwork is fluent and the ink tones layered from dense to pale, capturing the arhat’s spirit in a few assured strokes. The blank paper itself breathes Zen; figure and spirit are one, blending monastic solemnity with the literati’s ease. Each of the Five Hundred Arhats bears its own name and practice, uniting faith, art and collectibility — an original, non-reproducible hand-painted work.

Size: approx. 100×50cm (4.5 square chi) | Traditional hand-painted Chinese ink Zen Buddhist figure painting | On paper