The Moon as an Artistic Focus of the Illumination of Consciousness

Abstract

In the well-know Flammarion engraving (1888) a kneeling man pushes through the threshold of the known universe, Earth, sun, moon, stars, to encounter a strange world of layers of fire, clouds, and suns, a mystical experience as well as an expression of consciousness itself. In Zen-Brain Reflections, Reviewing Recent Developments in Meditation and States of Consciousness (2006), James H. Austin notes that the moon, as a symbol of enlightenment, is the most frequent image in Buddhist poetry. This paper considers the Western and Eastern artistic representation of the moon, focusing on Caspar David Friedrich’s “Two Men Contemplating the Moon”; Thomas Cole’s “Moonlight”; Albert van der Neer’s “Moonlit Landscape with Bridge”; Ando Hiroshige’s “Kyoto Bridge by Moonlight” and “Autumn Moon over Tama River”; and, Shibata Zeshin’s “Autumn Grasses in Moonlight,” contrasting naturalistic representation with expressed aesthetic and spiritual modalities. Finally, this paper examines how both aspects of artistic representation are incorporated in the Japanese moon-viewing festival Tsukimi and in the rock garden of Ginkakuji Temple in Kyoto. In Tsukimi and Ginkakuji the harvest moon is celebrated and experienced at the nexus between the aesthetic and spiritual.