The naturalistic sculpture of Unkei (1148-1223) was a high point in the history of Japanese art. Not only was Unkei himself one of the greatest of Japanese artists, his followers continued to develop the style he initiated, and provided many more masterpieces of sculpture. Unkei's singular achievement was the development of wooden portrait sculpture that was truly devoted to the depiction of the distinctive individual. Stylized portraiture of earlier decades was replaced by Unkei's new naturalism. In addition, Unkei developed new techniques in the preparation and carving of his sculptures that facilitated his own artistic innovations. A discussion of one of Unkei's mature works will demonstrate how he worked, what he accomplished, and what was innovative in his work.
The sculpture discussed here is Unkei's Muchaka, an imaginary portrait of the Indian patriarch Asanga. This work has been dated between 1208 and 1212. It was made for the North Octagonal Hall of the Kofuku-ji monastery at Nara. The statue, which measures 194.7 cm tall, was carved from several pieces of wood, and was painted.
Unkei did not simply make a decision to adopt a naturalistic approach to sculpture. His father, the famous sculptor Kokei, had already begun to take his art in that direction. In works such as the statues of the Six Monks of the Hosso Sect (1189), Kokei had broken with the effete elegance of late Fujiwara art. The "vigorous naturalism" of these statues was "a harbinger of the fully formed Kamakura realistic style (Mori 105). But, Kokei, and Unkei after him, were responding to broader cultural changes that favored the new realism in art.
Naturalism in Kamakura art derived from three important stimuli. First, many public buildings, including temples, had been destroyed in the Nara area during the Gempei wars. When the sculptors arrived there to restore and replace the work of earlier eras, they came in contact with the realism o...