Unkei
Japan's Michelangelo.
Unkei led the Kei school and gave Buddhist sculpture new realism and power. He made the guardians at the gate of Tōdai-ji together with Kaikei in 1203.
Unkei was born around 1150 and died in 1223. He was the son of the sculptor Kōkei and belonged to the Kei school, a workshop in Nara. His earliest known work is a seated Dainichi Nyorai at the Enjō-ji temple in Nara from 1176, which already shows a new realism and vigour.
In 1180 troops of the Taira clan burned the great temples of Tōdai-ji and Kōfuku-ji in Nara during the civil war. After the Kamakura shogunate took power, a major programme of reconstruction followed, and the Kei school received many of the commissions. Unkei also worked for the warrior aristocracy of eastern Japan, who appreciated his powerful style.
His best-known works are the two guardian figures, Kongō rikishi or Niō, in the Great South Gate of Tōdai-ji. They are more than eight metres high and were made in 1203 by Unkei, Kaikei and their assistants in only about 70 days. The guardians are muscular and wrathful, with wide-open eyes and fluttering garments. At Kōfuku-ji are his statues of the Indian monks Muchaku and Seshin from around 1212, which are so individual that they resemble portraits of real people.
Unkei sometimes used rock-crystal eyes inserted from behind, which make the statues seem to have a living gaze. His style combines realism, movement and spiritual presence. His sons, among them Tankei, carried on the workshop.
Unkei is regarded as Japan's foremost sculptor and has sometimes been called Japan's Michelangelo. He renewed Buddhist sculpture in the Kamakura period, and his works are among the most admired National Treasures of Japan.