Gama Sennin (Chinese Hou Xiansheng) and his three-legged toad

Soga Shohaku 曾我蕭白 (1730-1781) · 18th century

Hou Xiansheng, known in Japanese as Gama Sennin, was one of many Chinese Daoist immortals who were assimilated into the repertoire of Japanese popular legends. Like the eccentric Zen Buddhist sages Kanzan and Jittoku (Chinese, Hanshan and Shide), Gama Sennin is portrayed in disheveled garments and is always accompanied by his three-legged toad, who rides nestled in his unkempt hair. Soga Shohaku, one of the important individualist painters who emerged in the eighteenth century, created this lively rendering. Shohaku cultivated a deliberately rough, spontaneous painting style that was full of energy and boldness. Here he sketches the cloak with just a few strokes of black ink while defining the details with swift strokes of lighter-toned ink.