Enso 

Nakahara Nantenbo made this Enso with ink on paper, but its date is unknown. The Enso, or circle, is a potent symbol in Zen Buddhism, representing enlightenment, emptiness, and the universe. Nantenbo lived through the Meiji Restoration, a time of rapid modernization and Westernization in Japan. As traditional arts faced pressure to adapt or decline, Nantenbo's Zen practice offered a form of cultural resistance. His spontaneous style of calligraphy, exemplified in this Enso, challenged the formal artistic academies that the Meiji government established. Was this Enso a comment on the social changes of its time? Perhaps a critique of the institutions that sought to define art? To understand this work fully, we might research the history of Zen Buddhism in Japan, the life of Nantenbo, and the art institutions of the Meiji era. The meaning of art is contingent on its social and institutional context.