Critical review of Chinese Art and Literature
Introduction:
Chinese art is varied and intriguing both in the literary or dramatic aspect, as well as in the visual aspect. These two articles analyse various aspects of Chinese art dating back to several centuries. A typical example of the development of Chinese art are the famous flower paintings by Chien Hsuan that date back to at least the thirteenth century. This work, which according to a fifteenth century colophon, dates from Xhien’s maturity and is probably one of the finest of his flower paintings, apart from its interaction with poetry. The painting also reveals the richness and complexity of the meaning in Chinese art. There is an intrinsic relationship between words and images in Chien’s landscape painting that has also been the subject of two recent studies. This would seem to affirm his status as one of China’s greatest landscape painters as well as one of the most important in setting the road ahead for the future.
Chien Hsuan was active in the late Southern Sung (1127-1279) and the early Yuan (1279-1368) dynasties – this meant he was the heir to several ancient traditions of poetry and painting that deal with the subject of flowers. Flowers have an important appeal to the several senses of sight, smell and touch, thus offering Chinese poets and painters subjects of virtually unlimited symbolic and metaphoric potential. This influence goes back several thousand years, to the seventh and third century BC where the Book of Odes and Song of Ch’u were influential in the creation of the poetry pertaining to the Six Dynasties that came between 317 and 589 AD. The flower has also been portrayed as a symbol of a beautiful woman whilst floral imagery often has unmistakeable erotic overtones. Flowers are equally important when they are used as symbols of scholarly nobility and at the same time, reclusion.
Although there is an element of floral imagery appearing in pre-Sung illustrations of narrative poems and Buddhist texts, it was not until the early twelfth century that both styles were combined. This alliance of images and words, reflects a consistent Sung interest in the use of poetry as a source for the enrichment of pictorial art. We have found comments by art critics such as Kuo His (dating from around 1001 to 1090) on the lines of poetry that he found well suited to depiction in painting. Other members of the circle of Emperor Sung Hui-tsung were important in the continued influence of poetry elements over painting.
However, the confluence of the arts of writing and painting became increasingly subtle when Hui-tsung began to write poetry that described or was directly related, to his paintings. In the twelfth century, Emperor Sung Kao-tsung and other artists working in the imperial courts brought in the fashion of inscribing silk fans with texts on both sides as well as imagery. With these works, in which painting and poetry were combined into a single creative process, Chinese art entered a new complexity.
Painting and poetry from nature
Hui-tsung’s poetry like his richly detailed paintings are typical examples of the combination between art and poetry. In the poem, ‘The Five Coloured Parakeet’, the emperor describes the bird in considerable detail. Although the emperor attributes human qualities to the parakeet, qualities such as nobility and dignity, he does not attempt to endow the bird with the capacity to experience human feelings. Whatever symbolic qualities the bird may have, as an image of freedom and naturalness, they remain quite general as to have very little meaning. The poem is primarily descriptive and the painting illustrating it attempts to capture a convincing image of this avian subject.
Many of the Southern Sung flower paintings in the form of fans or album leaves were accompanied by quatrains in the calligraphy of various imperial writers. Unfortunately these unique combinations have only rarely been preserved. One of the earliest examples is the silk fan that was excavated from the tomb of the Ming prince Chu Tan. In its original form, this collaborative work consisted of an anonymous artist painting of a butterfly hovering over an autumn mallow and a poem in the calligraphy of Kao-Tsung. These two pieces of silk were eventually pasted back to back to form a roundish, hand-held fan. During the Yuan dynasty, the two sides of the fan were separated and mounted side by side in a short hand scroll, this continued to affirm its importance as a typical example of the combination between art and verse.
When we compare the relationship between poetry and painting in Hui-tsung’s ‘Five Coloured Parakeet’ with that in Kao-Tsung’s fan, that dates from no earlier than the 1160’s, we discover a significant difference. Hui-tsung’s poem, in its astonishingly detailed evocation of the parakeet’s form, is highly descriptive; in fact, his painting illustrates the accompanying poem, but does not add any metaphoric dimension to it. Such is the power of the verse that we do not even need to see the painting to visualise the parakeet in our minds. In the Kao-tsung fan, a more complex relationship prevails between poetry and painting. Although Hui-tsung is no less concerned with naturalism than Kao-tsung, the latter carries the viewer close to the yellow blossoms and skilfully evokes their sensuous presence as real objects. But with the addition of the quatrain, that not only describes the flowers but also introduces levels of personification and metaphor, the fan is no longer merely a combination of verbal and pictorial description; through the interaction of poetry and painting, the autumn mallow has become an emblem of human feeling. This comparison demonstrates the high level of artistic expression achieved by both of these poets and artists.
Comparison with Li Bai
In China, poets singled out for representation in visual arts were often admired for the courage of their moral and political convictions, their ability to face adversity with dignity, and their honest attempts to comprehend and accept a constantly changing world. What differentiates the images examined in this study from the larger body of artistic portraits of historic poets, is that these art objects focus on Li Bai’s direct confrontation with a eunuch, who symbolizes the subversion of a proper sharing of power by an emperor and the scholar-officials entitled to be his most trusted advisors. Li Bai is completely different from other artist-poets in that he achieved his greatness in a state of drunken abandon and absolutely refused to tie himself to the decorum of court.
One can understand the artistic effect of Li Bai if a reconstruction of the history of photographs is carried out. Here, one can observe and experience first-hand the outlandish bravery of Li Bai and this brought him admiration from the illiterate masses too. Li Bai’s poems and his behaviour project a colourful as well as a complex image. It should also be noted that Li’s songs (gexing) and a related type of poetry known as yuefu, were circulated orally and thus reached the illiterate people as well as those who knew how to read.
Li Bai in the Song Dynasty
The earliest and most reliably dated portrait of Li Bai is an engraved stone from around 1256, and this was commissioned by Mou Zicai when he served as magistrate of Dangto Anhui. By studying the eulogies written by Mou, we can gain some information on the importance of Li Bai in the Chinese cultural context. Mou composed several eulogies that were engraved in large characters above each portrait emphasising Li Bai’s cult status. The result is that Li Bai is presented as the focus of reverential admiration rather than as the key character of a more narrative treatment in which viewers are induced to imagine themselves being present as events begin to unfold. Because so few portraits of Li Bai have survived, it is hard to know whether Mou Zicai had seen similar images or not.
The emperor during the Tianbao era (742-56) was Xuanzong and his preferred adjutant was Gao Lishi. To characterize Li Bai’s fall from imperial favour as happening in just a day is very far from reality, this must have taken quite a long time. However, it is very likely that Li’s departure from the court resulted primarily from Gao Lishi’s machinations. Li’s arrival at Pick Rocks (Caishi) was after a period of travel, his involvement in a conflict between the heir apparent and another prince, Li’s exile, and his subsequent pardon. As in the visual portrait, many details have been omitted from the eulogy.
Li Bai in the Arts of the Qinq Dynasty
The legendary boot removal incident seems to have become quite a common theme in the arts after the Manchu conquest of China. Although this could be explained by the increased chances of survival for objects made in recent centuries, evidence suggests that the numbers are related to other factors, for example, the publication of cheaper editions of vernacular fiction. In tracing the history of the boot removal incident as an iconic event in the visual arts, the author argues that painted versions probably existed in the Song and Yuan dynasties and that these may have influenced, directly or indirectly, the Song stone-engraved portrait of Li Bai and portrayals of him on one Yuan lacquer box. The absence of extant versions from the tenth through the mid fourteenth centuries may easily be attributed to the limited number of paintings surviving from such an early period.
Both articles teach us a lot about the intermingling of writing and visual art in Chinese history. However, until we know more about the interactions of musical dramas, vernacular literature, and the visual arts, we can only speculate on some possible reasons why incidents such as the boot removal is not represented in paintings, but is only found in print and ceramics. Although reconstructing iconic events in multiple art forms over such a long period of time can be unwieldy, it not only reveals something of the larger cultural processes producing some poets as cultural heroes, it also provides a means for exploring the changes in the diverse history of the visual culture of China
Bibliography:
Liscomb M K: Li Bai, A Hero among Poets in the Visual, Dramatic and Literary Arts of China, 1999, University of Victoria
Harrist R; Ch’ien Hsuan’s ‘Pear Blossoms’: The Tradition of Flower Painting and Poetry from Sung to Yuan; Metropolitan Museum Journal Vol 22 1987 pp 53-70
