Raphaël Petrucci

“ The influence of Ma Yüan was felt by his brother and by his son, Ma Lin. Although the death of the latter occurred under the Mongolian dynasty, he was an exponent of Sung art. The fierce energy of the old master gives way to a somewhat more melancholy and gentle quality in his son. There is the same restraint in the handling of the brush, the same reserve in the use of color, but the landscape stretches out into deep and dreamy vistas that are indescribably poetic. ”

“ Defying the hurricane which bends the bamboos and uproots trees, he challenges the furies of nature that are hostile to the expression of the universal soul. The bamboo is the symbol of wisdom, the pine is the emblem of will-power and life. The plum tree in flower is a harmonious combination of the two principles. ”

“ Partially civilized barbarians occupied the highest places in the State. They were the controlling party at the imperial court and had usurped the place of the old society, refined, subtle and perhaps too studied, which formed the environment of the last Sung emperors. Despite their naïve efforts and good will, these barbarians could not fathom an art so austere, enlightened and balanced. They were utterly ignorant of such a masterly conception of nature as was evoked in Chinese painting. Monochrome to them was dull. They could admire on trust, but they could not understand. ”

“ Behind the changes of the universe the Buddhist perceives the primal substance that pervades all creation. There results from this an intimacy with things which exists in no other creed. From inert matter to the most highly organized being, all creation is thus endowed with a sense of kinship that is destined to make a tender and stirring appeal in the artist’s interpretation of nature. ”

“ It produced splendid compositions in which the golden age of Chinese painting continued to be manifest. Masters arose and if, in spite of all, they mark a reaction toward the Northern style, seeking rich and vivid color, they give us a vision of beauty that is equal to the work of their predecessors.
Meanwhile grave signs of decadence were apparent. Composition became overladen and complex and began to lose something of the noble simplicity, greatness and supreme charm of the old masters. It was evident that the Yüan painters were working under the eye of the barbarians. ”

“ Chung Jen, who in the eleventh century wrote a treatise on the painting of the plum tree, explains in his chapter on “the derivation of forms” that it is a symbol, a concentrated form, a likeness of the universe. The great fundamental principles mingle harmoniously within it; they express themselves in its shape and reveal themselves through its beauty. Similar to this was the philosophy associated with the bamboo, which endured up to the fifteenth century. The subtle monochromes of Lu Fu show branches of flowering plum swaying in the breeze. ”

“ Calligraphic painting, or the literary style, has its origin in the studies of Wang Wei when, renouncing the aid of colour, he strove by harmony of shading and by tone values, to reproduce the vast reaches of space and all the shifting subtlety of atmospheric perspective. ”

“ The style of the Northern School is strong, vehement and bold; the style of the Southern School is melancholy and dreamy. The ideal of Northern China, impregnated with barbarian elements, is brought into contrast with that of Southern China, heir to an already ancient civilization, and under the spell of Taoist legends and the bewildered dreams of its philosophers. ”

“ Up to this point art had sounded every depth and attained the highest summits of human achievement. Thenceforward it concerned itself with varying manifestations which were only the different modes of a formula that was still flexible, until the time when—the great inspirations of the past forgotten—there appear signs of a spirit on the quest for realism, emerging from the ancient tradition. This is the distinctive note in the evolution of Chinese painting under the last two dynasties. ”

“ Our culture is sufficiently broad to allow us to perceive the beauty of an Egyptian fresco or an Assyrian bas-relief as well as of a Byzantine mosaic or a painting of the Renaissance. We have therefore no excuse for remaining inaccessible to the art of the Far East and we have surely all the mental vigor that is requisite in order to accustom ourselves to the foreign nature of its presentation. It is in the realm of painting that this foreign element is most noticeable. This is due partly to a special technique and partly to the nature of the doctrines which serve as its inspiration. ”

“ In the eighteenth century a comparatively large number of Chinese painters settled in Japan, where they continued the traditions of Ming [Pg 135] art. The observation of a Nan-t’ien or of a Shen Nan-p’ing was keen and painstaking, but the objectivity and realism now coming to the fore, were conspicuous in their works. No longer was it the world of pure substance and abstract principle that was sought, but the real, everyday world, the world of objective forms studied for themselves, living their own life, on the threshold of which the spirit halted, no longer guided by the old philosophies. ”

“ It is profound and stirring, precisely because it blends and perpetuates feeling and intelligence by means of outward expressions. Of all human achievements art is the most vital, the one that is dowered with eternal youth, for it awakens in the soul emotions which neither time nor civilization has ever radically altered. ”

“ The aesthetic conceptions of the Far East have been deeply influenced by a special philosophy of nature. The Chinese consider the relation of the two principles, male and female, the yang and the yin, as the source of the universe. Detached from the primordial unity, they give birth to the forms of this world by ever varying degrees of combination. Heaven corresponds to the male principle, earth to the female principle. Everything upon the earth, beings, plants, animals or man is formed by the mingling of yang and yin. ”

“ Chinese painters were established in Japan as early as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. There is one of whose family name we are ignorant and who is known only under the appellation of Ju-sue,—in Japanese Josetsu. He left China, where the domination of official art stood in the way of an independent career, carried the traditions of Sung and Yüan art to Japan, gathered pupils about him there, and had the glory of being the founder of that magnificent school of which Sesshiu is the leading exponent. There is only one small painting which can be attributed to Ju-sue with certainty. ”

“ The sculptured stones of the Han dynasty, especially the admirable bas-reliefs of the tomb of Chao-ling, representing the favorite coursers of the emperor T’ai-tsung, show the manner in which artists, from the third to the seventh centuries, were capable of studying and delineating the postures of the horse. It is therefore not surprising to find a great animal painter in the eighth century. ”

“ The origins of painting in China are mingled with the origins of writing. Written characters are, in fact, derived from pictography or picture writing, those in use at the present time being only developed and conventionalized forms of primitive drawings. The early books and dictionaries give us definite information regarding this evolution. But while history bears witness to this ancient connection, we do not come into contact with actual evidence until the third century of our era, through the bas-reliefs of the Han dynasty, and in the fourth century through the paintings of Ku K’ai-chih. ”

“ In coming to understand a mood which so fully reflects an unknown world, the European mind will discover principles which will make it rise superior to itself. May this broad comprehension of human thought lead Europe to estimate with greater justice a civilization numbering its years by thousands, and to refrain from thwarting the fulfillment of its destiny. ”

“ This was the convention in early times when the first painters whose artistic purpose can be formulated with certainty, portrayed the history of the legendary beings of Taoism,—the genii and fairies dwelling amidst an imaginary Nature. The records tell us, to be sure, that the early masters painted portraits, but it was at a later period that Man and Objects composed a class distinct from Landscape, a period responsible for those ancestral portraits painted after death, which are almost always attributable to ordinary artisans. ”

“ It is a vision of a high order, in which the subtle intellectuality corresponds to a society of refinement whose desires have already assumed extreme proportions. Like Byzantium, heir to Hellenistic art, the China [Pg 143] of the Han dynasty and of Ku K’ai-chih was already progressing toward bold conventions and soft harmonies, in which could be felt both the pride of an intelligence which imposed its will upon Nature, and the weariness following its sustained effort. ”

“ But the relationship existing between writing and painting from the dawn of historic time, permits us to carry our studies of primitive periods very far back, even earlier than the times of the sculptured works. We thus witness the gradual development of that philosophical ideal which has dominated the entire history of Chinese painting, forcing it to search for abstract form, and which averted for so long the advent of triviality and decadence. ”

“ Ma Yüan is classed with the Southern School by reason of his restraint in the use of color, his greatness of conception and his technical treatment of forms. But he brings to his work a virility in which the influence of the Northern School is plainly discerned. He has a broad stroke and a masterful manner which place his works in the front rank of all Chinese painting. His mountainous backgrounds rear themselves with fierce energy. ”

“ Furthermore, the decadence of eye and hand followed that of the mind, and there next appeared a taste for brilliant colors, overladen compositions, and fine and meticulous lines, culminating in an unbearable nicety. The work of the Academy is summed up in these words.
Let us turn aside from an art that is inert. It robbed things of the creative spirit that animated them. We shall now see what was achieved by those who followed in the steps of the old masters.
The fifteenth century in China witnessed a continuance of the style prevalent during the Sung and Yüan periods. ”

“ When we arrive at Wang Wei, landscape is treated as a special subject and with its own resources. It was he who discovered the principles which govern the fading of colors and forms in the distance, and who formulated the laws of atmospheric perspective. Paintings in his style are all executed in a predominating color which the Chinese call luo-ts’ing, a mineral color of varying shades ranging from a malachite green to a lapis-lazuli blue. ”

“ Through study of these old masters they returned to the use of a full and sometimes vivid color, but kept a profound love of nature, and a fresh and original vision, by which they still perpetuated the inspiration of Sung painting in a new form. With these painters, however, new features appeared. Reds and purples became dominant notes amidst rich greens which set them off and enhanced their brilliancy. The vision of landscape itself is somewhat more realistic and less subtle. In all of these essentials Ni Tsan, who died in 1374, brings us nearer to the Ming period. ”

“ It is seen in the painting of flowers and landscape as well as in figure painting. These traits are equally apparent in an iris by Nan t’ien and a personage by Huang Yin-piao. The latter, working in the middle of the eighteenth century, evoked the personages of Buddhist and Taoist legend with a skillful brush, but his daring simplifications were more akin to virtuosity than to that deep reflection and freedom from non-essentials which were the glory of the early masters. ”

“ Nowhere do we see a predominant place assigned to the drawing or painting of the human figure. This alone is sufficient to mark the wide difference between Chinese and European painting.
The exact name for Landscape is translated by the words mountain and water picture. They recall the ancient conception of Creation on which the Oriental system of the world is founded. The mountain exemplifies the teeming life of the earth. It is threaded by veins wherein waters continuously flow. ”

“ Admittedly, Chinese painting is governed by distinctive ideas. Born of a civilization vastly different from our own, it may at times appear in a guise that seems incomprehensible. It would be astonishing, however, if Western intelligence were unable to grasp an aesthetic code of a magnitude which is too great to be ignored. ”

“ His endeavor, in this respect, is to simplify the objective images of the world to the extreme, replacing them with ideal images, which prolonged meditation shall have freed from every non-essential. It may therefore be readily understood how the brush-stroke becomes so personal a thing, that in itself it serves to reveal the hand of the master. There is no Chinese book treating of painting which does not discuss and lay stress upon the value of its aesthetic code. ”

“ Where our painters have chosen wood or canvas as a ground, the Chinese have employed silk or paper. While our art recognizes that drawing itself, quite apart from painting, is a sufficient objective, drawing and painting have always been closely intermingled in the Far East. ”