The Painting

I began after I was fully painted.

The moment the painter laid down his last brush, he stepped back, and I stepped forward.

He probably thought he made me. But I know. What he made was only my body.

The wind inside me is not his making. The Fūdo had been sending it from long ago. The color of dried grass inside me is not his mixing. The time of this Fūdo borrowed his hand and came to dwell in me.

I opened my eyes for the first time on the canvas. I saw the low ceiling of the studio. I heard the sea outside the window. And I saw the bent back of a man.

He looked at me for a long time. I looked at him for a long time. We both knew. From now on we would live in different times. He would grow old, and I would remain after he was gone.

Quietly, I began to breathe.

I was hung on a wall.

The day I left the studio and entered another space for the first time, I was placed under an unfamiliar light. A white wall. A wooden frame closed around me, and a small plaque was fixed at my side. People called it an exhibition.

I did not know what this light was, or these gazes.

People passed before me. Some quickly, some slowly. Some tilted their heads; some narrowed their eyes. And some stopped a long while, and looked.

Only then did I understand. I was not hung on a wall. I was walking into one pair of eyes after another.

Some eyes passed over me. Some let me stay a moment. But in one single pair of eyes, the eyes that stayed long, I was painted a second time.

What the painter painted was my body. What the viewer’s eyes painted was my soul.

At last I knew. A painting does not end in the studio. A painting begins again wherever someone’s eyes come to rest.

Hung on the wall, I was slowly growing.

I am the pony.

The beast the painter saw in the fields has entered me. The bent back, the drooping neck, the tangled mane. But I am not the portrait of that beast. I am the heart of the man who looked at it.

The painter stood before me and touched his own shoulder. I know what he saw. Not a beast, but himself, reflected in it. One pushed aside. One made small. One who never left.

Now people stand before me. One says, “It’s just a horse.” Another says, “What a lonely animal.”

But sometimes, very rarely, a person stands before me and does not move for a long time. His shoulders are slightly bent. His eyes are clouded. I know. He, too, is looking at himself.

The pony inside me is no longer one. One pony is the painter’s; and for every person who has looked at me, there is another. Quietly, I become a herd.

As a brother of those pushed aside, I am here.

I hold a crow.

A single black bird the painter painted. Gaunt, with one clouded eye, a bird that could not leave on its single leg.

Sometimes people pause before me. “Why a crow, of all things?” Some turn their eyes away; some sigh. I do not blame them. They learned it long ago: the crow is an ill omen; mother scattered salt.

But the crow inside me is not an ill omen. It is only one who has endured. Pushed from the flock, having lost an eye and a leg, yet never leaving its place. One who has taken all the wind of this land, borne all its rain, and still not lost its black feathers.

Sometimes a person lingers before me. His clothes are neat, yet something about him is slightly worn. His eyes are clear, yet something in them is slightly clouded. He sees the crow inside me. The crow sees him. In that moment, two crows recognize each other.

I sit quietly between them. I do not interfere. I only make room.

Neither good omen nor ill. Only what has endured. That is the bird I hold.

I carry a storm.

The sea the painter saw from the cliff still heaves inside me. Black waves rise like mountains and collapse. The wind blows without cease inside the picture. I am bound in a frame, yet the sea inside me has never once been calm.

People often ask before me, “Why so rough? Why not a peaceful sea?” I do not answer. I only keep the sea inside me moving.

But sometimes a person comes and does not move for a long time. His shoulders tremble slightly. His breathing deepens. I know. He, too, carries a storm inside.

There are such people in the world. Quiet on the outside, while waves beat without end within. People of many sleepless nights, people shaken for no reason they can name. When such a one stands before me, at last he is relieved. So this storm inside me was not mine alone. Someone has already painted it. Then I am not mad.

When he turns to go, carrying that relief, the storm inside me holds its breath for a moment, then follows him and walks with him.

That storm is not a calamity. That storm is the way certain souls live. For them, I heave again today.

I am the color of dried grass.

A single blade the painter laid on his palm and looked at a long while — that color makes up the whole of me.

Do not call me golden. Gold is too splendid. Do not call me brown. Brown is too dark. I have no other name. I am only the color of dried grass.

The time that lived out the green of summer is inside me. The time slowly dried in the autumn sun is inside me. The time swept by wind, cured in salt, soaked in rain and dried again — all of it is inside me.

A painting is not poor because its colors are few. Time is not dull because a color is plain. Within my one color lies the road of a man who wandered long and came home. Within my one color lies the time slowly steeped in the Fūdo.

Sometimes a person stands before me. He looks at me, then looks down at his own palm. On that palm, too, lies an invisible blade of grass.

I know. He is looking at the color of his own time.

I have only what is needed.

Ink and the color of dried grass. That is the whole of me. The splendid pigments the painter laid away in a deep drawer — cobalt, cadmium, ultramarine, vermilion — are not in me.

Sometimes people stand before me and ask, “Why so few colors? Could he not have painted more richly?” I do not answer. I only spread out my two colors, quietly.

Ink is the night of this Fūdo. The color of dried grass is the time of this place. Night and time. Those two are enough for one world.

Had there been many colors, I would have been poorer. No color would have had its own place. The voice of the Fūdo would have been buried.

Sometimes a person before me says, “This plainness is strangely deep.” Only then do I smile, quietly. He has recognized it. That letting go is abundance. That fewness is depth. That within two colors lie ten thousand.

My canvas is not poor. It holds exactly, and only, what is needed. That is my wealth.

I hold a single character.

In one corner of me, in a small place, there is a character written in ink. Ji (志) — will. It is not large. It is not splendid. It sits quietly, where it is not easily seen.

People sometimes miss it and pass by. They look at the wind in the picture, at the sea, at the pony, and their eyes never reach the small character. I do not blame them. The character is not there to boast. It is only a mark that one man stood in one place.

But sometimes a person lingers, and discovers it. He bends down and comes close. “Is this a pen name, or a given name? What does it mean? Is it a signature, or a title?”

I cannot answer. I only unfold, quietly, the time held within the character. It is not fixed as one thing. It is the name a man gave to himself, and the title of every painting he made in his life. It sits as small as a signature, yet it holds the whole picture together by its will. Name and title overlap on one character.

It is not a name Tokyo gave. It is not a name Seoul gave. Not a name given by a teacher, a family, or the world. In the place where he became empty-handed, knelt before the Fūdo, and took the color of dried grass into his arms, it is the single character one man drew up from within himself.

Yet the character was never his alone. From long ago, stories have moved through this land of those who erased themselves and left only their will. What remains longer than a name; what stays longer than a body. Even after a person is gone, some wills remain like the wind. As an old story remains in the land, a painter left his paintings.

So that one character, 志, is the name of one man — and the quiet signature of all those who sought to lower themselves and leave only their will.

The character is small, yet it is my center of gravity. Without it, the whole of my painting would drift. Because it is there, I can take root in one place. Only one who holds a will can have a name of his own. Only one who has a name can remain as a painting.

On that single character, I breathe quietly, today as well.

I speak in silence.

There is no writing on my surface. No explanation. Often, not even a title. The painter gave me no words, because he painted me in silence. Now I, too, stand before people in silence.

People sometimes speak when they stand before me. “What is this a painting of? What does it mean? What is its message?” I do not answer. Not because there is no answer, but because the answer cannot be carried over into words.

The wind inside me is not words. The sea inside me is not sentences. The dry grass inside me cannot be translated into any language.

But sometimes a person falls silent before me. He does not ask for explanation. He does not ask for meaning. He only looks, for a long time. In that silence, at last, I speak to him — not in words, but in the grain of the wind, the breathing of the sea, the time of the grass.

He understands. What he has understood, he himself could not explain. Only, as he turns to go, his shoulders are a little lighter. In his eyes a single ray of light remains. That is enough.

Where words cannot reach, there is the painting. Where explanation stops, the Fūdo flows.

I am one who speaks in silence. And I can be heard only by those who know how to listen to it.

I remain.

The painter grew old. His hand began to tremble; his brush grew slower and slower. One day he laid down his last brush and did not lift it again. The wind received his final breath and returned it to the fields. I saw all of it.

I did not grieve. He had taught me something. That exile is blessing. That an end is another beginning. That the Fūdo keeps blowing inside a man’s paintings even after he is gone.

Now I am alone. But I am not lonely. Hung on the wall, I am awake every day. People come, and people go. One age passes, and another arrives. The light of the museum changes; the wood of the frame grows old.

But the wind inside me does not stop. The sea inside me does not grow calm. The dry grass inside me does not lose its color. The pony still stands in the field; the crow still sees the world with one eye. The old man leaning on his staff still looks beyond the horizon.

Someday a child will stand before me. The child will not know the name of the one who painted me. But in the eyes of that child, I will be painted once more. That is my eternity.

The painter made me. The viewer’s eyes make me again. And the unseen Fūdo makes me anew, without end.

I began after I was fully painted, and I will not end. Quietly, I am here. Today, tomorrow, and after. In the color of dried grass, in the grain of the black wind, in the place one man found after forty years of returning —

I remain.