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The Beginnings of Chinese Landscape Painting

THE earliest landscapes in Chinese art are found in the Han period (202 B.C.—220 A.D.) some two thousand years ago. At that time mountains, clouds, trees, and buildings first appeared in relief carvings, textile designs, mirror backs, and inlaid metal objects, but the elements of nature were rendered in a highly symbolic and abstract way. Although similar forms must also have appeared in the paintings of the period, no examples of such works have survived, and our knowledge, at best, is fragmentary. However, the evidence clearly suggests that nothing but the most stylized and primitive kind of landscape setting appeared in these early examples of landscape painting. The main elements were no doubt highly simplified, with very geometric trees and mountains rendered so abstractly that they would hardly have been recognizable. The reason for this was not so much a lack of skill on the part of the artists, since Han painters were in many ways highly competent, even sophisticated craftsmen; it was rather that they concentrated more on figure painting, devoting their major effort to the portrayal of scenes from myths, legends, history, and filial piety, and hence were little interested in landscape painting as such.

It was not until the following era, the Six Dynasties period (265—589), that landscape painting as such began. This development, according to Chinese tradition, is associated with one of the most celebrated of all Chinese artists, the great painter, calligrapher, and wit Ku K'ai-chih, who worked during the second half of the fourth century in the Southern capital at Nanking. Although he too regarded figure painting and portraiture as the most significant class of painting, he was nevertheless the first to accord landscape its proper place. A description of a real or imaginary landscape painted by Ku K'ai-chih has been preserved in an essay entitled Hua Yün-t'ai Shan Chi, or "How to Paint the Cloud-Terrace Mountain."¹⁶ How far this still was from naturalism is best seen by the fact that it was a Taoist landscape with peach trees of long life. In painting it, the artist said that he would make "purple rocks looking something like solid clouds, five or six of them astride the hill. And ascending between them there should be shapes that writhe and coil like dragons."¹⁷ Certainly the kind of landscape suggested in the essay must have been primitive in the extreme. The famous T'ang critic Chang Yen-yuan, writing in 847, five hundred years later, when presumably the originals by Ku K'ai-chih were still extant, says:

There are some famous pictures handed down from the Wei and Chin dynasties, and I have had occasion to see them. The landscapes are filled with crowded peaks, their effect is like that of filigree ornaments or horn combs. Sometimes the water does not seem to flow, sometimes the figures are larger than the mountains. The views are generally enclosed by trees and stones which stand in a circle on the ground. They look like rows of lifted arms with outspread fingers.¹⁸

No originals by Ku K'ai-chih have been preserved, but fortunately two excellent copies have survived. The first is the famous "Admonitions of the Imperial Preceptress" scroll, formerly in the imperial collection in Peking and now in the British Museum in London, which is believed to be a T'ang copy of a famous Ku K'ai-chih painting. One of the scenes shows a huntsman with a bow kneeling at the foot of a mountain and aiming at some birds in the distance.¹⁹ The relation between the figures and the mountain, both in relative size and in space, is wholly unnaturalistic, although the mountain itself, with its rising peaks, deep valleys, and dropping cliffs, is rendered very convincingly.

Another copy after Ku K'ai-chih, which is far better preserved and, although of later date, closer in style to what an original of the fourth century must have looked like, is in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington. It comes from the Sung period, probably the twelfth century, and represents the tale of the nymph of the Lo River (Plate 1). A continuous scroll in which figures are seen in a landscape, the painting illustrates very clearly the primitive kind of landscape typical of the period. In the detail shown, the figures are too large in relation to the landscape which, as in the work of Italian Primitives like Giotto, is little more than a setting for human activity. The mountains in the left foreground are so stylized that at first glance one hardly recognizes them, and the trees, climbing up the slopes and standing in front, have no consistent relationship in size, either among themselves or to the mountains. One tree soars high above the tallest peak; another, a willow, is the same size as the mountains; and the rest are as small as a single branch of the largest tree. In the middle foreground the trees are much shorter than those standing above in back, and the ship at the right is too small in relation to the figures. Each part—the mountains, the figures, the ship—is almost a unit in itself, and neither in space nor in perspective has the painter succeeded in fusing the parts into a whole. The treatment of the landscape is still highly decorative and corresponds very closely to Chang Yen-yüan's description. It is clear that Ku K'ai-chih has attempted to show figures in a natural setting, relating them to the space and to the scenery, but it is equally clear that his ability to render the setting convincingly is still inadequate, and the result, though charming in an archaic sort of way, is not successful as a landscape.

A somewhat younger contemporary of Ku K'ai-chih who lived on into the fifth century was Tsung Ping (375—443), of whom unfortunately no paintings have been preserved. We are told, however, that he was famous for his landscape paintings and that he roamed about the mountain wilderness, playing his lute and enjoying the beauty and grandeur of nature. When he grew old he painted some of his favorite scenes on the walls of his house and lamented the fact that he could no longer wander in the mountains. He wrote a brief essay entitled Shan Shut Sü, or "Introduction to Landscape Painting," which shows a sentiment closely allied to that of the great landscape painters of later periods and is clearly Taoist in inspiration. In it he says:

Landscapes exist in material substance and soar into the realm of the spirit.... Taoists travelled among the mountains.... Such sojourning has often been called finding pleasure in mountains and water by the virtuous and wise. The virtuous man follows the Way (Tao) by spiritual insight, the wise man takes this same approach. But the lovers of landscapes are led into the Way by a sense of form. The virtuous man also takes pleasure in this. Then, are not the pleasures of the virtuous and wise similar to those of the lovers of landscape?²⁰

No doubt landscape painting itself underwent considerable development during the fifth century, but unfortunately no authentic scrolls from this period have survived. The only original which may be traced back to the fifth century is a wall painting in cave Number 110 at the famous Buddhist site of Tun Huang at the westernmost frontier of China. Here, in a Jataka scene depicting a Buddhist legend, there is a mountain landscape which perhaps gives some idea of what the landscape painting of this period may have been like (Plate 2). However, it must be said that Tun Huang was far off in the provinces and that these works, although invaluable for us today, were only a crude reflection of the style current at the imperial court and in the other cultural centers. It must have taken a generation or more for the latest artistic developments to reach this outpost, and it may be assumed that the painters active here were provincial artisans who cannot be compared with such great masters as Ku K'ai-chih and Tsung Ping. However, even when this has been taken into account, one must conclude that little real progress had been made during the century. In the detail shown, the treatment of the landscape is far more decorative than that of the "Nymph of the Lo River" scroll. While Ku K'ai-chih varied the arrangement of his trees and mountains, showing them in groups or singly in silhouettes and placing some parallel to the bottom of the painting and others diagonally, the artist at Tun Huang made a pattern of the natural elements. The mountains, each with one slope straight and the other jagged, are set side by side in groups which are rhythmically repeated and so stylized that one cannot be sure they are mountains. In considering this work, however, it must be borne in mind that the landscape is only the setting for a Buddhist wall painting; although none have survived, there must have been landscape scrolls painted during the period which showed a more advanced style.

With the sixth century, developments reached a climax which led to the establishment of true landscape painting. Again we are greatly handicapped by the lack of authentic paintings, but other artistic monuments such as engraved stone slabs give a good idea of the style which prevailed during the century. The finest and most famous of these is the stone sarcophagus in the Nelson Gallery of Art in Kansas City, whose incised side panels represent stories of filial piety (Plate 3). Now, for the first time, the figures are rendered in proper proportion to the setting, and they move among the trees and rocks in a natural and convincing way. There is also a real feeling of space, with the eye of the observer being led into the distance. The free-flowing line is employed with both skill and elegance, pointing up the picturesque shapes of the trees and rock formations. However, even here the artist's main emphasis is upon the Confucian story, and the landscape is, in the last analysis, merely a setting for the figures shown. This is certainly typical of that age, though it may be assumed that some pure landscapes were painted at the time, even if Buddhist and Confucian scenes with landscape settings were the more popular subject.

The other work which reflects the style of the age convincingly is a sacrificial stone house in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (Plate 4). It is dated 529 and is similar in style to the Kansas City sarcophagus. Again, the scenes depict episodes of filial piety, but the emphasis is more on the interior setting than the outdoor landscape. However, the manner of representation is very like that of the sarcophagus in the Nelson Gallery, with delicately incised lines suggesting the contours of the objects. In the immediate foreground, rocks, grasses, trees, and undulating earth are rendered with the greatest economy and with the inspired and dynamic use of line so typical of the period. Above, figures in the building are engaged in various activities, and in the background, a variety of trees loom over the tiled roofs. The slanting parallel lines in the right side of the building indicate the artist's attempt to give perspective, thus showing that the rendering of space in depth is a problem with which he is consciously struggling. The quality of the execution here, as well as in the sarcophagus, is very fine, and it may be assumed that these works reflect the most advanced artistic style. It would thus appear that the sixth century already knew landscape painting as a distinct genre, but that the nature of the landscape was still stylized and decorative.