Chinese painting

“ 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. ”

“ The life of things is contemplated and portrayed for its own sake, not for its uses in the life of men. From this point of view the body of Chinese painting is much more modern in conception than that of Western art. Landscape was a mature and free art in China more than a thousand years ago, and her school of landscape is the loftiest yet known to the world. Nor was man ever dissociated from nature. As early as the 4th century Ku Kʽai-chih says that in painting a certain noble character he must give him a fit background of great peaks and deep ravines. ”

“ Although paintings of the Yuan period, generally speaking, are inferior to the Sung, lacking the spiritual qualities that characterize the earlier period, in such work as this the great traditions of Chinese painting are worthily continued. To appreciate Chinese painting one must rid oneself of the mistaken idea, so common to Occidentals, that a work of art depends for success upon its “likeness” to nature. Petty imitation of the appearance of things plays no part in Chinese painting. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Through the gropings of the primitive period, the heterodox philosophies and the mystic stirrings of Buddhism, Eastern thought had arrived at an unquestionably noble comprehension of existence. The impersonal mystery of the universe, its mighty principle, its manifold manifestations and the secret which unveils itself in the innermost soul of things are the conceptions which form the inspiration of Chinese painting. ”

“ The Chinese have been idealists, and experimenters in the making of great principles; their history opens a world of lofty aim and achievement, parallel to that of the ancient Mediterranean peoples. We need their best ideals to supplement our own—ideals enshrined in their art, in their literature and in the tragedies of their lives.
We have already seen proof of the vitality and practical value of oriental painting for ourselves and as a key to the eastern soul. It may be worth while to approach their literature, the intensest part of it, their poetry, even in an imperfect manner. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Chinese design shows naturalistic art arrested and perpetuated on totally different principles. Their representations are all equally allied to their art of picture-painting, whether on china with the brush, or on textiles with the needle. The flatness of the picture is still preserved by their ignorance of perspective. When they attempted to express different distances, they did so by placing them one above another, so that in reading the composition the eye first takes in the distant horizon ”

“ It has not yet arrived at the representation of the beautiful as beautiful. In painting, it lacks perspective and shading. European images, like everything else, it copies well. A Chinese painter knows exactly how many scales there are on the back of a carp, how many notches a leaf has; he knows perfectly the form of trees and the curvature of their branches; but the sublime, the ideal, and the beautiful, do not belong at all to the domain of his art and his ability.”— (Philosophie der Geschichte.) ”

“ These works are numerous in the modern period and constitute what so many regard as Chinese painting. One cannot be too careful in discarding them.
During every period decorative paintings, religious paintings and ancestral paintings made after death, were executed in China by artisans, ordinary workmen at the service of whosoever might engage them. Such work should not be consulted in studying the styles of great periods or the higher manifestations of an art. ”

“ This idealist temper helps to explain the deliberate avoidance of all emphasis on appearances of material solidity by means of chiaroscuro, &c., and the exclusive use of the light medium of water-colour. The Chinese express actual dislike for the representation of relief. Whoever compares the painting of Europe with that of Asia (and Chinese painting is the central type for the one continent, as Italian may claim to be for the other) must first understand this contrast of aim. ”

“ But even their characteristic blue they use rather sparingly in their painting. Chinese drawing impressed me as primitive, but not inexact; but if I were less ignorant about Chinese art, I might regard it very differently.
I have a dozen or more of the dainty “rice pictures” that were being painted in that queer unartistic Cantonese studio. Not one picture has been painted by one man. For instance, I have among them the figure of a mandarin. It is not over six inches high, but it represents the considerable work of three artists, one of them noted throughout China. ”

“ We note also that in the more specialised arts the transcendence of China belongs to the past, and even sometimes a remote past. It is so in the art of philosophy, and the arts of poetry and painting. It is so also in the art of pottery, in which Chinese supremacy over the rest of the world has been longest recognised—has not the word “china” for centuries been our name for the finest pottery?—and is most beyond measure. Our knowledge of the pottery of various cultures excels that of any other human products because of all it is the most perdurable. ”

“ The art was one of imperfect evolution, but for thirteen centuries it was the only living pictorial art in the world, and the Chinese deserve the honour of having created landscape painting. The materials used were water-colours, brushes, usually of deer-hair, and a surface of unsized paper, translucid silk or wooden panel. The chief motives were landscapes of a peculiarly wild and romantic type, animal life, trees and flowers, and figure compositions drawn from Chinese and Buddhist history and Taoist legend ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Chinese have ideas of painting peculiar to themselves. They have little regard for perspective, and in ancient times had none whatever. Even so late as the seventeenth century perspective was at direct variance with the rules guiding their art. We can, for example, see vases—particularly those of the Ming Dynasty—in which the personages in a scene appear to be piled directly one above another, or mount stairs, like upright ladders, in order to reach other personages evidently some distance off, but as much in the foreground of the picture as those nearer at hand. ”

“ Sources and Authorities.—While the designs on porcelain, screens, &c., have long been admired in the West, the paintings of which these are merely reproductions have been utterly ignored. Ignorance has gained authority with time, till the very existence of a great school of Chinese painting has been denied. Materials for study are scanty. Fires, wars and the recent armed ravages of Western civilization have left but little. The profound indifference of the Chinese to European admiration has prevented their collections from being known. ”

“ Surely no legend better illustrates the Chinese point of view, that a painting is the home of the painter’s soul.
That is the story which was told to me one day when, happening into a Chinese shop where some antiques and curios were offered for sale, I chanced to pick up a tiny bottle. It was not over two and a half inches high. Its weight proclaimed it crystal. A miniature scene and inscription were skilfully and beautifully painted inside.
“This,” said the intelligent Chinese attendant, in answer to my question, “is little bit painting. Story one man artist man very much great. ”

“ It is difficult for a European to follow the thought of the Chinese painters in these daring simplifications. Sometimes they are carried to such an extreme as to leave us with a feeling of perplexity. Often however they give rise to mighty conceptions and [Pg 90] paintings whose essential character impresses us as a unique product of genius. Calligraphic painting reached its highest level during the Sung and Yüan periods. ”

“ And yet it is impossible to understand Chinese art without doing so. In China art was confined to experts, while in Japan it acquired an ever-increasing popular character. But the Chinese is by far the higher form of art. The Chinese have always been the teachers and pioneers in all matters of thought and creative genius in the Far East. Architecture, sculpture, painting, with all their various ramifications, date back to the remote ages of Chinese antiquity. ”

“ The art of painting among the Phenicians, Persians, and other Eastern nations, advanced but slowly. The Chinese appear, until a very recent period, to have contented themselves with only so much knowledge of the art as might enable them to decorate their beautiful porcelain and other wares; their taste is very peculiar, and though the pencilling of their birds and flowers is delicate, yet their figures of men and animals are distorted, and out of proportion ”

“ In the domain of painting, we are only just beginning to awake to the fact that in this direction the Chinese have reached heights denied to all save artists of supreme power, and that their art was already on a lofty level many centuries before our own great representatives had begun to put brush to canvas. ”

“ The surviving works of art of this era are far from numerous, but they are sufficient to warrant the belief that China, except in the field of ceramic art, rarely if ever surpassed the achievements of this golden age. Chinese Buddhist sculpture attained its noblest development in the T'ang period. As to T'ang painting—unfortunately, surviving examples are of the utmost rarity—it is characterized by austere beauty and spiritual elevation. Admirable also are the productions of the metal worker, the weaver, and the potter. ”

“ The Chinese artist is rarely seen to better advantage than when painting vases of this family. With a rich palette comprising the prevailing green, blues of every shade, violet, red, yellow, gold, and black, he produces effects of the most charming beauty. ”

“ As in poetry, in painting there are strong traces of alien influences; even before the T'ang period, the painter Hsieh Ho laid down the six fundamental laws of painting, in all probability drawn from Indian practice. Foreigners were continually brought into China as decorators of Buddhist temples, since the Chinese could not know at first how the new gods had to be presented. The Chinese regarded these painters as craftsmen, but admired their skill and their technique and learned from them. ”

“ In the fine arts the Chinese have made but little progress, having no knowledge of sculpture, and very little of painting. Their literature, it is very clear, contains none of those splendid creations of genius which we might expect to find among a people partly civilized during so many ages, and which actually exist in the languages of Persia and Hindostan. ”

“ The Chinese surpass all nations in all arts, and particularly in painting, and they perform such perfect work, as others can but faintly imitate. When an artificer has finished a piece, he carries it to the prince's palace to demand the reward which he thinks he deserves, for the beauty of his performance; and the custom is for the prince to order the work to be left at the gate of the palace for a whole year, and if in that time no person finds a just fault in the piece, the artificer is rewarded, and admitted into the body of artists ”