Five Hundred Arhats No.371 · The Venerable Sunlight Illumination | Traditional Hand-Painted Chinese Ink Zen Buddhist Figure Painting | 100×50cm

Five Hundred Arhats · No.371 The Venerable Sunlight Illumination

'Sunlight illumination' means shining everywhere like the sun, breaking the darkness of ignorance with the sunlight of wisdom, illuminating the world, lighting every recess; the name marks one whose wisdom-sun shines everywhere, breaking darkness to reveal light. The venerable makes an upward-illumining gesture with a bright look, possessing the clarity of the wisdom-sun shining everywhere, breaking ignorance's dark, illumining all, lighting beings' hearts with the sun of wisdom.

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