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Chapter 1

Learning the Tradition

This book teaches the styles of Chinese brush painting that flowered in the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE) and the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368 CE). The styles are not just techniques but the expression of a world–view rooted in Chinese philosophies that developed over four thousand years of history. Understanding the history and philosophies and the aesthetics related to them can help you to appreciate the significance of painting as practiced by the traditional Chinese artists. It can also help you to develop some of the same reverence and respect for your own practice of painting.

Yin and Yang and the Eight Trigrams

According to legend, the first simple system of notation in China was developed by the legendary Emperor Fu Xi in the 28th century BCE. The Bagua or “eight symbols” system reflects the dualistic philosophy of yin and yang. Yang is the positive, masculine principle of the universe, associated with heaven, light, the father, strength, and hardness. Yin is the negative, feminine principle, associated with earth, darkness, the mother, weakness, and softness. The image of the dragon hidden in the clouds was first used to represent the yang principle and was matched by the tiger crouching on the earth to represent the yin principle.

In the 10th century BCE, the black-and-white yin-yang symbol was developed to represent the duality. The symbol is called Taijitu (T’ai-chi), “diagram of the supreme ultimate.” The curve in the symbol means that the proportion of yin and yang varies among objects. Each waxes and wanes in proportion to the other over time in a constant process of change, as with day and night, the moon, the tides, and the seasons. The small circles mean that some yin is always in yang and some yang is always in yin.

The eight trigrams were formed by combinations of three layer stacks of the yang and yin signs, – and --. The combinations show different proportions of the yin and yang qualities associated with major elements in the universe. The paired opposites are now typically shown around the yin yang symbol. Lake is separated from water, as mountain is separated from earth, showing the special significance of mountains and lakes or rivers. These are the primary elements of Chinese landscape painting, where the character for landscape, shanshui, is composed of the characters for mountain and water.

The sequences and locations of the trigram pairs were moved in later versions to show a change from a static, primordial configuration to a dynamic configuration. The Bagua was elaborated when King Wen Wang of Zhou (1099–1050 BCE), the founder of the later Zhou dynasty, stacked groups of two trigrams in their various permutations to create 64 hexagrams.

The Yi Jing (I-Ching or Book of Changes) was written perhaps in the 3rd or 4th century BCE. The book is devoted to the cosmic principles and philosophy of the ancient trigrams and hexagrams used as symbols. It has also been used as a manual of divination to interpret natural events for the superstitious through readings based on the symbols.

The Bagua system has been applied to various studies, such as astronomy, astrology, geology, geomancy, anatomy, time, and the seasons. In modern times, interpretations of the Bagua are commonly referenced in relation to Feng Shui and the martial arts.

The principles of yin-yang permeate traditional Chinese art and architecture. In a Chinese garden wall, you may see a round lattice window with a pattern of curvy lines (yin) beside a hexagonal window with angular, geometric lines (yang). The yin and yang, feminine and masculine, style windows alternate and change as you walk by. Similarly, the elaborately-shaped tiles on the ground alternate in black-and-white patterns.

The symbolism of opposites can even be seen in the contrast of black ink on white paper in calligraphy and brush painting. In painting, the artist’s tools are either yin or yang. The strokes on the page go right and left, balancing the yin and yang. A strong and dark stroke is yang or male, while a soft and pale stroke is yin or female. All opposites are yin and yang, and a painting becomes a harmonious one on the basis of these qualities.

The Hundred Schools of Thought

Ancient pottery and bronzes were adorned with ornamental patterns, pictures of animals, or picture-characters that supported government rites meant to keep people in fear of their rulers and society in order. Subtle warnings and admonitions were used in art to improve social morality and foster right living.

Towards the end of the ancient era, in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the social order started to fall apart. Feudal lords rose up against the king and each other, and leaders of different states competed to gain power over the Empire. The nobles supported scholars and literary men to enhance their own reputations, however, which allowed the flowering of the Golden Age of Chinese Philosophy known as the Hundred Schools of Thought. The philosophies put forth different solutions to the social unrest.

Confucianism

Confucius (551–479 BCE) was a social philosopher active at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period who tried to stave off the chaos that eventually came in the Warring States Period. His real name was Kong Qui, and he was known as Kong Fuzi, Master Kong, which was later latinized to Confucius in the 16th century by the Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci. Confucius traveled around the country in vain trying to spread his political ideas and influence the kings vying for supremacy in China. After his death, his disciples or their disciples wrote the Confucian Classics that defined a Confucian system. During the Warring States Period, the Confucian follower Mencius (371–289 BCE), or Mengzi, developed Confucianism into a political and ethical doctrine.

Confucius thought that society could be saved by restoring the old habits, social relationships, and traditions of rulership from earlier dynasties. Social harmony would prevail if all people knew their place in the social order and played their parts well. Virtues should be taught and internalized through good habits, such as following rules of etiquette. Relationships should be governed by mutual respect and obligation between sovereign and subject, parent and child, elder and younger sibling, husband and wife, and friend and friend (as equals). Filial piety, or a child’s respect for his parents, should be matched by the parents’ benevolence and concern for the child. Similarly, the sovereign plays the role of a benevolent autocrat towards his subjects. He must develop himself sufficiently so that his personal virtue spreads a positive influence throughout the kingdom. If he does not behave humanely towards his subjects, he risks losing the Mandate of Heaven that gives him a right to rule, and the people no longer need to obey him.

Confucianism exhorts all people to strive to achieve the ideal of the “gentleman.” As a combination of a saint, scholar, and nobleman, a gentleman was expected to be a moral guide to the rest of society. He should embody internalized good habits and virtues, filial piety and loyalty, and humanity and benevolence. This concept of a “gentleman” gives greater symbolic significance to the group of classic painting subjects known as The Four Gentlemen: bamboo, orchid, plum blossom, and chrysanthemum. Each of these subjects embodies in some way the virtues of a gentleman.

Confucius saw that a virtuous farmer who cultivates himself can be a gentleman, while a selfish, disrespectful prince is a lowly person. Confucius allowed students of different classes to be his disciples, disregarding the feudal structures in Chinese society. He also fostered the idea of meritocracy, that virtue and talent could replace the nobility of blood. This idea ultimately led to the introduction of the Imperial Examination System in the Sui Dynasty in 605 CE. Literate individuals of the lower classes could raise their social status by becoming government officials. This in turn fostered an emphasis on education as a path towards upward mobility.

Confucianism as conveyed by Mencius was an idealistic philosophy based on the premise that people are inherently good. If they internalize patterns of virtuous behavior, they will behave properly to avoid shame and losing face.

The Confucian follower Xunzi (300–237 BCE) thought that people are not innately good but must attain goodness by training their desires and conduct. The practical weakness of the Confucian teachings is that fear of shame alone does not prevent those in positions of power from abusing their position for personal gain and engaging in corruption and nepotism. The implicit relationships between people are not reinforced by explicit contracts that formalize and enforce the rights of the less powerful.

Dynasties in Chinese History

Ancient

3 Sovereigns and 5 Emperors 2698 – 2070 BCE

Xia Dynasty 2100 – 1600

Shang Dynasty 1600 – 1046

Zhou Dynasty 1046 – 221

Western Zhou Dynasty 1046 – 771

Eastern Zhou Dynasty 772 – 221

Spring and Autumn Period 772 – 476

Warring States Period 475 – 221

Imperial

Qin Dynasty 221 – 206 BCE

Han Dynasty 206 BCE – 220 CE

Western Han Dynasty 206 BCE – 9 CE

Xin Dynasty 9 – 25 CE

Eastern Han Dynasty 25 – 220 CE

Three Kingdoms 220 – 280 CE

Wei, Wu, & Shu Han

Jin Dynasty 265 – 420

Western Jin 265 – 317

Eastern Jin 317 – 420

Southern and Northern Dynasties 420 – 581

Sui Dynasty 581 – 618

Tang Dynasty 618 – 907

5 Dynasties and 10 Kingdoms 907 – 960

Liao Dynasty 916 – 1125

Song Dynasty 960 – 1279

Northern Song Dynasty 960 – 1127

Southern Song Dynasty 1127 – 1279

Jin Dynasty 1115 – 1234

Yuan Dynasty 1271 – 1368

Ming Dynasty 1368 – 1644

Qing Dynasty 1644 – 1912

Modern

Republic of China 1912 – 1949

Republic of China (on Taiwan) 1945 – present

People’s Republic of China 1949 – present

Daoism (Taoism)

The origins of Daoism are attributed to Laozi (Lao Tzu or “Old Master”), who probably lived in the 6th century BCE, but possibly in the 3rd. He is traditionally called the author of the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching), the “Way of the Universe,” but it is more likely that others developed the text after him. In contrast to the Confucian focus on social structures and obligations, Daoism sought to bring people into harmony with the natural world, the rhythms of the universe, the cycles of the seasons, and the transitions between life and death.

The Dao was raised to the level of the cosmic principle, the formless, timeless, and limitless soul of the universe. When combined with the immaterial principle, the Qi or vital energy and breath, it created primary matter, from which all creation evolved. The yang male principle was diluted and formed the heavens, and the yin female principle coagulated and formed the earth. The yin and yang together constitute the Dao, the eternal principle of heaven and earth. The Qi energy that breathes life into creations was later seen by brush painters as the source of their own personal qi energy that would express through their brushwork and give life to the subjects of nature that they were depicting.

The universe is in constant flux as things happen spontaneously according to nature. Everything begins with the Dao and returns to it again. Against the Confucian overemphasis on the yang, willful activity and control of behavior, Daoism emphasized the yin, yielding to the Way of the Universe as the guideline for the individual and society. Discovering and accepting natural laws and not interfering with them should lead to social harmony and contentment.

Legalism

In the debates of the Hundred Schools of Thought, the School of Legalism ran against the idealism of Confucianism and Daoism. The doctrine, formulated by Han Feizi (d. 233 BCE) and Li Si (d. 208 BCE), saw humans as inherently selfish and needing external laws and harsh punishments if they perform illegal actions to keep society orderly. The philosophy aimed to strengthen the state and increase military might so that a ruler could establish a powerful state with central authority.

The Qin Dynasty

The legalist philosophy played an important role in the unification of China once again in the Qin dynasty by the Emperor Qin Shihuangdi in 221 BCE. The country was divided into districts directly under the control of the centralized government and subject to uniform laws and taxation. Transportation was improved by developing a network of roads from the capital and by standardizing the track width between the wheels of carts. Defensive walls to keep out the nomads in the north were strengthened, joined, and extended to form a single wall along the northern frontier. Weights and measures were standardized, and a single coinage was adopted. Government bookkeeping, communication between districts, and education was improved by unifying the regional styles of calligraphy script into a standard official system of handwriting.

Although standardization was beneficial, it took on a more totalitarian character when the Qin emperor restricted individual thought and the creative arts to suppress criticism of imperial policy. To make a clean sweep and wipe out the past, including the records of Confucius’ teachings, he ordered the burning of all books except those on practical subjects. Scholars who resisted the demand were executed. The loss of the teachings of civilization was greatly resented by scholars in subsequent dynasties.

The First Emperor patronized alchemists in an effort to make himself immortal through a magic elixir, but he died only eleven years after taking the throne. At least his memory has lived on, since he is famous now for the over 7,000 terracotta soldiers found in a pit east of his mausoleum near the city of Xian in Shaanxi province.

The Qin empire had become weak at the center, and subsequent leaders failed after the First Emperor’s death. The dynasty no longer had the confidence of its people and lost the Mandate of Heaven when it fell in 206 BCE. The dynasty intended to last for ten thousand generations was over in fifteen years.

The Han Dynasty

In reaction to the Legalism of the Qin dynasty, the Han dynasty emperors officially promoted Confucianism while keeping some features of Legalism that supported centralized rule. The Confucian teachings were expanded upon by Dong Zhongshu (?179–104 BCE) and others to relate them to the workings of the universe. The principles of yin and yang interacted to produce the Five Element (or Five Forces) of earth, wood, metal, fire, and water. These in turn interacted to produce all things and advance the changes in the world in a cycle. Wood moved earth, metal cut wood, fire melted metal, water quenched fire, and the mass of earth overcame water. The Five Elements were seen to correspond to points of the compass, colors, and even dynasties. For example, water (black), the sign of Qin, was defeated by earth (yellow), the symbol of Han.

Chinese astrology rose out of these correspondences. The orbit of Jupiter around the sun was rounded to 12 years. Each year was assigned a Zodiac animal. The combination of yin and yang elements and the Five Elements were assigned to each Zodiac animal. Combining the 12 zodiac animals and the Five Elements produced a 60-year cycle. In other words, it would take 60 years for a yin earth ox combination to occur again. A person’s birth year is associated with one combination in the cycle. A person’s birthdate was also linked to a lunar month and a corresponding inner animal. The two-hour timeframe of the person’s birth was linked to a secret animal. All of these factors were used in determining a person’s natural traits so one could be guided to a suitable profession, identify an appropriate mate, and avoid the possible negative behaviors associated with the animal signs. In this way, the Chinese Zodiac was looking to the natural world for guidance and trying to support the Confucian ideals of good behavior.

After the repression of the creative arts in the Qin dynasty, the Han emperors gave artists official recognition and encouragement. However, painting was still considered a craft for recording appearances. Painters did architectural renderings, recorded historical events pictorially, and did portraits of virtuous officials and famous people.

The ancestor portraits of high officials were done in a paint-by-feature style. The artist never saw the subject. A clerk analyzed a person’s features and gave the artist numbers. The person might have a #1 nose, #4 eyes, and a #6 mouth. No wonder the portraits typically look very stiff, flat, and grim. The clothes were most important. The sitter could pick the clothes and their colors as long as they were of the period and did not elevate his position. Only the Han emperors were allowed to wear the imperial symbol, the dragon, or the imperial color, yellow. Officials and important people wore squares on their clothes with symbols to identify their status. These symbols enabled others to recognize the person and his family so that people could associate only with people of similar status.

The insistence on Confucian ritual ultimately became too rigid for some people. Creative people became more influenced by Daoism as a channel for the more romantic side of their nature.

In the later Han dynasty, agrarian crisis, peasant revolts, and factions at court caused the empire to fall apart into three natural geographical divisions. This led to the era of the Six Dynasties and the end of a unified empire.

The Six Dynasties

For a period of three and a half centuries (222–589 CE), China suffered extreme political confusion with the Three Kingdoms, the Jin dynasty, and the Northern and Southern dynasties. Invasions of barbarians in the north for a hundred years drove Chinese aristocrats in the north to migrate southward. They built great independent manors that were sustained by the labor of peasants fleeing from the north or conquered southerners. In this way, people of Chinese descent supplanted aboriginal tribes in the south. The aristocratic families also gave rise to future generals who became emperors in later dynasties based on the southern capital in Nanjing.

The Introduction of Buddhism

Although Buddhism had reached China as early as 65 CE and had established a foothold at the collapse of the Han dynasty in 220 CE, it did not gain wide appeal until about the time of the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534 CE). Confucian literati were no longer in power to oppose it. The central Asian rulers in the north employed Buddhist monks as ritual specialists and political aides and were ready to accept the new religion. Monks also became a part of the cultured elite who had fled to the south. For the common people, Buddhism promised an answer to suffering and provided some comfort amid the constant political turmoil. As an organized religion, Buddhism filled a religious void. In practice, Confucianism focused too narrowly on ethical behavior. Daoism had diverged into philosophical Daoism for speculative minds and religious Daoism as a popular cult of superstition and magic with no edifying perspective. Buddhism had a coherent explanation of life and the universe and addressed human suffering and destiny. The spiritual qualities were expressed by a moving ritual and a rich tradition of art and iconography.

The Mahayana (“Great Vehicle”) branch of Buddhism that reached China emphasized liberating all living beings from suffering. The Buddha was elevated to a God-like status as an eternal, omnipresent, and all-knowing liberator. He is accompanied by a pantheon of quasi-divine Bodhisattvas that devote themselves to personal excellence to help rescue others from suffering. The most popular among these in China was the Guanyin, “Goddess of Mercy,” who assists those who call out her name in time of need. Statues of the Guanyin are common, and her figure is even sculpted on the top of stone seals used on paintings and calligraphy.

Initially, Chinese artists copied Buddhist art from India in its Indian forms. Then the images were merged with indigenous Daoist motifs. In northern China in the 4th century, the rulers promoted the painting of Buddhist art in cave-temples. Chinese artists painted murals on walls and caves as the Indians did, but the Chinese murals were more sensitive and expressive. A Sinicized style of the Buddha emerged with a slender waist and a plump face with delicate features. The inspiration and expressiveness of these murals raised the appreciation and status of painting in China.

The scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism were translated into Chinese, and that Sinicized Mahayana was then passed on to Korea, Vietnam, and finally to Japan in 538 CE. The East Asian Buddhism was furthermore divided into a variety of strands. One form that became strong in both China and Japan is the meditative school known as Chan (Chinese) or Zen (Japanese) Buddhism.

The Indian patriarch Bodhidharma founded Chan in the 6th century CE by combining the Buddhist practice of meditation with Daoist concepts, such as the importance of intuition, the insufficiency of words to convey deep truths, and a love of the absurd and unexpected.

The Chan teaching uses but does not depend on sacred texts. It provides the potential for direct spiritual breakthroughs to Truth through the Buddha nature possessed by each sentient being. Through meditative riddles or puzzles or just sitting and meditating, a person can detach the mind from conceptual modes of thinking and perceive reality directly. Enlightenment can occur instantly when a person loosens the grip of the ego and cuts through the dense veil of mental and emotional obscurations. Appealing to intellectuals, the Chan form of Buddhism had a great influence on Chinese calligraphers and painters after the 6th century.

The Beginnings of Landscape Painting

Literary fragments from the 5th century speak of the feelings and aspirations of landscape painters. They provide evidence that landscape painting had already emerged as a type of painting on its own worthy of discussion. Tsung Ping (375–443) and Wang Wei (415–443) both wrote about how the artist seeks through landscape painting to convey nature’s spirituality so that the beholder can re-experience nature’s grandeur. The artist is not just depicting the visible reality but is expressing the spirit indwelling his subject matter. The painters reflect the Daoist view of nature and the role of the artist, like a sage, leading viewers to a connection with the spirit in the natural universe.

At the end of the 5th century, Xie He (Hsieh Ho) distilled the traditional ideas about painting into Six Principles as a basis for evaluating and classifying painters. The first and most important principle involves Qi, the life-breath of everything, animate and inanimate. It can be interpreted as spirit, vitality, or the result of the activity of the spirit. The vitalizing spirit should resound harmoniously through a painting to impart spiritual significance. A painting may convey the outer likeness of its subject, but it fails if it does not manifest the resonance of the spirit of the subject. If the painter seeks the spirit-resonance, the outer likeness can be obtained at the same time. To comprehend the subject, the artist must identify with it, harmonize his consciousness with it, and see the subject from its own viewpoint. This is the Daoist idea of the identity of the subjective and the objective.

Sui and Tang Dynasties

The Sui reunited China in an effective but short-lived dynasty (589–618). They were able to expand their power into south China, where colonization had brought economic and cultural prosperity. They built the first Grand Canal that enabled them to bring rice from the fertile southern plains to the north to supply the armies and the government. These connections between north and south aided the unification of the country.

The Sui were overtaken by the Li, a family of aristocrats from the northwest who had connections with the barbarians. The early Tang dynasty was marked by military conquests in Central Asia. This was the age of men of action in the cavalry, lovers of horses, and polo playing, as evidenced by the depictions of horses in sculpture and painting. They appreciated other cultures, and other cultures were being influenced by the Chinese also. The Japanese sent monks and scholars to China from 607 to 838 to discover and adopt what they liked in Chinese calligraphy, painting, art, religious thought, and government practices. The Koreans owed even more to the Chinese, with influences starting in the 3rd century BCE through the Han and Tang dynasties. This is how the Japanese adopted Chan/Zen Buddhism, Chinese calligraphy, Chinese pottery, and Chinese brush painting, which is known as Sumi-e in Japan.

The Imperial Examination System

The Tang dynasty improved the Imperial Examination System introduced in the Sui dynasty. Although examinations had been used in the Han dynasty, employment as an official also required recommendation and patronage, which were only available to the sons of high dignitaries and the wealthy landed gentry. Under the Sui dynasty, the lower classes had a greater chance to obtain employment. The Sui set up government schools to train the candidates. The Tang continued and expanded the system and added schools in the prefectures. This was part of a strategy to reduce the power of the military aristocracy of the northwest. The system awarded positions according to provincial and prefectural quotas so that officials were recruited from the whole country. This helped to ensure the integration of the Chinese state and reduce the tendencies towards regional autonomy.

The examination system also provided a cultural unity and common set of values based on Confucian teachings. The elites and those attempting the examination all studied the same content. Only about five percent of those taking the examinations received positions. Those who failed to pass became teachers, patrons of the arts, managers of local projects, and social leaders in local villages or cities. The system ensured that the best and brightest had the chance at a position and encouraged and enabled the pursuit of education regardless of wealth or class.

The literati taking the public examinations formed a new gentry class based on their education. The breadth of the examinations contributed to the building of their moral character as well as knowledge. Before the Sui dynasty, the examinations covered archery and horsemanship, music, arithmetic, writing, and knowledge of the Confucian rituals and ceremonies in public and private life. In the Sui dynasty, the curriculum was expanded to include military strategy, civil law, revenue and taxation, agriculture and geography, and the Confucian classics. As well-rounded individuals, the scholar-gentry participated in cultural pursuits outside of their official duties.

Advances in Painting

Emperor Xuanzong’s Kaiyuan era (713–741) was a period of political stability, prosperity, and peace in society, which allowed advances in education, literature, music, painting, sculpture, and religion. The emperor himself was a poet, musician, and actor, and a talented painter and calligrapher. The creation of poetry and painting reached new heights. New styles and types of brushwork sprang up. Two main schools of landscape painting emerged, the Northern School and the Southern School. These terms were coined at a later date by the scholar-artist Dong Qichang (1555–1636), who borrowed the concept from Chan Buddhism, which has Northern and Southern Schools. The schools differed in their use of brush and ink, not by their geographical positions.

Li Si Xuan (Li Ssu-hsün), known as General Li, founded the Northern School. He and his followers preferred strong, severe forms and definite designs that left little to the imagination. They used clear-cut, articulated, and rugged strokes. General Li and his son Li Chaodao (Li Chao-tao) were also noted for using blue, green, and gold in their landscapes. They outlined on silk and filled in with colors. Their precise technique produced beautiful and detailed decorative pieces.

The Southern School of landscape used mainly ink and water with only touches of light coloring. Their strokes were softer, more graceful, and suggestive. The school was founded by Wang Wei, who was a famous poet as well as a renowned landscape painter. He was credited with introducing monochrome ink washes that produced softer and subtler effects. The paintings of the Southern School are less literal and more poetic and imaginative, allowing a greater freedom for the qi energy to express itself. It was said of Wang Wei that his pictures were poems and his poems were pictures. The Southern School was also known as the Literary School as the natural scenes aimed to convey the mood of the dreaming poet.

Before the Tang dynasty, painters did not sign their works. In the early Tang period, artists became individualists as painting came into its own. The artists added modest signatures in very small characters in an inconspicuous place so as to not mar the design. Later, the Song dynasty artists became bolder and signed their name and the date on the base of the painting at the extreme edge.

Into the Song Dynasty

The Tang dynasty gave way to the short Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era (907–970), which was succeeded by the long reign of the Song dynasty (960– 1279). From the late Tang and into the Song dynasty, people turned away from the military tradition, hiring mercenaries instead. Rather than military men, the policy leaders were scholar officials interested in polite learning, poetry, and the fine arts. The Imperial Examination System was regularized and extended to draw in more candidates for civil service and thus became less aristocratic and more bureaucratic.

In the later Tang dynasty, painters had started to specialize in singular subjects, such as bamboo, chrysanthemum, or horses. During the Five Dynasties, flower and bird painting became popular, and new painting styles emerged. Xu Chongsi (Hsü Ch’ung-Ssu) created the Mo-ku or “boneless” style (without outlines), which has continued up until the present day. The boneless style developed out of calligraphic strokes, which are not of uniform thickness and are shaped more like forms than single lines. This led to a new mastery of the line contour and new graded effects when a brush was loaded with two or three values of ink for a single stroke.

The Northern Song Dynasty

The Song dynasty is known as the golden age of landscape painting. Many emperors were artists themselves and gave considerable patronage to painters. In the Northern Sung dynasty (960–1127), Emperor Huizong (Hui Tsung) was a great painter, poet, and calligrapher. He painted mainly birds and flowers on silk in a realistic, detailed, outlined style filled in with colors. He was famous for the “slender gold” style of calligraphy he developed that looked like twisted wire.

Emperor Huizong wanted court officials to be artists, so the imperial examination required the candidate to illustrate a line from the classics or a well-known poem. Poetry was the “host” and painting was the “guest.” A painting could only win praise if it expressed the poetic idea well. The Chinese painter had to be a student of literature, and he was likely to be a poet also, as was Wang Wei.

With the rise of landscape painting and the waning of figure painting, poets started expressing their thoughts more in nature imagery that captured a mood, such as the sadness of departing. The mingling of poetry and painting also led artists to express more moods in their paintings beyond the contemplative, awe inspiring scenes of earlier artists. Paintings became more introspective and individualistic. In evoking the indwelling spirit of their subject matter, the artists also sought to harmonize that spirit with their own thoughts.

The practice of writing a poem on a painting was started in the Song dynasty by the poet, painter, essayist, and humorist Su Dongpo (Su Tung-P’o). He was talented at painting, poetry, and calligraphy so that he could combine the three arts on his paintings. A contemporary landscape artist, Mi Fei, followed the practice and decorated his paintings with descriptive poetry. The two artists set a fashion that became a lasting element of Chinese art.

Mi Fei was associated with the Southern School and was famous for the soft effects he created through horizontal blobs of paint since known as “Mi dots,” “Mi-Fei dots,” or “rice dots.” The fuzzy dots were dabbed close together to suggest distant vegetation on mountainsides. The effect of softness and distance was increased by the swirls of mists in the valleys and around the mountains.

The Southern Song Dynasty

In 1127, the Song lost control of Northern China to the Jin dynasty and moved the capital south of the Yangzi (Yangtze) River to Hang-zhou. The Court and scholar-officials migrated south over a period of eleven years. Emperor Huizong’s son, Gao Zong, became the new emperor. He gathered together in his Academy of Painting the available members of the earlier Academy that had been established by his father. Two of the most famous painters were Ma Yuan (1190– 1224) and Xia Gui (Hsia Huei, 1180–1230).

Although Ma Yuan was associated with the Northern School of Landscape because of his fine, delicate lines, he also developed a different type of brushstroke. He started to paint rocks with broad, angular, drybrush strokes now called “axe-cut” strokes. Such strokes gave spontaneous, free-form energy to otherwise precisely carved-out forms.

Together with Xia Gui, Ma Yuan also founded a new style of painting in terms of composition. They used fewer brush strokes to suggest the scene and reduced the solids in the painting to allow for large amounts of empty space at the borders and in the sky. The painted subject is less observed for its own sake and functions more to set off the open space.

Ma Yuan’s son, Ma Lin, took this style even further. His paintings suggest the stark minimalism characteristic of Japanese Zen Buddhist paintings. Indeed, the Japanese have been avid collectors of Southern Song paintings. The Japanese learned to paint in the Chinese style, mostly following the Northern School and favoring Xia Gui and Ma Yuan as their models.

This style no longer expresses the timeless and changeless aspect of nature found in earlier paintings. It conveys a sense of the transitoriness of a brief, intensely-felt moment in time. A sudden shower comes on, the sun sets, or a gust of wind blows the trees. The poetic equivalent might be a Japanese Haiku that evokes a feeling in the moment through a few carefully selected images. The sense of transitoriness seems to reflect the Buddhist emphasis on man and nature caught up in an endless chain of being, with a lurking sadness and suffering, from which they need to be liberated.

After the Tang dynasty, where foreign cultures were appreciated, the trend was away from Buddhism and back to Confucian classics. The philosophy had to account for the challenges put forth by Buddhist metaphysics and Daoist thought. After considerable debate, a new philosophic framework was developed based on the views of Zhu Xi (1130–1200). The new philosophy became known in the West as Neo-Confucianism. The Confucian concept of self-cultivation extended to seeking knowledge of the Great Ultimate (as in Daoism) and sudden complete enlightenment (as in Buddhism).

Such was the practical convergence of the three major philosophies by the time of the Song dynasty, that the tiny figure in the pavilion below the towering mountains in a landscape painting could be a Confucian scholar, a Daoist hermit, or a Buddhist monk. Indeed, the scholar-official often thought of himself as a Confucian by day, attending to government affairs, and a Daoist by night, engaging in his meditative painting.

Amateur Painting and Gardening

The fashion for painting as a hobby spread among literary men during the Song dynasty. They painted the Four Gentlemen—plum, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum—to express their gentlemanly character to the world. They invented a new style of painting orchids in ink, without color, which emphasized the starkness and linear quality of the plant. They spent time observing nature, the formation of petals and leaves, how a plant grows, to better know the spirit of the subject matter they painted.

The move of the capital to the milder southern climate of Hangzhou may have increased the interest in gardening. The nearby city of Suzhou grew as a convenient retreat for scholars, officials and merchants. Gardening increased during the Song dynasty and reached its height during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Landscaping became an art with established masters.

The Chinese scholar’s garden was the combination of a landscape painting and a poem with symbolic plants and architectural elements. The garden was a retreat to a stylized, miniature form of landscape where the scholar could reconnect to his spiritual nature. The plants represented virtues that reminded him of his own strengths. Bamboo is strong but flexible. Pine represents longevity, persistence, tenacity, and dignity. Flowering in the winter, plum blossom represents renewal and strength of will. Chrysanthemum symbolizes splendor and joviality. The chrysanthemum is also associated with a life of ease and retirement from public office. Retired scholar-officials bred different varieties of chrysanthemums and trained them to grow in different formations.

Like a landscape painting, a garden had rocks and water. The water was in the form of lakes and streams with bridges crossing over them and rocks with waterfalls. The rocks were mounds or decorative Chinese scholar’s rocks. The sculptural Taihu rock was especially prized for its fascinating shapes carved out by wind and water. It is only procurable from Tai Lake, just west of Suzhou. During the Song dynasty, Taihu rocks were the most expensive objects in the empire.

The architecture included pavilions for various purposes, inner and outer walls, and covered walkways for protection from sun, wind, and rain. The walls had moon-shaped doorways and lattice windows in the shapes of different objects, such as apples, pears, circles, squares, and pentagons. The pavement might consist of alternating black-and-white tiles. The principles of yin-yang and feng shui and the symbolism of objects and forms governed the design and placement of every element.

Literati Painting in the Yuan Dynasty

In 1215, the Mongols led by Genghis Khan defeated the Jin rulers in north China and captured Beijing. The watery terrain of south China and the resistance of the Southern Song prevented Genghis Khan’s son, Kublai Khan, from gaining control in south China until 1271. The last disappearance of Song rule in the far south was completed by 1279. In the new Yuan dynasty, the Mongols dominated the military and administrative spheres and did not trust the Chinese, who held mainly lower posts in the administration. This forced a large number of scholar officials into early retirement and to the bottom of the social scale.

In their leisure time, the literati did calligraphy, wrote poetry and literature, made paintings of birds and flowers that they had raised, practiced horticulture and flower arrangement, made and played musical instruments, and studied philosophy. They formed mutual support groups, where the wealthier helped those less well off. Paintings often served as a means of repaying a benefactor.

The literati brought the formal expressive qualities of calligraphy to their practice of painting. The eight basic strokes were adapted to depict the stalks, joint rings, and leaves of bamboo. Drybrush strokes gave rocks rough shapes and volume. The speed and energy that made calligraphy an art form was transferred to the lines of monochrome ink paintings of plants. In the boneless style, with no outlines, an artist could render an object quickly and spontaneously to capture the energy and essence of the moment. This was a new way of instilling the qi energy into the painting and satisfying the first principle of the classic Six Principles that still governed Chinese painting.

In landscape painting, the goal was no longer to paint the illusion of external realities but to make brush-created appearances that convey the artist’s personal and unique style. The style became the ultimate substance of the work. The surface texture and line became the source of interest. The “Four Great Masters of the Late Yuan”—Huang Gongwang, Ni Zan, Wu Zhen, and Wang Meng— created works that sizzle with the energy of their brushstrokes.

The Ming and Qing Dynasties

Weakness at the center and peasant rebellions ultimately brought the Yuan dynasty down. Chinese rule was restored and consolidated in the Ming dynasty, which lasted for nearly three hundred years (1368–1644).

The Ming painters inherited the two distinct and irreconcilable traditions of the Song and Yuan dynasties. The Song painter used the style he inherited to achieve an objective representation. The Yuan painter developed his own style to achieve the freedom of subjective expression. Any new style that the Ming painters could come up with would be linked to either of these two traditions.

The Che School and Academy painters imitated the Song painters in works that had decorative appeal but little spiritual depth. They conceived of the Song, particularly the Southern Song, as being of a single style. The Wu School continued the Yuan style by following the traditions of the individual styles of great Yuan masters. The Che School professionals eventually became more like the Wu School literati. In both schools, painting became a conversation with the past, expressing personal statements on ancient styles. The idea of copying past masters led to actual fraud in trying to pass off later paintings as original Song paintings considered more valuable. Ming copies of earlier painters still cause problems for museums trying to authenticate paintings. Sophisticated tests of materials are required to determine the actual age of a painting.

The Manchu conquered China in 1644 and established the last dynasty, the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). In this period, the art included many Western influences, eclectic designs, and copies of earlier works. Genre paintings of plants, animals, and still lifes with fruit and vegetables became popular. These were simplified paintings, stressing the essence of the subject and its relation to nature rather than photographic reality. The vitality and harmony of the rendering were more important than technique. These modifications in style carried over to the present time.

Enduring Principles

Through the ages, Chinese painting showed consistent features that distinguish it from classical Western ideas of painting and design.

• The artist paints the inner spirit of the subject or expresses his inner spirit through his style. Realism is subservient to these goals.

• A painting can be done in outlined (boned) or free-form (boneless) style.

• Compositions are asymmetrical, and odd numbers of flowers, leaves, and other groupings support asymmetry.

• Using asymmetry enables triangular areas of open space that keep a picture simple and peaceful.