Gu Kaizhi’s Chinese narrative painting Admonitions of the Court Instructress to Palace Ladies is one of the earliest and most prominent examples of Chinese art known to historians and scholars. A product of the Jin Dynasty, Gu’s Admonitions Scroll adapts Zhang Hua’s 292 AD poetic text to illustrate the varying behaviors and attitudes which palace ladies should demonstrate during their roles in the palace. In addition to the painting’s great beauty, its authorship and status as a potential copy has been the subject of much discussion, as the scholarship surrounding this painting reflects both its authenticity and its aesthetic qualities. Despite the ambiguity of its nature as a first-generation copy of Gu’s original scrolls, or the scrolls themselves, the Admonitions of the Court Instructress to Palace Ladies stands out as an indelible work that demonstrates the Imperial court system in China, and the codes of behavior that defined it.
Background
The Admonitions Scrolls highlight twelve scenes depicting the proper behavior of historical palace ladies around Chinese imperial royalty – the Admonitions Scrolls are meant to highlight these codes of behavior in accordance with the clan-based social hierarchy that existed in feudal China during that time. Because of this clan, class-centric hierarchy, people were expected to conform to certain behaviors; in particular, women were meant to be submissive and earnest while imperial men enjoyed their power. In particular, the Zhang Hua scrolls upon which the Gu work was based were meant to criticize the Empress Jia, who was a cruel leader who abused her power to solicit sex from powerful men by using intimidation, kidnapping and threats. Zua’s poetry, and Gu’s adaptation in visual form, is meant to be a refutation of that kind of behavior by women and a call to civility and more modest sexual norms in feudal China.
In order to best understand the Admonitions Scrolls, it is crucial to understand Gu Kaizhi as a painter and the overarching themes of his works. A royal officer, poet and calligrapher in his own right, Gu was once quoted as saying (in response to his claim that he does not paint the eyes of characters in a portrait for years), “The beauty or ugliness of the four limbs basically bears no relation to the most subtle part of a painting. What conveys the spirit and portrays the likeness lies precisely in those dots [of the eyes].” This sentiment sits at the heart of Gu’s deeply spiritual approach to painting, in which the inner nature of the subjects is demonstrated through portraiture – the goal of the artist being to bring out the soul of his or her subjects with their painting. Gu’s work, including the Admonitions Scrolls, seeks to bring out the essence, or spirit, of what is being painted by breaking down the restraints of the bodies being painted, attaching importance to their natural forms. As a painter, this kind of inner life was the fundamental component of his works, and why they still maintain a vibrancy and appeal after millennia.
The Admonitions Scrolls
The overall style of the Admonitions Scrolls follows the kind of fine linear style that is often found in figure painting from the fourth and fifth centuries, and is often associated with Gu’s artwork. Virtually all of the panels and scenes involved in the Admonitions Scrolls make use of a tea-colored silk handscroll that, in its current form, is weathered and distressed with a number of folds and tears, as well as stamps of previous owners.
In terms of colors, Gu’s painting makes use of black and red as primary colors, which are painted against the tea-colored background that acts as a neutral, off-white default that is not filled in when objects are drawn. In some of the panels, there is some mild use of blue and green. This overall style lends the artwork a sense of antiquity and sophistication, utilizing an innate simplicity to further highlight the highly detailed penwork of Gu – all of the figures are painted in a rounded, complex manner that conveys the illusion of movement and vibrancy within the characters. All of the characters are, for the most part, painted on an equal plane, perceived as standing next to each other, with very little depth used to indicate perspective. This places all of the characters on equal footing, and places the greater focus on the moral lesson being conveyed by Gu in the painting itself.
Scene 10 – The Rejection
The particular panel of the Admonitions Scrolls being investigated is the tenth, in which the emperor (depicted on the left) raises a hand to reject a beautiful palace lady who advances toward him. This panel illustrates the couplet of the poem on which the scrolls are based, which reads: “If by a mincing air you seek to please, Wise men will abhor you.” This panel demonstrates a decidedly satirical reversal of the previous panels’ sentiments, in which the family scenes depict a sense of harmony and unity – instead, the emperor keeps the consort at a distance, with his hand mildly raised in rejection. His expression is also disdainful, his mouth downturned and eyes lowered in disgust – his body language turns away from her, leaning away slightly from the consort. The consort, meanwhile, is leaning toward the emperor, flowers in her hair, red sash flowing in the breeze behind her and long hair tied in bows.
For Gu, this image depicts a scene of erotic temptation, in which the consort hopes to give pleasure to the emperor in exchange for favoritism and attention. The expressions on both of the figures’ faces exemplify the kind of focus Gu placed on the inner essence and spirit of his subjects, particularly through the eyes. The ‘dots’ that Gu often waited years to place on his figures speak volumes about the interaction being captured in this particular image – the downcast eyes of the emperor indicate a kind of cautious but authoritative admonition of the consort’s actions. The pupils are painted as relatively small, the eye shape calm but thrust downward at the consort (who is painted as shorter than the emperor). Meanwhile, the consort’s eyeline is equally downcast, staring towards the chest of the emperor, showing a much higher slant to her eyebrow and thinner-set eyes to indicate a kind of manipulative scheming within her mind. To Gu, the consort’s advances are untoward and decidedly calculated as evidenced by the consort’s eyes; no sense of shame or guilt is found in her eyes with the emperor’s admonishment. Meanwhile, the emperor is shown to be kind and merciful, but decisive, with his impassioned but open eyes. With these simple expressions of soul and spirit through the painting of eyes, Gu’s principles of conveying the inner lives of his subjects is illustrated.
Gu and Didactic Painting
The Admonitions scrolls, and the tenth panel in particular, are excellent examples of what is known as the didactic mode of painting – in which morality is conveyed and taught through the use of painting and visual art. The word ‘admonition’ in the title is already an indicator of the painting’s thematic nature – as a means to moralistically judge characters for the actions conveyed on the scrolls and ‘admonish’ them as a result. At the same time, Gu was also dedicated to painting ‘beauties,’ which was in great demand in Chinese painting – Gu uses these beauties to show the inherent ugliness of some of their immoral actions. The aforementioned tenth panel, for instance, depicts a beautiful woman performing actions that are being admonished: the seduction of the emperor – her beauty, then, is shown to be misused for immoral purposes.
Conclusion
Gu Kaizhi’s Admonitions of the Instructress to Palace Ladies stands prominently as an example of early Chinese didactic painting. The artist uses flowing lines and forms, as well as the creative use of eyes, to depict the souls and spirits of its subjects to tell object lessons about Chinese clan-based codes of behavior in the Jin dynasty. Given the poem’s (and painting’s) context as a criticism of Chinese courtly behavior and the acts of Empress Jia, Gu’s innately moralistic and instructive painting infuses the work with both stunning beauty and an indicator of the morality of Chinese culture at the time. With these factors in mind, the Admonitions Scrolls become one of the most important artifacts for learning about life in fifth-century China, while also presenting one of the oldest and most beautiful pieces of artwork in Chinese history.
Works Cited
Kohara Hironobu, The Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies Scroll. Trans. Shane
McCausland. University of London, 2000.
Gu Kaizhi (Ku K’ai-chih, ca. 345-ca. 406) 顧愷之, Admonitions of the Court Instructress to
Palace Ladies, handscroll, ink and color on silk, possibly an early copy of the original, British Museum (3000 Years, pls. 39, 40 and 41). Jin dynasty.
Shane McCausland. Gu Kaizhi and the Admonitions scroll, British Museum Press, 2003.
Audrey Spiro, "New Light on Gu Kaizhi." Journal of Chinese Religions 16, no. 1 (1988): 1-17.
Xiong Yan-xia, "The Relationship Between Expressive Portrayal and Presentation of Spirit
Through Appearance - The Analysis on Gu Kaizhi′ s Aesthetic Theories in Painting." Journal of Anhui Vocational & Technical College 3 (2010): 016.
