Читать книгу Forbidden Asia - Hans-Jürgen Döpp - Страница 3

The aim of Taoist art and culture was to reach a state of harmony that would lead Man, confronted by a chaotic universe, towards a new serenity. In this spiritual context, love represented for the Chinese a force which was supposed to unite sky and earth in balance and maintain the reproductive cycle of nature.

Illustrations from Qinglou Duoying, published as ‘Selected Scenes from Verduous Towers’

Colour woodcuts from an album, late Ming period

(first half of the 17th century), 26 × 25 cm

The Muban Foundation Collection

‘Verduous Towers’ is the veiled Ming term for a brothel

Eroticism thus became an art of living and formed an integral part of religion (to the extent that such western notions can be applied to philosophical thought of this kind).

Taoist religion assumes that pleasure and love are pure.

Anonymous Master of the Kangxi period

(1662–1722)

Painting on silk from an 8-page album, 39.5 × 55.5 cm

‘In order to gain some understanding of Chinese eroticism,’ writes Etiemble, a great connoisseur of Chinese art, ‘we need to distance ourselves from the notion of sin and the duality between the corrupt body and the holy spirit.’ This ideology lies at the very base of Christianity. Erotic Chinese art reflects the extent to which we are ‘morally corrupt’ and ‘full of prejudices’.

Painting on Silk from an 8-page album, Kangxi period

Xu Mei, (1662–1722)

Silk, 42.5 × 74.5 cm

Courtesy: Collection Guy & Myriam

Ullens Foundation, Switzerland

The Yin-Yang pairing introduces us directly into the world of Chinese eroticism: The ‘path of Yin and Yang’ signifies nothing less than the sexual act itself. One of the best-known sayings of ancient Chinese philosophy, ‘Yi yin yi yang cheh we tao’ (‘On the one side yin, on the other yang, this is the essence of Tao’) indicates the fact that sex between a man and a woman expresses the same harmony as the changes between day and night, or summer and winter. Sex symbolises the order of the world, the moral order, while our culture stigmatises it as evil.

Anonymous Master of the Kangxi period

(1662–1722)

Painting on silk from an 8-page album, 39.5 × 55.5 cm

In this sense, master Tung-huan wrote in his Art of Love, ‘Man is the most sublime creature under the skies.

Scene from Rouputuan, ‘The Prayer Mat of Flesh’

18th century

Painting on paper, 37.5 × 37.5 cm

Nothing which he enjoys can be compared to the act of sexual union. Formulated according to the harmony between the sky and the earth, it rules Yin and dominates Yang. Those who understand the sense of these words can preserve their essence and prolong their life. Those who do not grasp their true significance are heading towards their doom.’

Chinese Wedding Tablet

18th century

Painting on silk and appliqué relief mosaic pictures made from different coloured jade, mother-of-pearl, and ivory

They serve to instruct newly married couples

The split in the Universe between Yin and Yang is all the more important because these two inseparable principles mutually influence each other.

We know of a great many Chinese manuals whose purpose was to provide an education in the art of love-making for young couples; this education would cover desire, morality, and religion. In these texts, the sexual act is always referred to metaphorically, with terms such as ‘the war of flowers’, ‘lighting the great candle’, or ‘games of cloud and rain’.

Painting on Porcelain Vase (detail)

18th century, 11.3 × 13 cm

Painting on Silk

18th century, 31.5 × 34 cm

They are also full of images referring to various sexual positions:

– unfurling silk

– the curled-up dragon

– the union of kingfishers

– fluttering butterflies

– bamboo stalks at the altar

– the pair of dancing phoenixes

– the galloping tournament horse

– the leap of the white tiger

– cat and mouse in the same hole

Box Featuring Erotic Images

Painted on glass

In Chinese aesthetics, nothing is ever named directly and without beating about the bush. Instead, things are referred to obliquely, and any transgression of this tradition is considered vulgar. Even the European notion of ‘eroticism’ would be too direct. They would prefer to substitute the term ‘the idea of spring’.

Chinese Porcelain Tile

19th century

Physical love is praised without pretence but also without vulgarity in the verses of a popular Chinese song:

Mural displayed in sections

In the erotic images of paintings on silk or porcelain, wood engravings or illustrations, sexuality is never shown in its crude state or in a pornographic manner, but always in a context of beauty and harmony.

Mural displayed in sections

Symbolic, meaningful details enrich these illustrations, evoking the tenderness which occupies a favoured place in Chinese iconography. Nevertheless, these details are difficult for Europeans to decipher: the cold and impassive faces of the lovers are a long way from our idea of a blaze of passion.

Mural displayed in sections

Thus it is that one of the most fertile and ancient cultures in the world invites us, through its religious practices, to make love. Taoist manuals advocate the technique of holding back from ejaculation, a truly prodigious invention which allows the man to satisfy the woman.

Mural displayed in sections

By doing this, a subtle alchemy is achieved: the man receives Yin from the woman, who obtains from him the pure essence of Yang. For this reason, coitus reservatus is considered in Taoism and Tantrism to be the most subtle form of sexual union, because it allows the crossing of the divide between masculine and feminine energy.

Mural displayed in sections

The creation of a new life is not the principal aim of the sexual act. It is more to do with an identification with cosmic forces than with the forces of life.

The ‘theory of juices’ holds that sperm passes through the spinal column directly to the brain.

Mural displayed in sections

During the 17th and 18th century, European medicine laboured under the same misapprehension. How painful it must have been to be a young boy masturbating and believing that doing so would lead to a degeneration of the spinal chord and a drying-out of the brain!

Mural displayed in sections

Whilst ejaculation provides a mere instant of pleasure which is very swiftly lost and finishes in the relaxation of the entire body, a buzzing in the ears, tiredness of the eyes, and a dry throat, coitus reservatus or coitus interruptus provokes a growth in vitality and an improvement in all the senses.

Mural displayed in sections

Among the best-known manuals are those of Sou Nu King and Sou Nu Fang, which, among other things, recount how the legendary Yellow Emperor, Huang-ti (2697–2599 BCE, according to traditional historical reckoning) used experienced women to teach him about the art of love-making.

Mural displayed in sections

In The Treaties of the Bedroom there is a conversation between the Emperor and one of his mistresses, a simple young girl:

The Yellow Emperor asks the simple young girl, ‘My spirit is listless and lacking in substance; I live constantly in fear and my heart is full of sadness. What can I do to cure myself?’

Mural displayed in sections

The young girl replies quite simply, ‘All human weaknesses come from an unhappy union of bodies during the sexual act. As water wins in the fight against fire, so woman gains in the fight against man. Those who are skilled in pleasure are like good cooks who know which five spices to add to a soup.

Mural displayed in sections

Those who understand the art of Yin and Yang can unite the five modes of pleasure; those who do not know this die before reaching the age of maturity and without having had the slightest pleasure from sex. Should one not forestall this danger?’

And in another lesson in the same work, Huang-ti asked, ‘What does one gain from practising sex according to the path of Yin and Yang?’

Painting from a 12-page album

19th century

Paper, 27 × 32 cm

‘For man, sex makes his energies surge – for woman, it serves as protection against sickness. Those who do not know the right path think that the sexual act can be harmful to health. In truth, the sexual act has only one purpose: physical pleasure and joy, but also peace in the heart and strength of the will.

Family-Rose Porcelain Tile

early 19th century

29.5 × 22 cm

The person feels neither sated nor hungry, he is neither hot nor cold; the body is satisfied and the spirit likewise. Energy ebbs and flows majestically, and no desire troubles this harmony. This is the result of a well-accomplished union.

Painting from a 12-page album

19th century

Paper, 26.8 × 32.1 cm

If one follows this rule, women will achieve full pleasure and men will always remain healthy,’ answered Sunu.

All of these manuals advocate making love as often as possible and even at an advanced age, ‘Whatever his age, man would not be happy living without a woman. If he is without a woman, his concentration suffers because of it.

Painting from a scroll of 12 designs

19th century

Paper, 26.6 × 40.6 cm

If his concentration suffers, the forces of his mind grow weaker; if the forces of his mind weaken, the span of his life grows shorter…’

The bibliography of works of the Han era, which is the era directly pre-dating the birth of Christ, includes eight books that are entirely devoted to the art of love-making.

Reverse Glass Painting

19th century

Diameter: 12 cm

During that era the following maxim was adopted: the art of having sexual relations with a woman consists of remaining master of oneself and preventing ejaculation in order to allow the sperm to return to the brain.’