The Song Dynasty Page 1
Journeying on …
Remember, this is my first landscape painting, and I am selecting elements for my composition from differing sources; the oarsman is from the Mustard Seed Garden manual.
The bridge between Tang and Song Dynasties
Although the tenth century was marred by bitter dissension and political strife, it was also the century of the giants of landscape painting. Perhaps the turmoil of the age following a century of slow decay within the Tang Dynasty was itself a potent factor among the causes that led the leading artists to paint towering piles of rocky peaks, rushing torrents, and dark cascades, tangled masses of leafless, dormant trees, and lonely temples reached by tortuous and narrow paths!
The great Masters of the tenth and eleventh centuries are sometimes called ‘classical’ because they established monumental landscape painting ideas. However, later, painters returned again and again for inspiration. These masters, Jīng Hào, Lǐ Chéng, Guān Tóng, and Guō Zhōngshù, were all men of North China, nurtured in a rugged, bleak countryside whose mode is well conveyed in the austerity of their style. But on the other hand, the painters of the south lived in a kinder environment. The hills of the Lower Yangtze Valley are softer in outline, the sunlight is diffused by mist, and winter’s grip is less harsh. In the works of Dŏng Yuán and Jù Rán, both active in Nan king, there is a roundness of contour, a looseness, and freedom in the brushwork that is in marked contrast to the angular rocks and crabbed branches of Lǐ Chéng.
Jīng Hào
Escaping from the political turmoil of his time, Jīng Followed a simple, secluded life, supporting himself by farming. He spent his leisure hours wandering in the beautiful Tàiháng Shān mountain range of eastern Shān xī. And painted the scenes that filled his heart.
Jīng Hào is the author of “Pi-fa-chi – A Note on the Art of Brush,” written from the standpoint of an old Rustic advising a young farmer, no more than advice, strong encouragement to the young man to study hard because, in the end, he assures that the farmer is capable of what he sets out to accomplish.
According to Jīng Hào, there are Six Essentials in painting:
- The first is Spirit (ch’i).
- The second is called Resonance (yin).
- The third is called Thought (ssu).
- The fourth is called Scene (ching).
- The fifth is called Brush (pi).
- And the sixth is called Ink (mo).
He then discusses the difference between achieving ‘life likeness’ and ‘inner reality,’ summarising by stating, ‘Reality means that both spirit and substance forces are strong. Furthermore, if the Spirit is conveyed only through the outward appearance and not through the image in its totality, the image is dead.’
The young farmer expresses his doubts: ‘I am only a farmer and have no qualifications for learning these. Therefore, although I enjoyed playing with the Brush, I could not achieve anything. I would not be able to paint the right way even if I had the luck of receiving your kind teaching of the Essentials.
The old man admonishes the young farmer, ‘Limitless desire is a threat to life!’ He then gives detailed instructions on the Essentials of painting. Spirit (ch’i) is obtained when your mind moves along with the movement of the Brush and does not hesitate in delineating images. Resonance (yün) is obtained when you establish forms while hiding (apparent traces of the Brush and perfecting them by observing the proprieties and avoiding vulgarity. Thought (ssu) is received when you grasp primary forms, eliminate unnecessary details (in your observation of nature), and let your ideas crystallise into the conditions to be represented.
Scene (ching) is obtained when you study the laws of nature and the different faces of time (other times of the day or seasons of the year), look for the sublime and recreate it with reality. Brush (pi) is obtained when you handle the Brush freely, applying all the varieties of strokes following your purpose, although you must follow specific basic rules of brushwork. Here, it would be best to regard brushwork neither as substance nor form but as a movement, like flying or driving. Finally, Ink (mo) is obtained when you distinguish higher and lower parts of objects with a gradation in tones and represent shallowness and depth, thus making them appear as natural as if they had not been done with a brush.
Jīng Hào then fleshes out and theorises these essential aspects, categorising the difference between sublime, distinctive, and skilful work. He explains four types of forces in brushwork, two kinds of faults in painting, one comprising defects not connected with form and those associated with the form. Different species of trees are discussed, as well as formations of mountains and streams.
It is a fascinating read and also provides an exciting biography of Jīng Hào at the end. (You must register and log in to read the full article. I can only recommend this). The theme of this essay is that the art of a painter lies in grasping the ultimate Reality and not the mere illusion of Reality, in abstracting the Spirit from the form. Resemblance reproduces the formal aspects of objects but neglects their Spirit; truth shows the Spirit and substance in like perfection. He who tries to transmit the Spirit through formal aspects and ends by merely obtaining the outward appearance will produce a dead thing.
A.Coomaraswamy summarised these ideas in an article, ‘Introduction to the Art of Eastern Asia’; he comments, ‘oriental art is not concerned with Nature, but with the nature of Nature.’
Rock Textures
In Wu Yangmu’s book ‘The Techniques of Chinese Painting,’ he depicts over thirty kinds of rock textures.
… a little tip if you attempt to copy these, do not try and accurately imitate the strokes of the original artist. Instead, attempt to work out the layers of shading and then register the type of brushstroke and construct your rock shapes with your brushwork. In rendering just these first three, I have learned much about the importance of controlling moisture in the brush. I still have a few hairs that still need to turn grey. I will attempt a few more of these textures, but first, I might try a few trees! Variety is the spice of life!
The beautiful photograph below was kindly provided from China.
Guān Tóng, Perspective and Composition
Guān Tóng was Jīng Hào’s student and younger contemporary. The early twelfth-century catalogue of the Imperial Collections comments on Guān Tóng, stating, “It delighted him to paint autumn hills and wintry forests, with groups of cottages, river crossings, hermits, recluses, fishermen selling their catch, and mountain hostelries. Look well at his pictures, and you will be suddenly transported to the scenes it portrays. You are standing, perhaps on ‘Pa Bridge amid the wind and snow’ or travelling up the Three Gorges ‘where gibbons scream from either shore.’ You who but a moment ago were a common courtier or grubber in the dusty markets of the world find yourself suddenly transformed.”
The description applies to most of the leading landscape painters of the tenth and eleventh centuries. In Chinese paintings of this time, there is no apparent source of light but rather an overall even illumination. Its intensity and emphasis may vary from one part of the picture to another as the artist wishes to paint up a form or construct his composition in terms of ink tones.
‘Travelling in Mountains,’ like all Chinese landscapes, is not a portrait of a mountain but a composite of many elements of nature. The main design may be based on a view of some famous peak; the artist has felt perfectly free to introduce temple buildings, a waterfall, a bridge, and inns to unravel his storyline. The point of view from which the various elements are portrayed is selective. There is no fixed vanishing point or one point perspective.
The Chinese painter deliberately avoided the elementary laws of perspective as the West understands them; for the same reason, he avoided using shadow. Scientific perspective involves a view from a determined position and includes elements seen from that point. While this might satisfy the logical Western mind, more is needed for the Chinese painter to ask why they should constrain themselves to a single viewpoint. If they have the means to depict what they know to be there, why only paint what can be seen from a single view?
The composition of a Chinese painting is not defined by the four walls of its mount as is a European painting with its frame. Instead, the Chinese artist records not a single visual confrontation but an accumulation of experience touched off perhaps by one moment’s exaltation before the beauty of nature. Moreover, the experience is transmitted into forms that are not merely generalised but are also richly symbolic.
For example, the Chinese artist may paint a view of Mount Lu, but the actual shape of Mount Lu is of little interest to him in itself; the mountain is significant only if, in contemplating it, wandering through it, and painting it, he is made aware of those things that for him make Mount Lu, for the moment, the very embodiment of mountainness. It has often been said that the Chinese painter leaves large areas of the picture space empty to complete it in our imagination. But that is not so. The concept of completion is utterly alien to the Chinese way of thinking.
The Chinese painter deliberately avoids a complete statement because he knows that we can never know everything and that what we can describe or complete cannot be true except in a minimal sense. All he can do is liberate the imagination and set it wandering over the limitless spaces of the universe. His landscape is not a final statement but a starting point, not an end but a door opening.
During this Northern Sung Period, the speculative theories of nature attained an unmatched height, reconciling the morality of character found in the interrelationships of Heaven, Earth, and Man as expressed in ‘Li’ or ‘the principle’ with the direct and keen observation of nature.
‘Li’ is the name Neo Confucianists gave during this period to the principle of things, i.e., reason and essence. This Chinese character stands for the markings on jade, the grain of a piece of bamboo, the fibres of a muscle, or the threads of fabric. An influential eleventh-century writer on art classes, Guān Tóng among the three supreme masters of landscape painting during this period; the other two were Lǐ Chéng and Fàn Kuān.