Hakuin Ekaku

Hakuin Ekaku is a mid-Edo period Rinzai School Zen monk and one of the most influential Zen painters. Ekaku expanded the subjects of and adopted an intelligible style to the Zen paintings, through which the teaching of Zen Buddhism is delivered and thus spread to a wide audience. Ekaku had developed an artistic manner that combines gentleness and strength and merges the boundary between painting and calligraphy, which has been highly praised since his time till today in and out of Japan.