Life and Works
Tori's grandfather was Chinese man named Shiba Tatto who immigrated to Japan in 522. Shiba and his son, Tasuna, were both saddle makers. The position was hereditary, and the ornamentation common for saddles at the time familiarized them and young Tori with metal casting, lacquer working, and wood carving. Records indicate that in 588, Tasuna may have become a Buddhist monk and carved a wooden Buddha statue.
Tori Busshi's first known work is a bronze Shaka image of Asuka-dera, Asuka, Nara Prefecture, which he finished in 606. The work made a favorable impression on Empress Suiko, and she granted Tori lands and rank equivalent to those of someone of the later fifth grade. Tori also produced an embroidered wall hanging this year.
The Yakushi Nyorai (Buddha of healing) of Wakakusa-dera is often attributed to Tori Busshi. The work was done in 607 at the request of Emperor Yōmei and Prince Shōtoku for the newly established Wakakusadera. Attribution of the work to Tori comes from an inscription on the back of the Buddha's halo. However, this inscription was probably done later than 607, which leads many scholars to speculate that the extant work is a copy of an original that may have been lost in a temple fire in 670. Nevertheless, art historians such as Seiroku Noma hold that only Tori Busshi had the skill necessary to do the piece. The work is now in the Hōryū-ji, Ikaruga, Nara Prefecture.
Art historians regularly name the Shaka Triad of Hōryūji as Tori's masterpiece. An inscription on the back of the halo states that Empress Suiko (r. 593-629) and other courtiers commissioned the piece after the deaths of two notable court ladies in 621 and the sickness of Shōtoku and his consort the following year. The piece was intended to either help speed their recovery or ease their rebirth into paradise. The prince and consort died in 622, and Tori's workshop finished the statue the following year.
The Kannon of Yumedono at Hōryūji is also in Tori Busshi's style, although it is unknown if his studio created the statue.
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“No life if it is properly realized is without its cosmic importance.”
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“I look on trade and every mechanical craft as education also. But let me discriminate what is precious herein. There is in each of these works an act of invention, an intellectual step, or short series of steps taken; that act or step is the spiritual act; all the rest is mere repetition of the same a thousand times.”
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