Five Hundred Arhats No.428 · The Venerable Ever Compassionate | Traditional Hand-Painted Chinese Ink Zen Buddhist Figure Painting | 100×50cm

Five Hundred Arhats · No.428 The Venerable Ever Compassionate

'Ever compassionate' means ever arousing great compassion, always pitying beings, seeing their suffering as one's own, never abandoning beings through a pitying heart; the name marks one whose compassion is deep, ever pitying without forsaking. The venerable makes a compassionate gaze with a pitying look, possessing the tenderness of ever-arising pity, equally beholding beings, taking others' suffering as one's own, never forsaking through great compassion.

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