Chinese Painters Part 2

[10] Indian _Arhat_; j.a.panese _Rakan_.--TRANSLATOR.

IV. THE T'ANG PERIOD--SEVENTH TO TENTH CENTURIES

The T'ang dynasty was the really vital period of Chinese Buddhism. Among the painters who gave it its highest expression Wu Tao-tzu holds first place. His memory dwells in history as that of one of the greatest masters in China and legend has still further enhanced the might of his genius. It is highly probable that his work is entirely destroyed, but by the aid of copies, incised stones and wood engravings of the twelfth century, an idea of the painter's conception can be formed. He seems to have been the creator of a Chinese type of Kwanyin, the Buddhist incarnation of mercy and charity. Drapery covers the high drawn hair. She is attired in the harmonious folds of a plain and ample garment and expresses supreme authority, the sublimity of divine love.

If to these fragments of an immense plastic production is added the a.n.a.lysis furnished by the written records, we can define with some degree of cert.i.tude the place occupied by Wu Tao-tzu in the history of Chinese painting. The books state that the lines from his brush fairly vibrated; all united in marvelling at the spirituality emanating from forms thus defined. He adhered almost exclusively to the use of powerful ink-lines and denied himself the use of any color, whether scattered or prominent, which would have robbed his painting of the austerity which was the source of its surpa.s.sing feeling. But in order to appreciate the full value of the new ideas introduced by Wu into Chinese painting, it is necessary to understand the exact nature of the technique that was in practice up to the seventh and eighth centuries, at the opening of the T'ang dynasty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE VIII. WHITE EAGLE. SUNG PERIOD Collection of R. Petrucci.]

At that time there prevailed the a.n.a.lytic, painstaking, detailed and very considered drawing that is common to all periods preceding great constructive work. This technique admitted the use of two fundamental methods: one called _double contour_, the other _contour_ or _single contour_. The method of _double contour_ was applied chiefly to the drawing of plant life in landscape. It consisted in outlining leaves or branches by means of two lines of ink placed in apposition. The s.p.a.ce thus enclosed was filled with color. Any peculiarities of formation, knots in wood and veins in leaves were added subsequently. The name of _single contour_ was applied to drawings wherein a single ink line outlined the object, the s.p.a.ce enclosed being then filled with color.

If the application of these a.n.a.lytic methods was sometimes carried to the extreme of delicacy it never became labored. Throughout its entire evolution the art of the T'ang period is characterized by a sense of the magnificent. Once the study of forms was exhausted, this type of work was bound to be superceded. Wu Tao-tzu profited by the work of his predecessors. Combining in a single stroke of the brush, vigor and an eclectic character of line, with values and fluidity of tone, he brought to a supreme unity the two great principles by which things are made manifest in all the magic of their essential structure. But it must be understood that this patient investigation of forms was not limited to preparing the way for a single master. The logical outcome was an independent movement to which the origin of modern Chinese painting can be traced.

"Painting has two branches," the books say, "that of the North and that of the South; the separation occurred in the T'ang period." These terms _Northern School_ and _Southern School_ must not be taken literally. They serve merely to characterize styles which, in the eighth century, liberated themselves from methods demanding such close study and exact definition of forms. 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.[11]

[11] These divisions of Northern and Southern Schools do not correspond, as might be imagined, to geographical limitations.

Painters of the South worked in the style of the North and painters of the North likewise used the Southern style. Moreover the same master was able to employ one or the other according to the inspiration of the moment. These works were produced for a receptive people capable of understanding both styles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE IX. HORSEMAN FOLLOWED BY TWO ATTENDANTS Sung Period. Collection of A. Stoclet.]

Li Ssu-hsun and his son Li Chao-tao (eighth century) are considered to be the founders of the Northern School. The paintings attributed to them show the character which the Northern style preserved up to the Ming period and which was to be emphasized to the point of brutality at the hands of certain masters in the Yuan period. At the outset, in its brilliancy and precision, the Northern style held to a certain refinement of line; later the line is drawn with a firm and powerful brush and strong colors are applied almost pure.

In direct contrast the Southern style is made up of half-tints, with a feeling of reserve and intentional restraint, which gives it, with equal power, at times a more appealing charm. The lines are pliant, immersed in shading, color is suggested in a subtle fashion and, in contrast to the almost brutal emphasis of the North, it finds expression in chiaroscuro and concealed harmonies.

The foundation of the Southern School is attributed to a great landscape painter of the eighth century, w.a.n.g Wei. Nothing could better determine his tendencies than monochrome[12] painting in Chinese ink. According to the records, this was first practiced by him. It const.i.tutes what in China, as well as in j.a.pan, is called the _literary man's painting_ and is, in reality, quite closely related to calligraphy. The variety of shadings and relative colors of objects depend entirely upon the tones of ink washes. w.a.n.g Wei seems to have treated monochrome mainly from the standpoint of chiaroscuro, in his search for an atmospheric perspective which should be both fluid and ethereal. It appears that the accentuation of lines according to rule that is seen later on, where forms are synthetized--sometimes to an excessive degree--was only a derivation of the work of w.a.n.g Wei and caused by the intrusion of calligraphic virtuosity into the domain of painting.

[12] "Monochrome is a starved and lifeless term to express the marvellous range and subtlety of tones of which the preparation of black soot known as Chinese ink is capable." Laurence Binyon in "The Flight of the Dragon."--TRANSLATOR.

When we arrive at w.a.n.g 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. It will be seen why _luo-ts'ing_ gave its name to the style of w.a.n.g Wei.

By means of bluish tints he painted the distant expanse of landscape.

Mountains forming screens in the backgrounds and ma.s.ses of trees lost in the distance, are all indicated by the azure tints which intervening layers of air give to remote objects. But as the foreground is approached, rightful colors begin to prevail and the azure tints are subtly graded, pa.s.sing into a fresh and brilliant green amongst wooded declivities, and into the natural hue in the foliage of trees. Often heavy mists, spreading at the foot of high mountains, veil the outlines and still further emphasize the feeling of limitless s.p.a.ce.[13]

[13] I have not seen nor do I know of any paintings which can be said with certainty to be from the hand of w.a.n.g Wei. But from the records as well as from works directly inspired by him, an idea of his style and technique can be formed. Ancient paintings in _luo-ts'ing_ are found in j.a.pan as well as in China. The British Museum of London has a scroll painted by Chao Meng-fu, in the manner of w.a.n.g Wei, dated 1309.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE X. LANDSCAPE IN THE STYLE OF HSIA KUEI Sung Period. Collection of Martin White.]

But when a master has carried his study of the fading of colors and of their relative values thus far, he must have considered not only the element of color itself, but also the collective tones which color is capable of expressing. From this to monochrome painting in Chinese ink is but a step; historical testimony shows that w.a.n.g Wei took this step. By the simple opposition of black and white, and through tone values and gradations of shades, he endeavored to create the same feeling of atmosphere and s.p.a.ce which he had been able to express with _luo-ts'ing_.

No original picture remains to inform us to what extent he succeeded, but by means of monochrome paintings of the Sung period which owe their inspiration to him, the importance of the reform accomplished, and the tendencies manifested in those lost works of art may be divined.

Another master whose work can be defined with sufficient accuracy to cite as an ill.u.s.tration of a different aspect of the history of painting during the T'ang period, is Han Kan, who lived in the middle of the eighth century and who is celebrated as a painter of horses.

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. Beyond question he was not the first. The written records have preserved the names of several of his predecessors and while the honor of having been the great founder of a school was attributed to him, it is possible that this refers only to an artistic movement bearing his name, of which he was not the sole representative.

But the work of Han Kan and the unknown artists grouped around him, proclaims a powerful tradition, a well grounded school of animal painters which had attained the highest eminence. It was destined to exert a strong influence upon painters of horses in the Yuan epoch and even when, later on, this great tradition is seen disappearing, cloying and insipid, amidst the mannerisms of the Ming period, it will still retain sufficient power to carry thus far a reflection of the vigor and vitality attained in the great periods.

The painting of _Flowers and Birds_, and _Plants and Insects_ appears to have been already established at this time. The flowers and plants are drawn according to the methods of _double contour_ and _single contour_, worked over and brought out with that intensity of a.n.a.lysis to which allusion has been made. The bird is caught in its most subtle movement, the insect studied in its essential structure.

Thus we see that Chinese painting had extended its investigations in every direction and had solved the problems found along its path. It had absorbed foreign influences, altered its conception of the divine and found a new type of figure. It had endowed landscape painting with all the resources of atmospheric perspective and had established the two essential styles of the North and the South. The painter was master of the visible; his thought dominated form and was able to express itself with freedom.

V. THE SUNG PERIOD--TENTH TO THIRTEENTH CENTURIES

The T'ang period had been the golden age of Chinese poetry. It had witnessed an extraordinary outburst of religious fervor, and the overwhelming domination of Buddhism. It had, moreover, triumphantly re-established the unity of the empire and to the pride of intellectual activity it could add the pride of might and dominion. But the same cannot be said for the Sung period. From a political standpoint its history is one of c.u.mulative disaster. Ancient China retreated by degrees before the thrusts of the barbarians, until the great thunderbolt of Genghis Khan's conquest, reverberating with formidable echoes throughout all Asia, announced the approaching downfall of culture in the red dawn of a new era.

The Sung culture, totally different from that of the T'ang period, was, however, swept forward to its culmination. It would seem as if, under the menace of the barbarians, the mind had set for its goal the development of ideas embryonic in earlier work, formulating them in haste and arresting them finally in perfect yet sad images, in which the heights attained were haunted by the shadow of impending ruin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XI. LANDSCAPE BY MA LIN Sung Period. Collection of R. Petrucci.]

The dynasty opened with a cla.s.sical reaction against new ideas and witnessed a return to Confucian philosophy, with its conception of the State. But centuries of history had not rolled by without effect. In the tenth and eleventh centuries the ancient writings were no longer understood with their original meaning. A whole series of philosophers, of whom the last is Chu Hsi (thirteenth century), had formulated a composite doctrine resulting in what might be called an official philosophy, which has dominated to the present day. Some bold spirits, however, opposed this reactionary codification, struggling in vain to give a positive and firm structure to the doomed empire. Their influence appears to have been considerable. Just as the old heterodox philosophy was being stifled by the dry and colorless metaphysics of the conservatives, it was awakened to new life by the painters, who gave it a stirring interpretation in their work.

The period of technical research was past. At first, with care and patience, forms had been determined by drawing. Color had remained a thing apart, regarded as a work of illumination and quite distinct from drawing.

Then study was extended still further. Color came to be viewed in the light of shades and tones and became one of the means for the expression of form; it became the very drawing itself,--that which reveals the basic structure.

w.a.n.g Wei represents the moment when art, emanc.i.p.ating itself from problems already solved, had conquered every medium of expression. Such is the tradition which he bequeathed to the Sung artists, who were destined to add thereto such supreme masterpieces.

The Sung painters were haunted by the old philosophical beliefs as to the formation of the universe. Beyond the actual surroundings they dimly perceived a magic world made up of perfect forms. Appearances were but the visible covering of the two great principles whose combination engendered life. They believed that, in painting, they did more than to reproduce the external form of things. They labored with the conviction that they were wresting the soul from objects, in order to transfer it to the painted silk. Thus they created something new, an imaginary world more beautiful than the real world, wherein the intimate relation of beings and things was disclosed,--a world pervaded by pure spirit and one which was revealed only to those whose thought was sufficiently enlightened, and whose sympathies were sufficiently broad, to understand and to be stirred.

The painters of the line of w.a.n.g Wei during the Sung period, devoted themselves chiefly to the development of painting in monochrome. They pursued the study of relations of tones and values of shading up to the limit of extreme delicacy, and if they mingled color at all with their subtle evocations, it was with a feeling of unequalled restraint. They dwelt for the most part in intimacy with Nature. Fleeing from the cares of court and city, they retired into mountain solitudes, meditating for long periods before taking up the brush to paint. Thus they portrayed those mountains enveloped in mists, wherein was revealed the harmony of the two principles which control the universe. From the depths of valleys misty vapors arose and cedars and gigantic pines reared their majestic forms, while, on the threshold of a thatched cabin upon some rocky plateau, a hermit deep in meditation contemplated the vast expanse of a landscape of august grandeur.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XII. MONGOL HORSEMAN RETURNING FROM THE HUNT By Chao Meng-fu. Yuan Period. Doucet Collection.]

Sometimes, turning to plant forms, they painted the bamboo in black and white. A single masterly stroke sufficed to draw the cylindrical stalk from one joint to another, or the pointed leaves which are so quivering with life that we seem to hear the plaintive voice of the wind "combed,"

as the Chinese writings express it, "by the reeds." Or again, when a flower was the subject, they suggested it with a simplicity that presupposes a scientifically exact study of forms. It was by no means the splendid image which they sought to grasp but the soul itself; at one time the flower barely open in all its enchanting freshness, at another the softened petals drooping in languid fashion, revealing a splendor still present but soon to fade; at times the dew moistening the leaves, the snow shrouding them with its purity, or the slow monotonous rain beneath which they drip, motionless. These paintings are always instinct with deep poetic feeling.

At the hands of the Sung painters the school of landscape and monochrome technique attained a level which will never be exceeded. The masters of this period are numerous and are frequently represented by works of almost certain authenticity. It seems useless to a.s.semble here names which will convey no meaning to the European reader. It will suffice to ill.u.s.trate by a few great figures the three centuries of history during which Chinese landscape painting reached its culminating point.

Tung Yuan and Chu Jan are considered by the critics as having founded a special school in the great tradition of w.a.n.g Wei. Their paintings were quiet in coloring and were executed with broad strokes in an impressionist style. These works must be viewed from a distance to see their apparent violence merge into extreme elegance. They furnish a complete demonstration of the laws of atmospheric perspective, with its feeling of distance and infinite s.p.a.ce, in which forms are immersed. Here we find evidence that these painters were the first to attempt the arrangement of lines according to rule, which led ultimately to calligraphic painting.

Among the heads of schools cited in the Chinese writings Ma Yuan and Hsia Kuei of the Sung dynasty must be placed in a cla.s.s by themselves. Both of these masters lived at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth centuries. Their style can be described with accuracy since original examples are extant--both by themselves and by their disciples--in which their characteristics are fully revealed.

Ma Yuan is cla.s.sed 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.

His old pines, with branches wreathed in vines, would suffice alone to define his style, so freely do they express the force of plant life and the proud defiance of the aged tree. He loved the mountain solitudes to which he gave a new imagery, so authoritative and so perfect that it served to create a school.

The influence of Ma Yuan 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. The melancholy of autumn, the sadness of flights of birds that circle in the evening light, the feeling of seclusion and silence, such are the things in which this poetic spirit finds its joy, true heir of the master mind whose genius found expression in the wild aspects of nature.

The school of Ma dominated the entire subsequent period and his influence extended as far as Korea, where traces of it were still to be found as late as the fifteenth century. As the history of Korean painting becomes better known, we shall be able to say with more accuracy what it owes to other Chinese masters; but in so far as those mentioned are concerned, their influence appears to have been sufficiently strong to impress a certain type on fragmentary works from Korea which have become known to us recently.

We are far from being as well informed regarding Hsia Kuei, but we have that which is worth more than written records, a few paintings preserved in j.a.panese collections, which it seems legitimate to attribute to him without reservation. It is readily seen why his name is always linked with that of Ma Yuan. His work shows the same energy and power and discloses an ideal which is similar to that of his confrere. He seems to have penetrated even further than Ma Yuan along the path of daring simplifications, and to have approached at times the calligraphic style.

He painted both landscape and figures and was skilled in obtaining strange effects, as if of color, through his use of monochrome.