The Rinzai Zen priest Toju Zenchu (1839-1925), sobriquet Nantenbo, produced an astonishing number of paintings and calligraphies between the ages of sixty-four and his death at eighty-seven. The majority of these works are distinguished by their impressive power and refreshing lack of overt artifice.

In order to clearly elucidate the forces motivating Nantenbo to take up the brush, considerable attention is given to his biography (Chapter One). Zen tradition and legend is shown to have exerted an overwhelming influence on the formation of Nantenbo's fierce character. His use of brush and ink, while expressive in the extreme, was properly within the narrow confines acceptable for Zen priests. The vast majority of what he wrote or painted was didactic in content. It is postulated, too, that he originally took up the brush, not from any burgenoning desire to be artistic or to express enlightenment, but to satisfy demands for samples of his writing. The long-standing custom among lay followers and tea aficionados of collecting bokuseki (priestly writings) surely spurred Nantenbo's own production. In this regard, this study serves to demystify the generative impetus for Nantenbo's artistic production and should be applicable in examining the works of other high ranking Zen priests.

The primary focus of this study is an examination of a representative sampling of Nantenbo's calligraphy (Chapter Two) and painting (Chapter Three) in order to identify the salient characteristics of his oeuvre, his debt to tradition, and his personal contribution. He cultivated a rough, brusque quality in his calligraphy, an element in keeping with his persona of an unrefined religious ascetic. In painting, he simplified form so drastically as to render some elements unreadable without a prior point of reference. The expansive freedom with which he interpreted traditional form, however, reflects not only his unbridled spirit, but the tenor of the times. Nantenbo's propensity for dramaticism and expressive freedom, at the expense of legibility, presages twentieth century modernism. His works, in fact, have exerted considerable influence on contemporary avante-garde artists such as Morita Shiryu and Yoshihara Jiro.