Book Review: 中世仏教絵画の図像誌： 経説絵巻・六道絵・九相図. By 山本聡美=Book Review: A Genealogy of Imagery in Medieval Buddhist Paintings: From Six Realms of Rebirth to Nine Stages of Decay. By Yamamoto Satomi
Images of the grotesque in medieval Japanese Buddhist paintings have long fascinated artists and viewers alike. these depictions depart from conventional representations of benevolent deities and instead pictorialize conceptions of Buddhist su3ering and the six samsaric realms of existence. While paintings of hell arguably comprise the largest and most diverse corpus of imagery dedicated to this theme, the other five realms, including those of hungry ghosts, animals, ashura 阿修羅, humans, and celestial beings, also found expression in Japanese visual culture. Yamamoto Satomi’s book, which is the culmination of decades of research, presents an expansive investigation of this subject and contains significant new arguments and interpretations that will shape the way scholars engage this material in the future.
