Concept
Busshi
Related concepts (6)
Kaikei
Kaikei was a Japanese Busshi (sculptor of Buddha statue) of Kamakura period, known alongside Unkei. Because many busshi of the school have a name including kei (慶), his school is called Kei-ha (Kei school). Kaikei being also called Annami-dabutsu, his style is called Anna-miyō (Anna style) and is known to be intelligent, pictorial and delicate. Most of his works have a height of about three shaku, and there are many of his works in existence. Amitabha Triad in Jōdo-ji in Ono (1195) - National Treasure of Japan.
Kei school
The Kei school was a Japanese school (style) of Buddhist sculpture which emerged in the early Kamakura period (c. 1200). Based in Nara, it was the dominant school in Buddhist sculpture in Japan into the 14th century, and remained influential until the 19th. Art historian Joan Stanley Baker cites the Kei school's early works as the last highpoint in the history of Japanese sculpture. The Kei school developed out of that led by the busshi (Buddhist sculptor) Jōchō's successor, Kakujō and Kakujō's son Raijō, the leading sculptors of the preceding generations.
Jōchō
Jōchō (定朝; died 1057 AD), also known as Jōchō Busshi, was a Japanese sculptor of the Heian period. He popularized the yosegi technique of sculpting a single figure out of many pieces of wood, and he redefined the canon of body proportions used to create Buddhist imagery. His style spread across Japan and defined Japanese sculpture for the next 150 years. Today, art historians cite Jōchō as "the first of a new kind of master sculptor" and "one of the most innovative artists Japan has ever produced.
Kōkei (sculptor)
Kōkei (康慶, active 1175–1200) was a Japanese sculptor of the Kamakura period. He headed the Kei school during the reconstructions of Tōdai-ji and Kōfuku-ji. Although his works are still largely in the style established by Jōchō in the Heian period, Kōkei's sculpture show a move toward the greater realism that characterizes the works of his disciples Unkei, Kaikei, and Jōkei. Kōkei was a direct descendant, both genetically and artistically, of Jōchō, a master sculptor of the Heian period.
Unkei
Unkei (運慶; 1150 – 1223) was a Japanese sculptor of the Kei school, which flourished in the Kamakura period. He specialized in statues of the Buddha and other important Buddhist figures. Unkei's early works are fairly traditional, similar in style to pieces by his father, Kōkei. However, the sculptures he produced for the Tōdai-ji in Nara show a flair for realism different from anything Japan had seen before. Today, Unkei is the best known of the Kei artists, and many art historians consider him its "most distinguished member".
Sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sculptural processes originally used carving (the removal of material) and modelling (the addition of material, as clay), in stone, metal, ceramics, wood and other materials but, since Modernism, there has been almost complete freedom of materials and process.