One of the most important themes in the history of Qing visual and material culture is the role of the state. In the first place, the Manchus saw patronage of Chinese art as a means of demonstrating their cultural legitimacy, and as a way to “glorify” the dynasty. Hence, most Qing emperors became avid collectors of Chinese-style arts and crafts (according to one estimate the Qian-long emperor owned “more than a million objects”), as well as practitioners of traditionally esteemed Chinese artistic activities such as painting and calligraphy. They also used Buddhist art and architecture to sustain their image as cakravartin universal rulers, and commissioned an enormous number of art works and craft productions to decorate their palaces and to present as gifts to officials, loyal subjects, and foreign emissaries. Furthermore, they employed court painters to produce impressive imperial portraits, and to document their court-sponsored civil and military activities—from campaigns against rebels and other enemies to imperial tours and the receipt of tributary envoys and products.1 And, to the degree that maps were artistic productions (and many of them certainly were), the Qing rulers encouraged the creation of an unprecedented number of strikingly beautiful and symbolically redolent cartographic products, some produced by Chinese and Manchu artists, and others produced in concert with foreign collaborators, including the Jesuits.2
Traditionally, Chinese scholars considered two types of art worthwhile: that which they enjoyed but did not create, and that which they created and therefore esteemed most. The former included the work of skilled craftsmen, from elegant ancient bronzes to colorful contemporary ceramics; the latter embraced the refined arts of the brush—painting and calligraphy. Occupying a fluid middle ground were decorative textiles, often executed in exquisite detail by talented elite women. Popular art—from temple paintings and religious icons to folk crafts such as basketwork, fans, umbrellas, toys, and paper cuts—flourished throughout the Qing period, but Chinese connoisseurs seldom took it seriously.3
Although early Qing intellectuals stigmatized the decadent consumer society of the late Ming as a “culturally exquisite bloom, which was nevertheless in some sense rotten inside” (in the words of Craig Clunas), Chinese attitudes toward connoisseurship continued to be shaped by Ming models. It may indeed have become “unfashionable,” as Clunas and others have suggested, for Qing intellectuals to consume conspicuously in the Ming style, or even to talk about superfluous “things” the way Ming aesthetes did, but works on connoisseurship such as Cao Zhao’s fourteenth-century Gegu yaolun (Essential criteria of antiquities) remained highly influential as repositories of information on Chinese art, archaeology, and authenticity throughout the Qing period.4 Moreover, the genre of “beautiful women paintings” (meiren hua) that proved so appealing to the Qing court deliberately exoticized Chinese women as representatives of Ming-style courtesan culture. By design, these paintings implicitly accentuated the Manchu conquest, which subjugated the Chinese—men and women alike—along with their “exquisite,” but also “decadent and weak,” culture.5
The Qing dynasty has been characterized as “an antiquarian age when, as never before, men looked back into the past.” But during the first century and a half of Manchu rule there was considerable experimentation in the arts. Part of the impetus may have been the traumatic effect of the Qing conquest, which provided loyalist painters such as Gong Xian (1620–1689) with the tortured artistic theme of “a world gone corrupt.” Another factor, unsettling in a different way but also encouraging innovation, was the rapid growth of commercial wealth, particularly in the Lower Yangzi region. There, the blending of literati and merchant culture produced new artistic fashions. The result was an enormous demand among consumers for innovative forms, colors, styles, and textures. Finally, there was the expanding foreign market for Chinese arts and crafts, especially porcelain. Although many of these goods came to be designed explicitly for export to the West, their production unquestionably influenced Chinese tastes.6
The Qing court’s patronage of painters, calligraphers, and craftsmen naturally affected Chinese artistic developments. The Kangxi emperor began the process in earnest, but it was his grandson, the Qianlong emperor, who exerted the most profound influence. Michael Sullivan describes him rather unflatteringly as
a voracious art collector, a niggardly and opinionated connoisseur, an unstoppable writer of inscriptions and stamper of seals who was determined, as a function of his imperial role, to leave his indelible mark upon China’s artistic legacy. His seals obliterate some of the finest paintings in the imperial collection, which . . . grew to such enormous size that there were few ancient masterpieces that were not gathered behind the high walls of the Forbidden City, shut away forever from the painters who might still have studied them had they remained in private hands.7
Financial strains during the latter part of the Qianlong reign caused the emperor to cut back on his sponsorship of the arts, however; and by the end of the eighteenth century at the latest, the dominant influence on Chinese art was private patronage, together with the ever greater commercialization of production.
Meanwhile, “vernacular art” flourished. James Cahill’s Pictures for Use and Pleasure: Vernacular Painting in High Qing China (2010) makes a strong case for expanding the boundaries of Chinese art appreciation to include works by urban-based painters “who produced pictures as required for diverse everyday domestic and other uses.” These paintings, including the new genre of meiren hua mentioned earlier, were “executed in the polished ‘academic’ manner of fine-line drawing and colors, usually on silk, and were valued for their elegant imagery and their lively and often moving depictions of subjects.” In Cahill’s well-considered opinion, such paintings, which often drew on Western elements of style and “devices of representation,” have been misguidedly underappreciated by Chinese connoisseurs and collectors, both now and in the past.8
During the nineteenth century, Qing painting seems to have lost a considerable amount of its vigor and vitality. Part of the problem was lack of direct inspiration, an unfortunate consequence of the Qianlong emperor’s aggressive campaign to acquire local artworks for his imperial collection. Another difficulty was financial exigency, which diminished the court’s support for painting, calligraphy, and craft production. Meanwhile, many “independent” Chinese artists went to one of two extremes—either they surrendered to the demands of patrons and other customers for hastily produced paintings, or they became overly academic in their artistic approach. Increasingly, we find late Qing works that were simply paintings about painting, “art-historical art.” Too often, so the criticism goes, the artists’ inspiration “was not nature but the very tradition itself.”9
Nonetheless, there is evidence to suggest that the late Qing was not nearly as artistically sterile as it has often been portrayed. Although labor-intensive crafts such as cloisonné never achieved the same heights under private patrons that they had reached under court patronage during the eighteenth century, certain kinds of creative painting emerged among scholar-officials at the fringes of the court, as well as in the provinces. During the nineteenth century several bold regional styles either emerged for the first time or acquired new life, and cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou (Canton) became centers of vibrant artistic activity.
Connoisseurship in traditional China required wealth, leisure, and education. As amateur artists and devoted calligraphers, gentry and officials were expected to have a discriminating eye and to possess attractive art works, but they were not always the most famous or successful collectors. The salt merchant An Qi (born c. 1683), for example, was the envy of all literati in the area of Tianjin. Having purchased a number of paintings and calligraphic scrolls from well-known Ming and early Qing connoisseurs, in time An became a connoisseur himself. His annotated catalog of paintings and calligraphy, completed in 1742, was highly prized by Qing collectors for its detailed descriptions of outstanding artwork. In fact, the noted Manchu antique collector and art patron Duanfang (1861–1911) reprinted it twice. Duanfang, for his part, used his celebrated connoisseurship to cultivate important political and social relationships in the late Qing.10
Chinese art has long been characterized by a remarkable feeling for natural beauty, perfection of form, grace, and refinement. It is also noteworthy for its optimism, love of nature, and organic quality. As indicated in chapter 5, much of the formal aesthetics of the Chinese elite developed out of a longstanding cognitive emphasis on yinyang principles and relationships. As with music, ritual, and poetry, the most exalted forms of artistic achievement in China tended to display lyrical patterns of dualistic balance, periodic rhythms, and cyclical sequences.
These aesthetics had more than simply a linguistic foundation; by late imperial times they also had a cosmological one. Chinese art reflected life, which in turn reflected the order of the universe. Liu Xie’s Wenxin diaolong (The literary mind and the carving of dragons) expresses this artistic relationship in the following way:
Wen, or pattern, is a very great power indeed. It is born together with Heaven and Earth. Why do we say this? Because all color-patterns are mixed of black and yellow [the colors of Heaven and Earth], and all shape patterns are differentiated by round and square [that is, the shapes of Heaven and Earth]. The sun and moon, like two pieces of jade, manifest the pattern of Heaven; mountains and rivers in their beauty display the pattern of Earth. These are, in fact, the wen of the Dao itself. . . . Man, and man alone, forms with these the “three powers” [Heaven, Earth, and Man], and he does so because he alone is endowed with spirituality [ling]. He is the refined essence of the five agents—indeed, the mind of the universe.11
In praise of the great late Ming painter Dong Qichang (1555–1636), the Wusheng shi shi (History of silent poetry) states, “He [Dong] held the creative power of nature in his hand and was nourished by the mists and clouds. . . . [It] may be said that everything in his paintings, whether clouds, peaks or stones, was made as by the power of Heaven, his brushwork being quite unrestrained like the working of nature.”12
Michael Sullivan has aptly remarked that
Just as ritual, and its extension through music, poetry, and the shape and decoration of the objects used in it, was the gentleman’s means of demonstrating that he was attuned to the Will of Heaven, so was aesthetic beauty felt to be what results when the artist gives sincere expression to his intuitive awareness of natural order. Beauty, therefore, is what conduces to order, harmony, [and] tranquility.13
In the words of the Record of Ritual: “Music is [an echo of] the harmony between Heaven and Earth; ceremonies reflect the orderly distinctions [in the operations of] Heaven and Earth. From that harmony all things receive their being; to those orderly distinctions they owe the differences between them. Music has its origin in Heaven.”14 The goal of all elite artistic, literary, musical, and ritual activity in traditional China was thus to promote and display social and cosmic harmony.
Because the dao of art, literature, music, and ritual was inseparable from the cosmic Dao and the dao of human affairs, it followed that Chinese creative endeavor was never far removed from tradition. Like the Confucian classics, ancient artistic models were believed to have universal and transcendent value. As Frederick Mote reminds us, in traditional China
neither individuals nor the state could claim any theoretical authority higher or more binding than men’s rational minds and the civilizing norms that those human minds had created. That is a tenuous basis of authority, and since it could not easily be buttressed by endowing it with nonrational or suprarational qualities, it had to be buttressed by the weight granted to historical experience.15
This meant that in Chinese art, as in Chinese life, “the defining criteria for value were inescapably governed by past models, not by present experience or by future states of existence.”
The relationship between past and present in Chinese art (and other areas of Chinese aesthetic and intellectual life as well) may be viewed in terms of a creative tension between the polarities of tradition and innovation, orthodoxy and aesthetics. Different individuals responded in different ways to these competing impulses. But however such tensions were conceived, and however they were resolved, the past in Chinese imaginative endeavor remained an integral part of the Chinese present.
How was the link established? Creative individuals sought the restoration of antiquity (fugu), a fundamental neo-Confucian concern and an obsession with many Qing intellectuals. But the restoration of the past did not simply mean the slavish imitation of early literary and artistic models. Instead, it involved “spiritual communication” (shenhui) with the ancient masters, a state in which the past and present became one in the mind of the creative individual. The greater the aesthetic or technical achievement of a Chinese writer or artist, the more he or she was thought to be in touch with the past—at once under its command and in command of it. Such spiritual communication required a total commitment on the part of the individual, body and mind.16
Chinese tradition thus suggested pattern, but it did not impose despotic rule. The result was a remarkable continuity of cultural style without the sacrifice of creative potential. In the words of Wen Fong, “in fugu the Chinese saw history not as a long fall from grace, but as an enduring crusade to restore life and truth to art.”17 That crusade gave vitality to Chinese culture in every period, including the Qing.
Naturally enough, tradition influenced not only the artist and craftsman, but also the collector and connoisseur:
When his eye falls on the miniature porcelain tripod standing on his desk, not only does . . . [he] savour the perfection of its form and glaze, but a whole train of associations are set moving in his mind. For him, his tripod is treasured not simply for its antiquity or rarity, but because it is a receptacle of ideas, and a visible emblem of the ideals by which he lives. Indeed, although he would be gratified to know that it was the genuine Song dynasty piece it purports to be, it would not be robbed of all its value to him if he subsequently found that it was in fact a clever imitation of the Qianlong period—particularly if it bore an appropriate inscription cut in archaic characters.18
Even a fragment of the past was sufficient to conjure up the right kind of cultural image. The Qing collector Lu Shihua notes in his fascinating Shuhua shuoling (Collector’s scrapbook) that members of his circle of acquaintances would be quite content with one or two lines from a Song inscription, for “as soon as one has come to know the brush technique and the spirit of the work of the ancient artists, one can derive the rest by analogy.”19
Books on connoisseurship, such as Cao Zhao’s influential Essential Criteria of Antiquities, advised readers on how to determine artistic worth and detect forgeries, but they did not encourage in Qing collectors a passion for mere authenticity. Nor did they promote an inordinate attachment to individual art objects. A characteristic feature of Chinese connoisseurship in late imperial times was the trading of cultural artifacts—a Ming scroll for a Qing album, a Shang bronze for a Song ceramic. In this way, personal collections were invigorated by aesthetic variety and at the same time enriched by the scholarly associations that attached to newly acquired objects. In traditional China, prior ownership of a work of art could be almost as important to the collector as the work itself.20
The unity of cultural style in Qing China was evident not only in shared aesthetics and attitudes toward the past, but also in the vocabulary of artistic, literary, and musical criticism. Terms such as yin and yang, qi (life spirit or force), gu (“bone” or structure), and shenyun (spirit and tone, spiritual resonance, or inspired harmony) were longstanding and indispensable in the evaluation of creative work of all kinds—although each expression might have several connotations in different contexts. These critical terms suggest the thematic importance in Chinese art of life, vitality, and natural process, as well as the structural importance of rhythm and balance.
Chinese symbolism, too, reflected a certain unity of cultural style. Closely linked with literary symbolism, artistic symbols were drawn from several rich sources of traditional inspiration—language (including puns and stylized characters), philosophy, religion, history, popular mythology, and, of course, nature itself. Some symbols that were once meaningful had lost their original connotations by Qing times and were considered largely decorative by all but the most sophisticated connoisseurs. Other symbols, like Chinese characters themselves, held different meanings depending on context. But despite these differences (and certain regional variations), the most potent abstract and concrete symbols in Chinese art and literature tended to be shared by all levels of society and to reflect common cultural concerns. Even non-Han peoples, the Manchus included, employed many of these symbols in their arts, crafts, and architecture.21
The overwhelming majority of Chinese artistic symbols were positive. Abstract designs tended to express the harmonious patterns and processes of nature, while concrete symbols generally indicated auspicious themes of happiness and good fortune. Although most of the spiral and angular designs on ancient bronzes and pottery (and later copies) no longer had specific symbolic value by Qing times, Chinese artists continued to represent natural processes through abstract symbolism. Square-circle motifs, for example, depicted in both art and architecture the cosmic relationship between Heaven (circle, yang) and Earth (square, yin). Also popular as a cosmic symbol was the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate (Taiji tu)—a motif dating from Song times that adorned a wide variety of Chinese artwork, from paintings and carved jade to primitive ceramics intended for daily use in commoner households. It consisted of a circle composed of two equal parts—one light (yang) and one dark (yin)—separated by an S-shaped line. Often this diagram was surrounded by the eight trigrams and/or other cosmological symbols.
Animal symbolism figured prominently in Chinese artwork of all kinds. The most powerful and positive of all animals, whether actual or mythical, was the so-called dragon (long), a composite creature with the supposed ability to change size and render itself visible or invisible at will. Associated with the east and spring, the dragon was believed to inhabit mountains and to be capable of both ascending into the heavens and living in the water. Unlike its rough (very rough) European counterpart, the Chinese dragon symbolized benevolence, longevity, prosperity, and the renewal of life. It also served as a token of imperial majesty, especially when depicted with five claws on each of its four feet.
The so-called phoenix (fenghuang) was the yin equivalent of the dragon. Associated with the south and summer, it had some yang qualities, just as the dragon had some yin attributes. Like the dragon, it was a composite animal, with distinctly positive connotations. Symbolizing peace and joy, it was commonly used as the mark of an empress in imperial China.
The unicorn (qilin) was associated with the west and autumn. It symbolized good luck and prosperity and was believed to herald the birth of a hero or a sage. According to legend, a qilin was seen when Confucius came into the world. Like the dragon and the phoenix, the unicorn was a composite creature, sometimes depicted with one horn, but often with two. Its predominant characteristic was goodwill and benevolence to all living things.
The tortoise (gui), although not a purely mythical beast in the sense of the dragon, phoenix, and the unicorn, was nonetheless viewed as a supernatural animal. Associated with the north and winter, its outstanding attributes were strength, endurance, and longevity. Its symbolic importance stemmed not only from the Chinese preoccupation with longevity, but also from its legendary (and historical) connection with divination. As an imperial symbol, prominently displayed, for instance, on the grounds of the Forbidden City, the tortoise was often depicted with the head of a dragon.
Among more conventional creatures, the tiger was king. In general, it symbolized military prowess. The lion was viewed as the protector of all that was sacred and was particularly popular as a Buddhist symbol. Bronze, stone, and ceramic lions often stood in male-female pairs as guardians on either side of the entrance to important Chinese buildings, both secular and religious. Other large animals, such as horses and elephants (both symbolizing strength and wisdom), were also popular as guardian figures.
The deer symbolized immortality (because of its supposed ability to find a magical life-giving fungus known as lingzhi) and also official emoluments (because the character for deer, lu, sounds like another character meaning “salary”). A similar pun on the sound yu invested the fish with the symbolic meaning of “abundance.” Yet another pun made bats (fu) the symbol for good luck and prosperity. The link between Chinese characters and sounds quite naturally yielded what Wolfram Eberhard calls a “rebus-mentality” (see chapter 5).
Among flying animals and other fowl, cranes symbolized longevity; swallows, success; and the quail, courage in adversity. Mandarin ducks indicated conjugal affection, whereas the wild goose conjured up feelings of sadness or longing. Roosters, hens, and chickens symbolized family prosperity. In the insect world, the cicada stood as a common symbol of fertility and rebirth. The butterfly signified joy and warmth (and also longevity, by virtue of a pun); the dragonfly, weakness and instability.
Plant symbolism was extremely popular in late imperial China. Without doubt the most prominent symbol in this category was bamboo. Quite apart from its inherent aesthetic appeal and multifunctional role in Chinese daily life (abundantly documented in the TSJC), bamboo symbolized the Confucian scholar—upright, strong, and resilient, yet gentle, graceful, and refined. The pine tree suggested longevity and solitude; the plum tree, fortitude and respect for old age. The willow, like the wild goose, indicated parting and sorrow, while the cassia tree, like the carp, connoted literary success.
Of various popular fruits, the peach had wide-ranging significance. It symbolized marriage, spring, justice, and especially Daoist immortality. The apple signified peace (a pun on the sound ping); the persimmon, joy; the pomegranate, fertility. Popular flower symbols included the chrysanthemum (happiness, longevity, and integrity), the peony (love and good fortune), the plum blossom (courage and hope), the wild orchid (humility and refinement), and the lotus (purity and detachment from worldly cares—a predominantly Buddhist symbol).
Religious symbolism was, of course, most evident in explicitly Buddhist and Religious Daoist arts and crafts. Virtually all of the major Buddhas, bodhisattvas, gods, genies, and other spirits of the popular pantheon were portrayed in paintings, sculpture, carvings, ceramics, and other temple art forms. An elaborate symbolism of hand gestures (Sanskrit: mudra; Chinese: shoushi) came to be associated with Buddhist images, in addition to the wide range of signs and objects related to specific aspects of Buddhist teaching. One of the most powerful of these signs was the swastika (wan), which symbolized the Buddha’s heart and mind and served as a general indication of happiness, blessings, and sometimes immortality. Swords and other weapons denoted protection and wisdom; the conch shell, the universality of Buddhist law (dharma); and jewels or scepters, the granting of wishes. Similar symbols existed for Religious Daoism. For example, the Eight Immortals—all signifying longevity and good fortune—were represented by the Eight Precious Things: fans, swords, bottle gourds, castanets, flower baskets, bamboo canes, flutes, and lotus flowers.
Confucian art symbolism drew its primary inspiration from history and the classics, as well as from more “popular” stories of virtuous individuals, such as the famous “Twenty-Four Examples of Filial Piety” (Ershisi xiao; see chapter 10). In addition to common plant and animal symbols like the quail and bamboo, diverse objects such as pearls, coins, books, paintings, and the rhinoceros horn represented scholars. Also popular as symbols of scholarly refinement were the Chinese “lute” (guqin) and the so-called Four Treasures of Literature—writing brush, ink stick, grinding stone, and paper.
Indicative of both Chinese eclecticism and a penchant for combining elements into numerical categories, many artistic symbols were grouped together. Combinations of two of the same symbol often indicated conjugal affection or friendship, but such pairings also reflected yinyang juxtapositions—aesthetic patterns in which one element was clearly “superior” to the other. Thus quail were almost invariably depicted in pairs, one with its head turned upward (yang) and the other with its head facing the ground (yin). The pairing, which in Qing craft productions might connote a mother-child relationship, derives from a famous line in the Classic of Poetry. But the positioning of the two reflects a longstanding aesthetic of unequal balance.
Plants and animals were often grouped together—the phoenix and the peony, for example, to indicate opulence; the chrysanthemum and the grouse, to connote good fortune; the heron and the lotus, to symbolize integrity. Larger groupings were common as well. As the Three Friends of Winter (Suihan sanyou), the bamboo, plum, and pine signified perseverance and solidarity in the face of adversity. The plum, wild orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum were known as the Four Gentlemen and beloved by gardeners, poets, artists, scholars, and craftsmen. The dragon, phoenix, unicorn, and tortoise were grouped together as the Four Spiritual Animals (Siling).
The Four Spiritual Animals were not the only symbols reflecting seasonal or astrological correlations. The months of the year, for example, came to be represented by flora as well as fauna. The twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, and sometimes even the twenty-eight astral animals, were also portrayed on art objects. Popular groupings of eight included not only the Buddhist Lucky Signs and the Daoist Immortals mentioned above, but also Eight Creatures corresponding to the eight trigrams. The Twelve Imperial Emblems, as the name suggests, adorned items for the emperor’s personal use, including clothing. Initially the Manchu rulers outlawed them because they were associated too closely with the Ming, but the Qianlong emperor reintroduced them in 1759. The largest category of Chinese symbols was known simply as the Hundred Ancient Things, a generic designation for an indefinite number of auspicious signs and objects. In general, Confucian symbolism dominated this motif, but Buddhist, Daoist, and naturalistic symbols also figured prominently in it. Like most larger groupings of symbols, the Hundred Ancient Things appeared most commonly on Chinese craft productions.
Chinese craftsmen in Qing times excelled at nearly every kind of technical art—textiles (including, of course, silk), wood and ivory carving, metalwork, lacquer ware, stone sculpture, ceramics, enamels, bronzes, jades, jewelry, and glassware. The Qing was also a period of technical accomplishments in areas such as architecture and landscape gardening.22 Not surprisingly, much of the best craftsmanship of the period was done under imperial patronage. As early as 1680 or so, the Kangxi emperor had already established workshops in the imperial palace precincts for the manufacture of silk products, porcelains, lacquer ware, glass, enamel, jade, furniture, and other prized objects for court use. His grandson, the Qianlong emperor, was especially well known for his employment of skilled imperial artisans in the production of magnificent works of traditional craftsmanship.23
Of the many types of Chinese crafts, four may be singled out for particular attention: bronzes, jades, porcelains, and landscape gardens. All four gave special satisfaction to members of the Chinese elite, and each in its own way exhibited the major aesthetic features and symbolic elements of Chinese art discussed in the previous section.
The most highly prized bronzes in the Qing period, as in more recent times, were ancient ritual vessels of Shang and Zhou vintage. They were valued not only for their natural color and exquisite design, but also for their powerful historical and ritual associations.24 The well-known Qing connoisseur Ruan Yuan (1764–1849) once identified three successive stages in the evolution of Chinese attitudes toward bronze vessels: before the Han, they were symbols of privilege and power; from Han to Song times, their discovery was hailed as a portent; and from the Song dynasty onward, “freed from superstition,” they became the toys of collectors and the quarry of philologists and antiquarians. But the Essential Criteria of Antiquities suggests that even in late imperial times at least some members of the Chinese elite, probably a large number, considered ancient ritual vessels to provide a measure of protection against evil spirits—a function not unlike that of the more mundane charms of the so-called unenlightened masses.25
As indicated by Ruan Yuan, the inscriptions on ancient bronzes, together with early stone inscriptions, were of great interest to Qing antique collectors, who studied them systematically as a special class of Chinese scholarship. Some collectors, such as Chen Jieqi (1813–1884), possessed hundreds of bronzes and literally thousands of rubbings from stone inscriptions, not to mention a large number of ancient coins and other metal artifacts. Literati such as Liu Xihai (d. 1853) wrote numerous tracts on these and other antiquities, contributing to a general burst of antiquarian scholarship in the late Qing period.
Qing craftsmen often sought to imitate the shape and design of Shang and Zhou bronzes, either to conform to Qing ritual specifications in the case of ceramics, or out of sheer admiration for their form and style. The decorative motifs of these ancient models—particularly abstract designs such as the spiraling or curvilinear “thunder pattern” and “whorl circle”—endured in various types of Chinese art for thousands of years. The original piece-mold technique that produced them involved the transference of carved designs from one surface to another, a procedure also followed in Chinese seal carving, the carving of calligraphy in stone or wood, and, of course, the carving of printing blocks. In all these crafts, the artisan had to possess, in Wen Fong’s words, “a highly refined sensitivity for the silhouetted form and a lively familiarity with, and love for, the interplay between the positive and negative design patterns.”26 Both the zoomorphic and abstract designs of classic-style bronzes reflect a complex yinyang interaction between solid and void, raised and recessed, relief and intaglio that proved invariably appealing to Chinese aesthetic sensibilities.
Some Qing copies of early Chinese bronzes were deliberate forgeries, but many made no pretense of antiquity and provided the actual date of casting on the vessel. Other bronzes produced in the Qing period did not even try to approximate ancient models. Containers for practical use, decorative bells, and ornaments, as well as small religious statues, came in a wide variety of styles and shapes that often reflected more “modern” tastes. Yet the aesthetic appeal of ancient bronzes, as well as their presumed protective value and their historical associations, made them highly prized throughout the ages, including the Qing period.
Ancient jades were viewed in much the same way. The Qing connoisseur Lu Shihua tells us:
Present-day people want jades of the Three Dynasties [Xia, Shang, and Zhou] only, and require that their color be pure white, “sweet yellow,” or “sweet green.” Even then they are not satisfied, and insist that the “blood spots” be spread evenly over the entire surface and that the object be large and in perfect condition. If one sets his standard as high as this, he had better have a jade object newly made, and submit it to the oil treatment [tihong you].27
For most Chinese connoisseurs it was satisfying enough if jade objects were of high quality and traditional design, but there can be no doubt that antique jade was considered more valuable than new jade, not only for its use in antiquarian studies, but also because it was believed to possess a much larger supply of “life force” (qi) or “virtue” (de).
From neolithic times through the Qing, jade was always highly regarded. The Chinese language is rich in words with the “jade” (yu) radical—words that often convey notions of beauty, preciousness, hardness, and purity. Confucius is said to have remarked,
The sages of old beheld in jade the reflections of every virtue. In its luster, bright yet warm, humaneness; in its compactness and strength, wisdom; in its sharp and clean edges which cause no injury, righteousness; in its use as pendants, seeming as if they would drop to the ground, propriety; in the note it emits when struck, clear and prolonged, music; by its flaws neither concealing its beauty nor its beauty concealing its flaws; loyalty; by its radiance issuing forth from within on every side, faithfulness.28
Jade, in other words, united in itself moral and aesthetic beauty.
In various forms, jade was used in ceremonial sacrifices, buried with the dead, displayed in homes and palaces, and worn for both decoration and protection. For official ritual purposes, it was modeled into various symbolic shapes such as the disc (bi) and the squared tube (cong)—both of which had been employed in Shang and Zhou dynasty ceremonies. Jade amulets provided personal protection from evil spirits and conveyed “life force,” while jade musical instruments were highly esteemed both in ritual life and daily affairs for their clear and uplifting sound. Scholars often fondled specially “carved” pieces of jade called bawan, both for the sensual pleasure it afforded and in order to refine their touch for the appreciation of fine porcelain.29
The Qianlong reign represented the high point of jade carving (“grinding” would be a more appropriate term) in late imperial China, in part because it was a period of great prosperity, but also because vast areas of Central Asia, where much precious jade is found, were brought under imperial sway at that time. During the long and illustrious rule of the Qianlong emperor, thousands of magnificent carved jades were added to the imperial collection, some of which bore poetic inscriptions in characters that imitated the emperor’s calligraphy. In the words of S. Howard Hansford, during the Qianlong period “jade was applied to countless new uses in the Forbidden City and the stately homes of nobles and officials. Though the inspiration of the designers of two thousand years earlier was rarely attained, the execution and finish left nothing to be desired and much larger works were attempted.”30 Some of these monumental jade sculptures, still on display in the Forbidden City today, stand taller than a full-grown man (well, taller than I am anyway).
The heyday of Qing porcelain manufacture was somewhat earlier than that of jade carving, from about 1683 to 1750, during the reign of the Kangxi emperor in particular. Of all the Chinese ceramic arts, porcelain (ci) stood at the apex of achievement: it was universally admired, the subject of countless essays, and a fitting topic for poetry as well. It was also used to make colored ritual vessels for Qing state sacrifices.31 Imperial patronage was enormously important to the successful production of high-quality porcelains. Soame Jenyns has written:
The history of Qing porcelain is in effect the history of the town of Jingde zhen, which in turn was dominated by the presence of the imperial porcelain factory, which was situated there. Over 80 percent of the porcelains of China during the Qing period were made at this great ceramic metropolis in Jiangxi, or in its immediate neighborhood; the provincial porcelain factories, with the single exception of Dehua in Fujian, producing porcelain of poor quality and negligible importance during this period.32
This statement perhaps undervalues local production in Qing China, but it certainly testifies to the dominant position occupied by the imperial factory.
As with bronzes and jades, Qing connoisseurs greatly admired porcelain antiques, which had a kind of dull shine, or “receded luster” (tuiguang). Among the most esteemed of these early porcelains, in addition to official ware (guanyao), was the legendary sky-blue chai ware, ru ware, and crackled ge ware. Qing potters excelled in the imitation of these and other types of early ceramics, and expert forgers produced “receded luster” by rubbing new porcelain first with a grindstone, then with a mixture of paste and fine sand, and finally with a straw pad to obliterate the scratches. The Kangxi emperor is known to have sent to the imperial kilns at Jingde zhen rare pieces of Song dynasty guan, chai, and ru ware to be meticulously copied for imperial pleasure. The imperial kilns also continued to produce Ming-style porcelains, some of which, like the beautiful white “eggshell” bowls of the Yongle period, were executed by Qing craftsmen more flawlessly than the Ming originals.
Qing potters also excelled in producing the striking multicolored Ming-style porcelains known as sancai, wucai, and doucai. The significant feature of these three types of porcelain, in addition to their vivid use of rich blues, greens, and yellows in the fashion of much architectural decoration, is their amalgamation of popular religious and imperial symbolism, their seemingly inexhaustible range of shapes and colors (including reproductions of ancient bronzes), and their self-conscious yinyang juxtapositions. As with other porcelains, Qing craftsmen often inscribed sancai, wucai, and doucai pieces with reign marks other than those of the period in which they were produced, making positive identification of good copies extremely difficult.33
European influences found their way into the decoration of Qing porcelains for two principal reasons. One was the fact that a considerable amount of Chinese porcelain was intended for European markets in the latter half of the seventeenth century and most of the eighteenth. The other was the general receptiveness of the imperial court to Western artistic influences during the late Ming and most of the Qing period. These influences can be seen not only in porcelain and other ceramics, but also, as indicated both above and below, in court paintings and imperial architecture (notably the European-style buildings in the Summer Palace known as the Yuanming yuan or “Garden of Perfect Brightness”).
Overall, however, Chinese crafts followed traditional models, and although some porcelains functioned as convenient vehicles for the transmission of foreign artistic influences, most conveyed a rich indigenous decorative tradition that in a real sense transcended class. Many of the highest-quality Qing porcelains were decorated with folk symbols and the bright colors of folk and religious art. It is true, however, that in several respects porcelains had a closer affinity with elite art than with the simple ceramics of commoner households. Like jades and bronzes, they were of antiquarian interest and appreciated both for their surface “feel” and melodious ring when struck. Furthermore, like paintings, many porcelains were carefully decorated with the brush and categorized according to a similar system of classification. But whereas in painting, landscape was the most popular and prestigious classification (see next section), in porcelain it was a relatively minor category.
Landscape gardening, on the other hand, sought precisely to capture the mood of a landscape painting. Although often overlooked as an art form, Chinese gardens in fact embodied the best principles of artistic expression in China, combining superb craftsmanship, complex symbolism, and the careful arrangement of aesthetic elements. During the Qing period, gardens ranged in size from the huge (seventy-mile walled perimeter) Yuanming yuan—largely destroyed during the Anglo-French hostilities with China in 1860—to tiny, cramped urban gardens only a few square feet in area, and even to miniature gardens in porcelain dishes.34 Members of the Chinese elite and rich merchants, of course, took special pride in constructing individualized gardens, notably Yuan Mei’s famous Suiyuan in the area of Nanjing (see below).
Chinese gardens were often viewed as Daoist retreats. In the words of the Qianlong emperor, “Every . . . ruler, when he has returned from audience, and has finished his public duties, must have a garden in which he may stroll, look around and relax his heart. If he has a suitable place for this it will refresh his mind and regulate his emotions, but if he has not, he will become engrossed in sensual pleasures and lose his will power.”35 Access to the extensive gardens of the Forbidden City and the western section of the Imperial City in Beijing did not always distract Qing emperors from sensual indulgence, but landscape gardens generally did provide a retreat for world-weary Confucians—and a fitting place of rest for those of a Buddhist or Daoist inclination as well.
Gardens were not always resting places, however. As we have seen in chapter 2, the garden-filled Qing “retreat” at Chengde was often the center of intense political and religious activity. And even private gardens served regularly as the sites for elite social interactions of various sorts. Yuan Mei’s Suiyuan, for example, is well known for providing an environment in which he instructed a number of female disciples (nü dizi)—a reflection of his ardent support of women’s literary education (see chapter 9).36 Gardens also provided an ideal environment for entertaining friends and colleagues, composing verse, and admiring art. Small wonder, then, that the expansive Prospect Garden (Daguan yuan) of the Jia family provides the setting for much of the action in the great Qing novel Dream of the Red Chamber (see chapter 9). Andrew Plaks has brilliantly analyzed Cao Xueqin’s use of this garden as a microcosm of the Chinese cultural world, and indeed of the entire universe. It is true, of course, that Chinese cities—Beijing in particular—were also viewed as microcosms of the universe, but whereas the cosmological symbolism of the capital was expressed in formal patterns of geometric symmetry, in the garden it was expressed in delightful informality and irregularity. The garden recreated nature in an idealized form, but not a geometrical one.
Aesthetic components of traditional Chinese gardens bore the unmistakable imprint of conscious yinyang duality. Manmade buildings were deliberately interspersed with natural features; rock formations (“mountains”) stood juxtaposed to water (“rivers”); light areas alternated with dark; rounded lines with angular ones; empty spaces with solids. The small led to the large, the low to the high. The Qing scholar Shen Fu, a well-known connoisseur of gardens, expressed the garden aesthetic in the following way:
In laying out garden pavilions and towers, suites of rooms and covered walk-ways, piling up rocks into mountains, or planting flowers to form a desired shape, the aim is to see the small in the large, to see the large in the small, to see the real in the illusory, and to see the illusory in the real. Sometimes you conceal, sometimes you reveal, sometimes you work on the surface, sometimes in depth.37
Chinese gardens thus had a kind of endless, rhythmic quality. Wing-tsit Chan writes, “Almost every part [of the traditional Chinese garden] is rhythmic in expression. The winding walks, the round gate, the zigzag paths, the melody-like walls, the rockeries which are frozen music in themselves, and flowers and trees and birds are all echoes and counterpoints of rhythm.” Significantly, this rhythmic quality—and often a sense of endlessness as well—can be found not only in landscape gardens, but also in the structure of Chinese poetry and narrative prose (see chapter 9), the flow of melody in music, the movement and sound of Chinese drama, the curved roof and other architectural elements in Chinese buildings, and, of course, in the composition of landscape paintings.38
The decorative symbolism of Chinese gardens followed convention. The design of gates and doorways, for example, reflected the perfection of the circle or the shape of a jar—the latter a pun on the word “peace” (ping). Window grilles and other woodwork often carried stylized Chinese characters for “blessings” (fu), “emoluments” (lu), and “long life” (shou), as well as designs echoing ancient bronze motifs such as the “thunder pattern” and “whorl circle.” Common animal symbols included the dragon, phoenix, deer, crane, and bat. Confucian symbolism was most evident in the books contained in garden buildings and often in the names given to specific pleasure spots. Religious symbolism was comparatively muted. Buddhist or Religious Daoist statues were rare, and there was no Chinese “garden god.” Fengshui considerations obviously affected the design of Chinese gardens, but there was an aesthetic “logic” to this geomantic system that gave it significance beyond religion.39
In short, the major symbolism of the landscape garden was in its natural elements and in their arrangement. Rocks were chosen primarily for their fantastic shapes (those from Lake Tai, near Suzhou, were especially admired), while flowers, shrubs, and trees reflected the basic plant symbolism noted in the previous section. Among the most common floral elements in the landscape garden were the peony, orchid, magnolia, lotus, chrysanthemum, and gardenia. Bamboo was, of course, extremely popular, as were trees such as the willow, pine, peach, plum, and pomegranate. Most plants were identified with specific seasons and arranged with these identifications in mind.
A sharp distinction existed between the “naturalism” of the landscape garden and the rigid functionalism of the house to which it was connected. As the garden mirrored nature, the house mirrored society. Maggie Keswick writes, “In domestic architecture the orderly succession of rooms and courtyards that make up a Chinese house have often been seen as an expression of the Chinese ideal of harmonious social relationships: formal, decorous, regular and clearly defined.”40 This rigid symmetry—and, one might add, that of other Chinese architectural structures from temples to the imperial palace itself—stood in sharp contrast to the irregularity of the landscape garden.
But despite the structural distinction between house and garden in traditional China, the two were integrally related, for the structure of the former would have been considered intolerable without the latter, and the latter would have been deemed superfluous without the former. In all, the garden was a kind of “liminal zone” linking the spiritual and earthly concerns of man. Nelson Wu puts the matter poetically: “In . . . eternally negative space, between reason and untarnished emotion, between the correctness of the straight lines and the effortlessness of the curve, between the measurable and the romantic infinity, lies the Chinese garden which is between architecture and landscape painting.”41
Although Qing connoisseurs regarded landscapes as the most exalted form of traditional Chinese painting, they were by no means the only type of admired brushwork. In addition to calligraphy—which was in a special class along with landscape painting—the Chinese also esteemed paintings of religious and secular figures, buildings and palaces, birds and animals, flowers and plants, and even antique objects such as bronzes and porcelains. According to the Essential Criteria of Antiquities, the artists of late imperial times were especially accomplished in the painting of landscapes, trees, rocks, flowers, bamboos, birds, and fish, but less skilled than their predecessors in the rendering of human figures and large animals. Folk painting in the Qing included murals in temples and other buildings, but it was generally considered to be the work of mere technicians, not true art. Significantly, even in religious temples, secular symbolism (including examples of filial piety, historical scenes, and depictions from works of fiction) often appeared prominently.
On the whole, Qing painting remained delicate and decorous. The gruesome scenes of rape and destruction so prevalent in the West would have horrified most Chinese artists. Figure painters in China shunned the nude; still-life painters found dead objects repulsive; and landscape painters usually ignored the artistic possibilities of deserts, swamps, and other desolate places. It is true, of course, that the Qing court commissioned a great number of battle paintings that commemorated important military victories, but they are not gruesome—at least not the ones that I have seen. Far more gruesome are the painted murals in Chinese temples that depicted in graphic detail the tortures of the Courts of Judgment. Although most Chinese artists avoided explicitly sexual scenes, “beautiful women paintings” were often quite suggestive, and there was also a long and well-developed tradition of erotic art (chunhua or chunkong) in China.42 Finally, we should note that some Qing painters—like the “Yangzhou eccentric” Luo Ping (d. 1799)—went so far as to paint ghosts, skeletons, and even raging forest fires.43 But overall the subject material of Chinese painting was uplifting, if not also expressly didactic.
One important function of painting throughout much of the imperial era had been moral instruction. Zhang Yanyuan, the ninth-century author of the influential Lidai minghua ji (Record of famous painters of successive dynasties), tells us, for example, that paintings should serve as models to the virtuous and warnings to the evil. He cites the Han scholar Cao Zhi, who describes how people seeing pictures of noble rulers “look up in reverence,” while those who see pictures of degenerate rulers “are moved to sadness.” As late as the Ming dynasty, we find examples of normative judgments impinging on standards of realism. The Essential Criteria of Antiquities states, for instance:
Portraits of Buddhists should show benevolence and mercy; those of Daoists, moral cultivation and salvation; those of emperors and kings, the magnificence of imperial symbols such as the sun, the dragon and the phoenix; those of barbarians, their admiration of China and their obedience; those of Confucian worthies, loyalty, sincerity, civilized behavior and righteousness.44
Yet in the main, by late imperial times it was less subject matter than style that inspired and uplifted the viewer of Chinese paintings. During the Qing—and in fact well before—artistic achievement came to be seen as a reflection of the artist’s inner morality. Like writing and musical compositions, paintings were considered to be “prints of the heart/mind [xin]”—not merely a means of Confucian cultivation, but also a measure of it. No critic of any consequence judged a painting solely on what he or she knew about the moral worth of the artist; but a scholar-critic certainly would be inclined to consider the admirable (aesthetic) qualities of a painting as an index of the artist’s own admirable (Confucian) qualities. Thus, as James Cahill has remarked, “The notion of ‘the man revealed in the painting’ was used . . . [by Chinese critics] to account for excellence in art, not to determine it.” Further, Cahill indicates that the creative impulses of naturalness, spontaneity, and intuition usually attributed to Daoism and Chan Buddhism in Chinese art and literature were also part of the late imperial Confucian tradition—central, in fact, to the wenren (literati) aesthetic.45
Confucianism shaped the interpretive contours of traditional Chinese painting in yet another sense. In Song and post-Song times, neo-Confucian metaphysics provided the concept of li (principle), which came to be used in Chinese art criticism as both a standard for realism and as a general metaphor for the creative process. Painting, in the neo-Confucian view, was tantamount to an act of cosmic creation and therefore governed by the natural principles inherent in all things. The task of the painter was to attune himself with the moral mind of the universe, and in so doing, convey the li of his subject material, giving it life and vitality. The gift of the ancient masters, in the view of Wang Hui (1632–1717), was precisely their ability to “harmonize their works with those of nature.”46
The “life” of a Chinese painting was expressed by the term qi. Qi may be translated as “breath,” but like li (principle) it acquired a metaphysical meaning (“material force”) in neo-Confucianism. The constituent matter of all things, qi animated even “inanimate” objects. As a critical term, however, it predated neo-Confucianism by several centuries. Although no one term conveys the wide range and richness of its meanings, perhaps the best single translation of qi in the realm of art is “spirit”—as in Xie He’s famous “First Law” of painting: “spirit resonance creates life movement” (qiyun shengdong). Employed in this fashion, qi suggests the breath of Heaven, which stirs all things to life and sustains the eternal process of cosmic change. This motive power, in the words of Zhang Geng (1685–1760), was something “beyond the feeling of the brush and the effect of the ink.”47
As early as the fifth century CE, Chinese art critics had already begun to equate painting with the symbols of the Yijing as representations of nature, and by late imperial times morality and metaphysics had become inextricably linked. In the words of the Qing critic Wang Yu: “Everybody knows that principles [li] and vitality [qi] are necessary in painting, yet they are much neglected. The important point is that the heart and character of the man should be developed; then he can express high principles and a pure vital breath. . . . Although painting is only one of the fine arts, it contains the Dao.”48
As an expression of the fundamental order of the universe, Chinese paintings clearly had to appear “natural,” and works on connoisseurship suggested numerous guidelines for artistic realism.
A portrait should look as though [the person depicted] were about to speak. The folds of his wearing apparel, the trees and the rocks, should be painted with strokes similar to those in calligraphy. The folds of dresses should be large, but their rhythm subtle, and the strength of their execution gives the impression that they are fluttering and raised [by the wind]. Trees, with their wrinkled bark and their twists and knots, should show their age. Rocks should be three-dimensional and shading lines used in their depiction should produce a rugged yet mellow effect. A landscape with mountains, water, and woods and springs should present an atmosphere of placidity and vastness and should clearly show the season, the time of day, and [prevailing] weather. Rising or subsiding mists and clouds should also be depicted. The source whence a river flows as well as its destination should be clearly defined, and the water in it should appear fluent. Bridges and roads should show the way by which people come and go, as narrow paths wind through wildernesses. Houses should face in different directions in order to avoid monotony, fish swim hither and thither, and dragons ascend or descend. Flowers and fruit should bear dewdrops on all surfaces and should also indicate in which direction the wind blows. Birds and animals, poised to drink water, to pick food, to move, or to remain still, are captured in spirit, as well as form.49
Painting guides such as Wang Gai’s (1645–1770) popular handbook Jiezi yuan huazhuan (Mustard Seed Garden manual) provided elaborate instructions on exactly how to paint such subject material—trees, rocks, people, buildings, flowers, bamboo, grass, insects, animals, and, of course, landscapes (see figures 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3). The starting point, as in calligraphy (and, in fact, all of Chinese life) was self-discipline. “You must learn first to observe the rules faithfully,” wrote the author-compiler of the Mustard Seed Garden Manual; then “afterwards modify them according to your intelligence and capacity. The end of all method is to seem to have no method.” And again, “If you aim to dispense with method, learn method. If you aim at facility, work hard. If you aim for simplicity, master complexity.” One began with the correct mental attitude, learned basic brushstrokes (sixteen, at first), and then progressed to more sophisticated painting techniques.50
An essential part of the artist’s training was the study of the ancient masters. Zhang Geng advised students not to “throw out scattered thoughts in an incoherent fashion or to make strange things in accordance with the impulses of the heart.” Instead, they should “carefully follow the rules of the ancients without losing the smallest detail.” After some time, they will “understand why one must be in accordance with nature,” and after some more time, “why things are as they are.” Local collections of paintings by great masters were of tremendous importance to painters as a source of inspiration. We know, for example, that Wang Hui’s mastery of so many different artistic styles was at least in part a product of his extended trips to art centers, which enabled him to study the masterpieces of well-known collectors. Unfortunately, as we have seen, the insatiable desire of the Qing rulers to enhance the holdings of the imperial collection in Beijing took many of these masterpieces out of the hands of private collectors, denying local artists an important source of education and inspiration.51
In addition to viewing great works of art, aspiring students were encouraged to copy them. There were three main avenues of approach: (1) exact reproduction by tracing (mu); (2) direct copying (lin); and (3) freely interpreting in the manner of the master (fang). The ultimate purpose of this artistic progression was not merely to produce outer form, but to capture inner essence. In the words of Fang Xun (1736–1801):
When copying ancient paintings, the foremost concern must be to grasp the ancient master’s spirit of life. Testing the flavor of the work and exploring it, you will get some understanding. Then you may begin to copy. . . . If it is done merely for the sake of similarity [however], you had better roll up the picture and forget it at once. You may copy the whole day, yet your work will have nothing whatsoever to do with the ancient master.52
The eighteenth-century Qing critic Shen Zongqian wrote in a similar vein:
A student of painting must copy ancient works, just as a man learning to write must study good writing that has come down through the ages. He should put himself in a state of mind to feel as if he were doing the same painting himself. . . . First he should copy one artist, then branch out to copy others, and, what is more important, he should feel as if he were breathing through the work himself and should identify himself with what the artist was trying to say.53
Fang and Shen are discussing here an effort on the part of the painter to achieve “spiritual communication” (shenhui) with the ancient masters. Shenhui necessarily involved self-realization. Shen Zongqian puts the matter this way: “The important thing in copying the ancients is that I have my own temperament. If I should forget myself to copy the ancients, I would be doing a disservice to both the ancients and myself. . . . The painter’s concern is how to make the art of the brush his own. If this is done, then what I express is only myself, a self which is akin to the ancients.” Fang Xun counseled, “When copying the ancients, you may first only worry about a lack of similarity; afterward you ought to worry about too much similarity. For, when lacking similarity, you have failed to get to the bottom of the model’s style; being too similar, you have failed to achieve your own style.”54
Discipline was a prerequisite to artistic freedom. The early nineteenth-century painter-critic Fan Ji asserted: “The beginner should imitate the ancients constantly, . . . [but] he must then empty himself from what he has relied on. Meanwhile, that which has fermented in him must flow out unintentionally—and for the first time he will experience the joyous sensation of freedom.” On this basis, it was possible for a Qing painter like Wang Shimin (1592–1680) to produce an “original” landscape following the Ming master Dong Qichang in imitating Wang Meng’s (Yuan dynasty) interpretation of the Dong Yuan (Five Dynasties-Song) manner. Imitation (fang) in the hands of an individual who had achieved “spiritual communication” with the great masters became “creative metamorphosis” (bian), not simple plagiarism. Fan Ji informs us, “If a lin copy shows the copyist’s own manner, then it has lost the truth; if a fang copy fails to show one’s own manner, it becomes a fake.”55
Apart from preliminary sketches, Chinese painters seldom painted from life. They preferred instead to seek inspiration in other works or to conjure up and convey a mental image that bore no necessary relationship to a single objective reality. Meditation played a role in the creative process, as did external stimuli. Wang Yu advised preliminary concentration and nourishment by
looking at clouds and springs, contemplating birds and flowers, strolling about humming songs, burning incense, or sipping tea. . . . When the inspiration rises, spread the paper and move the brush, but stop as soon as it is exhausted; only when it rises again should you continue and complete the work. If you do it this way, the work will become alive with the moving power of Heaven.56
The Chinese painter was a captive of his or her media, but it was a creative form of bondage. Unlike Western-style oil painting, Chinese black or colored ink applied to a paper or silk surface allowed little room for trial and error; once the artist put the brush down, he or she made an irretrievable commitment—especially when using ink on paper. Thus,
when the brush touches paper, there are only differences in touch, speed, angle and direction. Too light a touch results in weakness while too heavy a touch causes clumsiness. Too much speed results in a slippery effect, too little speed drags; too much slant [of the tip of the brush] results in thinness; too perpendicular an approach in flatness; a curve may result in ragged edges and a straight line may look like one made with a ruler.57
Brushwork was extraordinarily important in Chinese painting, especially in late imperial times. Wen Fong writes, for example, that throughout the Ming and Qing periods, the brushwork of Chinese painting “assumed an increasingly expressive quality, eventually dominating the representational form.”58 This expressive quality, known as xieyi or the “writing of ideas,” was a technique closely linked with calligraphy and quite distinct from the precise form of brushwork designated gongbi (see below). Xieyi required the appearance of spontaneity, but it was deliberate, preconceived, and, in fact, the product of intensive book study and calligraphic discipline. Wang Yuanqi’s (1642–1715) advice to painters, in its essence, would apply to calligraphers as well: “When . . . [one] takes up the brush he must be absolutely quiet, serene, peaceful, and collected, and shut out all vulgar emotions. He must sit down in silence before the white silk scroll, concentrate his soul and control his vital energy. He must look at the high and low, examine right and left, inside and outside the scroll, the road to enter and the road to leave.”59
In other words, the Chinese artist had to have a fairly complete vision of the painting before beginning. Modifications could be made, of course, as the painting developed, but a unified vision was essential. Shen Zongqian wrote:
It would be a great fault to begin a picture without a preconceived plan, and then add and adjust as one goes along, with the result that the different parts do not have an organic unity. One should rather have a general idea of where the masses and connections, the light and the dark areas will be, then proceed so that one part grows out of another and the light and dark areas cooperate to build a picture. Examined closely, each section is interesting in itself; taken together, there is an organic unity.60
This idea of organic unity was expressed in the Chinese term kaihe (opening and closing or expanding and contracting). Kaihe may refer to the overall layout of a painting, to the relationship of individual elements within the painting, or to the composition of the elements themselves. In each part of the painting, including every individual object, the artist had to consider beginning, ending, and beginning again. Shen Zongqian explains:
The combined work of brush and ink depends on force of movement [shi, a longstanding technical term in calligraphy, sometimes translated “kinesthetic movement”]. This force refers to the movement of the brush back and forth on the paper, which carries with it and in it the opening [kai] and closing [he] movements. Where something is starting up, that is the opening movement, but with every opening movement the artist must be thinking how it will be gathered up at the end. . . . The gathering up is called the closing movement, and with each closing movement the artist is already thinking where the next growth is going to arise. Thus there is always the suggestion of further development.61
Yinyang ideas such as kaihe, xushi (void and solid), xiangbei (front and back), and qifu (rising and falling) are essential to an understanding of traditional Chinese painting. Qing handbooks and critical works repeatedly drew on these and other concepts of complementarity and alternation to explain composition and brushstroke. Artists were encouraged to dip downward before coming up; to turn upward before going down; to intersperse sparse with dense and dark with light; to relieve thick ink with thin; to counteract the convex with the concave; and so forth. For example, in describing the method by which to paint tree trunks and branches, the Mustard Seed Garden Manual advises: “Pay attention to the way the branches dispose themselves, the yin and yang of them, which are in front and which are in back, which are on the left and which are on the right; consider also the tensions created by some branches pushing forward while others seem to withdraw.” In landscape we find that “host” mountains required “guest” mountains, exalted trees required humble ones, and luxuriant foliage required at least some dead branches. In its most extreme form, the notion of yinyang complementarity was expressed in a kind of Daoist paradox: “When in your eyes you have mountains, only then can you make trees; when in your mind there is water, only then can you make mountains.”62 The term for landscape itself (shanshui, lit. mountains and water) suggests a basic yinyang relationship.
The point of yinyang juxtaposition in Chinese painting was not merely to create contrast, however. Primarily it was to indicate “life movement,” nature’s rhythm (yun). In their brushwork, Chinese artists attempted to recreate the endlessly alternating rise and fall, expansion and contraction, activity and quiescence of yin and yang, and in so doing come into closer harmony with the rhythmic cycles of life itself. This was especially true in landscape painting. Heaven dominated Earth, voids dominated solids, mountains dominated water, and movement dominated stillness, but all were integrated into a single philosophical statement reflecting the dynamism, grandeur, and limitlessness of nature.
Small wonder, then, that Chinese landscape painters refused to restrict themselves (or the viewers of their works) by the use of Western-style scientific perspective. It was not that they lacked the intellectual sophistication to employ it, but true perspective involved a fixed point of view that was completely inimical to the purposes of the painter of “mountains and water.” An essential element of the dynamism of a Chinese landscape was the movement of both artist and viewer. Thus, “the painter . . . paints and the spectator views the results from many points, never from a single position or at any one moment of time.” In a similar way, and for similar reasons, Chinese poets added new dimensions to the world directly perceived in their poems, and in so doing evoked a mood of infiniteness. Wang Shizhen (1634–1711) in particular was a master of the poetic “ending which doesn’t end.” Significantly, this “endless” quality can also be found in the best Chinese narrative literature (see chapter 9).63
In the critical writing of the Qing period, scholars drew a sharp distinction between the so-called Northern School of professional and court painting (gongbi) and the Southern School of nonprofessional literati painting (xieyi). The former has been characterized as academic, representational, precise, and decorative, painted mainly in polychrome ink and on silk. The latter has been described as spontaneous, free, calligraphic, personal, and subjective, painted mainly in monochrome on paper. In the late Ming period, the great artist and critic Dong Qichang drew these distinctions—which had nothing to do with geography—and they continued to dominate Chinese art criticism for the next three hundred years. Although based on genuine stylistic differences, Dong’s system of classification was arbitrary and inconsistent, not only because it was based on certain “moral” criteria, Dong’s personal preferences, and the assumed superiority of literati painting over that of professionals, but also because in a very real sense all the painting of the Ming and Qing periods was academic. Furthermore, during the Qing period there were many court painters who painted beautifully in the Southern School style, and many “amateur” literati who were well paid for their artistic efforts—some by the throne itself.64
Among the most accomplished painters of the early Qing were the so-called Six Great Masters: the Four Wangs (Wang Shihmin; Wang Hui; Wang Jian [1598–1677]; and Wang Yuanqi), Wu Li (1632–1718), and Yun Shouping (1633–1690). The works of each are “academic in the best sense: skillful, decorous, and knowledgeable about both the subject and the complex history of the wenren tradition.” Although the Kangxi emperor patronized two of these painters—Wang Hui and Wang Yuanqi—the others remained loyal to the memory of the Ming dynasty and refused to serve the throne. In any case, identification with the “orthodoxy” of the Qing imperial court did not stifle creativity. Indeed, Wang Yuanqi was probably the most original of the Six Masters. His brilliant interpretations of past models and styles and his “passion for pure form” put Wang on a plane with the best “Individualist” painters of the Qing period.
The most famous and creative of the early “Individualist” painters were Zhu Da (also known as Bada Shanren, 1626–c. 1705), Kuncan (also known as Shiqi, c. 1610–c. 1670), Shitao (also known as Daoji or Yuanji, 1641–c. 1710), and Gong Xian. Sherman Lee summarizes the distinctiveness of their work:
Kuncan’s hairy and tangled landscapes; Zhu Da’s abbreviated but firm brush-work recalling that of another, earlier eccentric, Xu Wei; Yuanji’s brilliant usage of wash, unusual compositions, and directly observed images, recalling the approach of Zhang Hong; and Gong Xian’s deep and somber ink-play of light and shade; all justify their unusually high place in Chinese art history. The most various of the four was certainly Yuanji and that variety endears him particularly to modern critics and collectors.65
These “free spirits”—like the Six Great Masters and virtually all other Qing painters—acknowledged a debt to tradition. Shitao, for example, in his Huayu lu (Record of talks on painting) admits that for many years he had painted and written, declaring his independence of orthodox methods, only to discover that the way he thought was his own was actually “the dao of the ancients.”66
Although Qing painting lost a certain amount of creative energy in the eighteenth century, the so-called Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou managed to keep the Chinese art world tantalizingly off balance. Different critics have compiled variant lists of the eight, with the result that more than a dozen painters can be considered viable candidates. Among their number we may count such talented individuals as Jin Nong (1687–1764), Hua Yan (1682–c. 1755), Huang Shen (1687–c. 1768), and Luo Ping. Other possible candidates include Zheng Xie (1693–1765) and Li Shan (1686–c. 1756). These “eccentric” artists and their colleagues tended to specialize both in style and subject matter, gravitating away from standard landscapes and inclining instead toward rocks and bamboo, flowers and birds, insects and fish, or human figures (including ghostly forms).
During the nineteenth century, Shanghai emerged as a major center of artistic production. There, rich patrons and wealthy consumers (including the Japanese and merchants from Fujian and Guangdong), together with the relative security offered by foreign administrative and military control over the treaty port after 1842, encouraged an influx of artists from all over China. Among the most distinguished male painters identified with this area and this time are Qian Du (1763–1844), Dai Xi (1801–1860), Gai Qi (1774–1829), Ren Xiong (1820–1857), Zhao Zhiqian (1829–1884), Ren Bonian (1839– 1895), Ren Xun (1835–1893), and Wu Changshi (1842–1927). Most of these individuals were born in Zhejiang, but their artistic center of gravity became Shanghai. Further south, in Guangzhou, local artists such as Xie Lansheng (1760–1831), Su Liupeng (1796–1862), and Su Renshan (1814–1850) continued the region’s rich tradition of painting epitomized by the earlier work of Li Jian (1747–1798) and Liang Shu (c. 1760–1810).67
The Qing period may well have been the heyday of women painters in China. Most of them were the literate wives or concubines of Chinese scholars, and a number made their mark in poetry as well as painting (see chapter 9). Some sold their artwork, while others gave instruction to friends and family or to empresses, princesses, and concubines at court. Among the many distinguished women painters of the Qing period were Fang Weiyi (1585–1668), Liu Yin (1618–1664), Jin Yue (fl. 1665), Cai Han (1647–1686), Chen Shu (1660–1736), Yun Bing (eighteenth century), Yuexiang (eighteenth century), Fang Wanyi (eighteenth century), Qu Bingyun (1767–1810), Ma Quan (c. 1768–1848), Guan Yun (nineteenth century) and Wang Qinyun (nineteenth century).68
For the most part, these talented painters were sustainers of inherited male traditions rather than innovators. They have almost never been characterized by art critics as “individualistic” or “eccentric.” Although the extremely gifted Chen Shu was once described as surpassing the renowned male painter from Suzhou, Chen Chun (1483–1544), in the “vigor and originality” of her brushstrokes, she painted landscapes and other standard subjects in conventional ways, following the lead of “orthodox” painters such as Wang Shimin and Wang Hui. As Marsh Weidner observes, the inventive potential of women painters “was limited by conventions designed to support the rigorously patriarchal social system of premodern China.”69
Flowers were the favorite subject matter for women painters in the Qing, although landscapes, bamboo, and figure paintings (including, of course, the Buddhist deity Guanyin) were also popular. Conventionally, male connoisseurs disparagingly referred to women’s paintings as “weak and soft.” Backhanded compliments took forms such as the following: “[Her] brush strength is not the best, but for a woman it is remarkable.” Statements of this kind, which seem to have deterred Western scholars from taking Chinese women painters seriously until recently, seem to reflect deeply held Chinese stereotypes more than artistic reality. We know, for instance, that women sometimes executed “ghost paintings” for talented male artists, and that a number of highly regarded male painters, including Zhang Geng, received valuable instruction from women.70
Prejudices of another sort plagued the Jesuit painters who served the Qing court. Among these individuals, Guiseppe Castiglione (Lang Shining, 1688–1766), a personal favorite of the Qianlong emperor, proved to be especially adept at combining the techniques of Western realism with traditional Chinese media and subject matter. Castiglione had numerous Chinese pupils, imitators, and admirers, but he and his Western colleagues exerted no lasting influence on Chinese art. The reason was that most Qing painter-critics saw their use of shading and perspective as mere craftsmanship. In the words of one admirer (Zou Yigui, 1686–1772, a talented court painter in his own right): “The student should learn something of their achievements so as to improve his own method. But their technique of strokes [that is, brushwork] is negligible. Even if they attain [representational] perfection it is merely craftsmanship. Thus, foreign painting cannot be called art.”71
Far less were foreigners able to master the intricacies of Chinese calligraphy. As a recognized art form, calligraphy predated painting, but by late imperial times the two were inseparably linked. In the words of a common proverb: “Calligraphy and painting have the same source” (shuhua tong yuan). Lu Shihua states simply: “Calligraphy and painting are skills [jineng], but they embody the great Dao. . . . The ancients achieved immortality [buxiu] through their calligraphy and painting.” These two Chinese arts used the same basic media, utilized many of the same brush strokes and techniques, required the same kind of mental preparation and discipline, and were measured by the same aesthetic standards. Furthermore, both were seen as an index of the artist’s morality. Lu Shihua tells us, “If the heart is right, then the brush will be right” (xinzheng ze bizheng).72
During the Ming and Qing periods, calligraphy often adorned paintings, amplifying in various ways the artist’s general philosophical statement and/or emotional response to the scene, and sometimes piquing the viewer’s curiosity. Poetic inscriptions might also be written by subsequent owners and admirers of the work, who were moved to comment on it and self-confident enough to do so. Some paintings boasted a number of different colophons. Perhaps the Qianlong emperor, whose enthusiasm occasionally outstripped his aesthetic judgment, holds the record for inscriptions of this sort by one individual. He is reported to have written over fifty inscriptions on one hand scroll alone and to have placed thirteen of his seals on a single painting. In the main, however, multiple inscriptions and seals of ownership were added tastefully, and they, in turn, enriched both the emotional, artistic, and historical value of the work.
Of course, calligraphy stood solidly on its own as an independent art form, universally admired as the ultimate measure of cultural refinement. In the words of the Essential Criteria of Antiquities: “No other art is comparable to that of calligraphy. Saints and sages of past centuries paid a great deal of attention to it, for it always has been and will forever be the means whereby civilization and the orders of government are made intelligible, while things, great or trivial, from the Six Classics to matters of daily routine, are conveyed to people.” Calligraphy was ubiquitous in traditional China. It graced private homes, shops, teahouses, restaurants, temples, monasteries, official buildings, and imperial palaces. It was engraved on metal, wood, stone, and even on the face of rocks and mountains in nature. Calligraphers were in demand by all levels of Chinese society, and success in the civil-service examinations could not be achieved without a good hand—regardless of one’s mastery of the Classics and the “eight-legged essay.”73
Chinese critics distinguished six basic styles of calligraphy: (1) big seal script (dazhuan), (2) small seal script (xiaozhuan), (3) clerical script (lishu), (4) regular or standard script (kaishu or zhengshu), (5) running script (xingshu), and (6) cursive script (caoshu). Of these, the last two were the most susceptible to individualized interpretation. The regular script may be likened to gongbi in painting and the cursive script to xieyi, in the sense that the former style demanded precision while the latter style encouraged spontaneity and freedom; but all forms of Chinese calligraphy left a great deal of room for creative potential.
In fact, the eighteenth century witnessed a revival of the zhuan and li styles, modifying a calligraphic tradition that had been in place for over a thousand years. As early as the fourth century CE, the renowned calligrapher Wang Xizhi (307–365) had developed a masterly synthesis of styles, which became the basis for virtually all Chinese brush writing until the mid-Qing period. The standard works in this tradition employed the regular, running, or cursive styles instead of the more ancient and seemingly overprecise seal and clerical styles. But the kaozheng movement of the eighteenth century (see chapter 6), which dovetailed with the Qing dynasty’s ongoing artistic effort to “restore antiquity” (fugu), encouraged a reemphasis on ancient Han and pre-Han inscriptions based on actual bronze and stone relics. This development led in two major directions. One was toward what Benjamin Elman calls a “craze” for seal designing and carving. The other was toward the reproduction of ancient calligraphic forms with modern brushes. Individualist and “eccentric” painters such as Shitao and Jin Nong got into the act, inscribing paintings with seal script and experimenting with the simulation on paper of characters engraved on bronze and stone.74
Figure 8.5. Six Styles of Calligraphy
Each column, reading in the Chinese style from right to left and top to bottom, reads: “There are six forms of calligraphy, called zhuan, li, kai, xing, cao, and song.” This liushu system differs from the one described in the text only in that it fails to distinguish between “big” and “small” seal script (zhuan) and adds the category song, which refers to the Song dynasty style of printed characters. Source: Chinese Repository May 1834–April 1835.
Of the several outstanding calligraphers of the mid-Qing period, three deserve special mention. One was Deng Shiru (c. 1740–1805), a colorful and unconventional scholar who gravitated toward the kind of calligraphy inscribed on Qin, Han, and Three Kingdoms relics. Another was Bao Shichen (1775–1855), who not only excelled in the kai and xing styles, but also experimented boldly with the zhuan and li styles, rejecting “the mechanical precision of earlier seal script styles in favor of an imposing degree of irregularity in his seal and clerical calligraphy.” The third individual, Zhang Qi (1765–1833), is significant not only because he was considered the equal of Deng in the li style and Bao in the kai and xing styles, but also because he raised four daughters who achieved literary fame, including one of the best-known woman calligraphers (Zhang Lunying) of the dynasty.75
Many Chinese scholars have remarked on the link between calligraphy and other forms of Chinese art. Jiang Yi suggests, for example, that the style and spirit of Chinese calligraphy influenced not only painting, but also sculpture, ceramics, and architecture. Similarly, Lin Yutang argues that the “basic ideas of rhythm, form and atmosphere [in calligraphy] give the different lines of Chinese art, like poetry, painting, architecture, porcelain and house decorations, an essential unity of spirit.”76 Lin’s use of poetry as an example of the link between calligraphy and literature is apt enough, but it may be extended; for even vernacular fiction exhibits at least some of the rhythm and “kinesthetic movement” characteristic of Chinese brushwork.