The late, great master artist Chang Dai-chien was not only justly celebrated for his contributions to Chinese art but was, himself, personally, larger than life. His legend was rich even as he lived, and lives on; we defy anyone not to enjoy the following revelations.—Editor
When a friend suggested to Chang Dai-chien, watching him as he exerted himself over a painting, that he should bow to advanced age and frail health, relaxing more and painting less, he indignantly replied: "I am an artist; I've painted my whole life and will keep painting till the day I die."
And true to his word, he didn't lay down his brush till his final visit to Taipei's Veterans General Hospital, where he passed away peacefully at the age of 84. It was April 2, 1983, and, before he died, he had long heard himself called, by many, the greatest painter of China's last 500 years.
His prodigious natural talent was matched only by his willingness to work hard and discipline himself. But no matter how great the critical acclaim coming his way, Chang Dai-chien was not one to put on airs. Stories of his humor and his unequalled kindness and generosity towards close friends or even mere acquaintances are legion. If anyone of recent times is deserving of the appellation "artist" in its greatest sense, it is Chang Dai-chien, for his artistry extended far beyond brush and paper. His person, lifestyle, philosophy, very existence, were all expressions of that complete artistic spirit, which regardless of the age of the body it inhabits, is eternally young and vibrant.
Dai-chien's spirit still lives on in his painting and poetry, and in such creations as his Eight Virtues Garden in Brazil and Mo Yieh Ching Shih, his fabulous Chinese flavored garden residence in suburban Taipei, now a public museum. Yet perhaps most of all, it lives on in the memory of the nation that knew and loved him.
Looking back, there were many factors involved in making Dai-chien a great painter. One of them was that from a very young age, he was no stranger to the ways of brush and ink. He was born into a wealthy Szechuan family in 1899. Both his mother and older sister were painters of some merit, and from the age of eight years old, he was indoctrinated by them into the various techniques of Chinese painting. His natural talent quickly became apparent to all. In fact, by the ripe age of eleven, he had already made his first money painting. At that time, he was living at his uncle's house and recovering from a severe bout with cholera, which had left him mute for two months.
One day as the boy was sitting on the front porch steps, amusing himself by painting, still recovering and unable to attend school, a wandering fortune teller came along. She was going from house to house, carrying with her a set of 24 rolled paintings, not unlike the tarot cards used by her Western counterparts. For a fee, a client would pick one of her paintings, and using its theme, she would tell his fortune. She wandered up to the house, where she saw Dai-chien painting.
Impressed by his skill, and laying aside her original intent, she told Dai-chien that her fortune-paintings were old and falling apart and asked if he was willing to accept 80 coppers to paint new ones. The young artist, delighted, within four hours turned out a new set. Praising the work highly, the old fortune teller paid him and went happily on her way. Dai-chien, when he recalled the incident, always laughed: "Not only didn't she make any money at our house, she ended up paying me."
Someone once joked that if she really had the ability to see if it was "in the cards" that Dai-chien would be famous, she would have held onto the 24 small paintings, which today would probably be worth much more than their weight in gold.
Dai-chien's youthful talent and direction emerged most clearly as a painter, and upon graduation from high school, he asked to be sent to Shanghai to study painting. His parents, however, would not give their consent and, instead, wanted to send him off to Japan to study fabric dyeing and weaving. As was the way in a traditional Chinese family, Dai-chien dared not disobey his parents and ended up going for two years, which, he recalled, "had no relationship to or influence on my painting whatsoever. At the time I wanted to be painting paper, not staining fabric."
Returning to Shanghai after completing his studies in Japan, Dai-chien pursued his artistic studies under two scholars who were very famous during the later years of the Ching Dynasty—Li Jui-ching and Tseng Hsi. Although many people still mistakenly think that he studied painting with them, in actuality the instruction he received was in Chinese calligraphy. Nonetheless, during the period of their tutelage, both his painting and calligraphy made rapid progress.
Chang Dai-chien's development and career as a painter can be broken into three periods, the first, to the time he turned 40—a stage literally translated from its Chinese designation as "using the ancient as one's teacher." Essentially, he copied the works of ancient masters over and over, until fluent in both the brush style and technique of a particular master, he could execute a copy of his work with some degree of semblance. Such copy work has been the primary-stage basis for training in traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy for the last 1500 years. Only after a solid foundation has been established in this manner can the traditional student go on to creative and original work. It was precisely such tedious copy work that was Dai-chien's lot under the instruction of the two famous teachers. But of greater note, though the imitations produced as a result of copy practice are usually known neither for their quality nor the degree of semblance, in Dai-chien's case, especially in the case of his imitations of the works of the painter Shih Tao, some of his copies not only amazed those who knew he had produced them, but also fooled many art collectors of high reputation, who later included his "forgeries" in their collections.
The works of Shih Tao, a famous painter active at the very beginning of the Ching Dynasty, were especially sought by collectors from the late Ching into the early years of the Republic, often at very dear prices. Dai-chien had taken a particular liking to Shih Tao's brush style and technique, and spent quite a bit of time copying his paintings. And although the copies were never originally meant to involve more than practice, they eventually ended up bringing his name to the lips of many an art appraiser—and so infuriated a number of prominent collectors that at one point he was forced to flee Peking.
One time, while still in Shanghai, Dai-chien heard that Huang Pin-hung, a famous artist and recognized expert on Shih Tao's works, had recently acquired a top-quality Shih Tao painting. On viewing it, Dai-chien found it to be every bit as good as he had heard, and asked Huang if he might borrow it to copy. Huang, quite reasonably by Dai-chien's admission, refused. And Dai-chien went home intending to continue imitating Shih's style, even without Huang's painting. He worked for several days to finish a handscroll, to which he even added some imitation Shih Tao calligraphy, and then presented it to his teacher, Tseng Hsi, for criticism and correction.
Huang Pin-hung, who was a close friend of Dai-chien's, teacher, stopped over one day to see him and, quite coincidentally, saw Dai-chien's imitation spread out on a table. Taking it for a genuine Shih Tao, Huang, immediately infatuated, determined to add it to his collection by hook or crook, and feigning disinterest, asked the identity of the artist. Tseng Hsi, perhaps never considering that so well-known an expert on Shih Tao's paintings might be fooled, replied that it belonged to one of his students, but did not explicitly say it had actually been painted by him. Huang, trying to be as casual as possible, mentioned his interest in buying it, at which point Tseng Hsi said he would tell his student to talk with him directly about it.
A few days later, Dai-chien went marching over to Huang's house with the painting. After tea and some small talk, Huang brought up the subject, and Chang Dai-chien, secretly feeling rather proud, took advantage of the opportunity to ask him to comment critically on the handscroll. "This is most definitely one of Shih Tao's masterpieces, and can only be truly appreciated by an expert," Huang replied, after which he asked how much Dai-chien wanted for it. Dai-chien, saying that he couldn't really bear to part with it for any price, however suggested—half jokingly according to his account—that since Mr. Huang was a good friend of his teacher's, if he really liked it that much, he would trade it for the painting the collector had refused to lend him previously. Much to Dai-chien's amazement, and no doubt illicit delight, Huang Pin-hung pulled out the painting which Chang Dai-chien not so long before had admired and wanted to borrow, and traded with him right on the spot.
Huang's happiness with the deal he had wangled was most definitely short-lived, for in no time word spread throughout Shanghai about what had happened, leaving Huang with egg on his beard. Lo Chen-yu, the other major local Shih Tao expert, was now put on his utmost guard, which did him no good, for he too was eventually taken in a big way by one of Dai-chien's imitations of Shih Tao. But the incidents also firmly established Dai-chien's name in Shanghai art circles as a Shih Tao expert and a master imitator of his paintings.
In another amusing instance, Chen Pan-ting, the top art collector and appraiser in Peking, highly respected throughout art circles there, acquired a topnotch Shih Tao painting. As was often the custom, in order to show off his new acquisition, he decided to hold a big party, inviting all of the local art elite to his home to join in the "appreciation" of that particular painting. Dai-chien, at the time an unimportant newcomer, was not invited. However, when word of the gathering reached his ears, he wondered if the painting Chen Pan-ting was celebrating might be the same one he was thinking of. To check out his hunch, on the appointed day he showed up at Chen's home at three in the afternoon and asked if he might have a glance at the painting. Chen refused to let him in to see the painting then, but consented to let him view it at six o'clock with everyone else. Realizing this to be reasonable, Dai-chien sat down in Chen's living room and waited for three hours for the party to begin.
At six o'clock, as Peking's famous painters and art experts filed in, Dai-chien squeezed in the back and stood to one side listening as Chen spewed out the customary platitudes which preceded such events. When Chen then reached for the painting, which was in the form of an accordion-fold, and before he could even open it, Dai-chien yelled, "Oh, that one. Don't bother showing it, I already know." Chen, needless to say rather irritated, asked Dai-chien just what it was he knew. Dai-chien described the painting fold by fold down to the last detail, including the calligraphy and the chops (name seals) used, down to their positions on the paper. As he spoke, all those gathered around Chen looked on and compared the painting with his description, which matched to the last brushstroke. Many thought that perhaps the painting had previously been in Dai-chien's possession, for none of the famous artists gathered there that day initially suspected or would have been willing to believe that such a young unknown could imitate Shih Tao's work with such mastery. But when the question was inevitably put to him as to how he could be so clear about that particular painting, he announced: "Because I painted it!"
In one fell swoop, Dai-chien not only incurred the wrath of Chen Pan-ting, who was also rather well connected in Peking political circles, but also offended many famous Peking painters, who would not believe that this expert painting could be an imitation. Realizing that his situation in Peking was not now an enviable one, Dai-chien returned to Shanghai while the going was still good. How Dai-chien's imitation actually ended up in Chen Pan-ting's collection may never be known. However, it was clearly a major triumph for Dai-chien at the time, one more factor figuring in his rise to prominence.
Dai-chien's mother and sister guided him in art at an early age, but in terms of family influence, his older brother, Chang Shan-tzu, was most instrumental in his development as a painter. At a time when the name Chang Dai-chien was hardly known in art circles, his brother was already famous throughout China for his paintings of tigers, and in fact, an opportunity that came along through his brother figured very prominently in earning Dai-chien his own widespread recognition as a painter.
Although Chang Shan-tzu excelled in all areas of Chinese painting, no one in China at the time could match his excellence in depictions of tigers. He observed tigers—their movements and expressions—first-hand, caring enough about them to raise and train them in the yard of his residence. Stories about Chang Shan-tzu and his tigers spread throughout China, helping to increase the value and demand for his paintings. He started raising tigers back home in Szechuan Province, but eventually moved to Soochow, where a friend of the family owned the fabulously beautiful and historically famous garden residence Wang Shih Yuan. The friend intended to, eventually, spend his retirement years here, but loaned the residence to Chang Shan-tzu and his younger brother temporarily for their Soochow home. And there the two brothers lived, painted, and raised tigers together for almost five years.
One day, a guest at Wang Shih Yuan expressed concern that a tiger they were raising, which was almost fully grown, might one day injure or kill someone. The brothers went along with their guest's suggestion that the tiger be controlled by converting it to Buddhism. During the conversion ritual, which lasted for over two hours, the tiger lay quietly at the feet of a Buddhist priest, who chanted scriptures. At the conclusion of the ceremony, he gave the tiger a Buddhist name to indicate its conversion. The unfortunate tiger never did harm anyone, but rather ended up starving to death when the brothers were forced to flee Soochow before invading Japanese troops.
At Soochow, the two brothers spent much of their time brush in hand, bent over the traditional painting table. Often, they would take long walks together through the vast garden, discussing the subtleties of Chinese painting and philosophy. It was during this period at Soochow that one particular incident put Chang Dai-chien firmly in the limelight, where he has remained even after death.
Literary gatherings were historically a popular pastime for China's scholar class, and the literati of Shanghai at the beginning of the Republic were no exception. Shanghai painters and calligraphers would gather to discuss art, but also to partake in such activities as wine tasting, dining on crabs—a dish popularized by the famous Tang Dynasty poet Li Po—and just for general merriment. Painting and calligraphy done on the spot were the order of such days, often with several artists working together to produce a painting, and someone else adding a final calligraphic inscription. Poetry recitations punctuated the eating, drinking, and painting.
Among all of Shanghai's yearly literary gatherings, the Chiu Ying gathering, organized by the well known Chao Pan-pi, was the most prestigious. Tiger-painter Chang Shan-tzu was a frequent participant in such invitation-only affairs, which the then relatively unknown Chang Dai-chien had yet to attend. Word eventually reached Chao Pan-pi that Chang Shan-tzu had a younger brother who could paint, and Chao invited him to bring Dai-chien to his next Chiu Ying gathering, where the younger Chang ended up stealing the show.
Although there were many painters, calligraphers, and poets in attendance, those competent in all three disciplines were few and far between. Yet not only did Dai-chien show an artful hand at painting and calligraphy, but he composed instant poetry upon request. The elder, well-established artists in attendance that day realized that Dai-chien was an artist to reckon with. And for those that did not, the local papers the next day ran such headlines as Chang Dai-chien Stuns Art World! Although Dai-chien personally shunned the view that his career became an "overnight success" as a result of the sensation at the Chiu Ying gathering, his performance there was most definitely another major turning point for him.
The very next year, Dai-chien staged his first painting exhibition, a decision necessitated in part by financial considerations. His family had managed a very big and prosperous shipping company, and from infancy, Dai-chien never had to worry about finances. However, that year his family's business went under, and for the first time in his life he was without a financial crutch to lean on. Realizing that from there on in he would have to rely on his own resources, in just one month's time he turned out 100 small paintings of every type and description—landscapes, animals, flowers and birds. He felt that since he had worked equally hard on each and everyone, they should all be equally priced at 20 silver dollars (actually, the equivalent in a Chinese currency unit in use at the time), since they were of equal quality; he chose a highly unusual method of allocating the paintings to customers: Although all of the paintings were put on exhibit, a potential purchaser could not choose a favorite but had to participate in a chance-draw system—the 100 numbered paintings were chosen by lot via a hundred corresponding bamboo slips.
Whether this type of exhibition was actually preferred by the patrons over the conventional format is hard to say. However, it is fact that in no time at all, the hundred paintings were snatched up. And most important, Chang Dai-chien, in his first exhibition, had most definitely proved to himself that he could make it on his own as a painter. From the 80 coppers he had received 14 years previously for 24 small paintings, to the 20 silver dollars per painting at this exhibit, to the US$140,000 one of his watercolors of a lotus flower fetched in New York several years ago (at the time, the record high for a Chinese painting), the money he took in paralleled his increasing reputation among an appreciative public.
Chang Dai-chien was only 26 years old at the time his first exhibit met with such great success. His natural talent, as well as some expedient opportunities—call it luck if you prefer—were, however, only one part of his success story. The rest was written via his tremendous dedication and willingness to work hard. Dai-chien turned around the Chinese saying, "seventy percent natural talent, thirty percent human endeavour," to more nearly accord with the familiar Einstein saying, "ten percent inspiration, ninety percent perspiration," and made himself a shining example.
Once at Taipei's National History Museum several years ago, when Dai-chien was lecturing to a group of art students, someone asked him to comment on the importance of natural talent. Taking himself as an example, he declared: "I myself am not naturally talented, and I don't much believe in natural talent. We should proceed according to the principle 'seventy percent human endeavour, thirty percent natural talent'. If a person doesn't know how to work hard and wants to rely solely on natural talent, of what use will it be?"
Although he was being rather polite in declaring himself untalented, he was genuine in his statement of belief that hard work and dedication transcend natural talent. Chin-san Long, a world renowned Chinese photographer, now 95 years old, was a longtime friend and traveling companion of the artist. He had been a close friend of Dai-chien's brother Shan-tzu and was a frequent guest at the Soochow residence before the art world had heard the name Chang Dai-chien. Sharing Dai-chien's love for travel since those early days at Shanghai, Long traversed the globe many times over in Dai-chien's company. Recently at his Taipei home, Long commented: "There is no question of Chang Dai-chien's tremendous natural talent. The brush and ink techniques which characterize his paintings were innate. No one else can reproduce them, and even if they could, we would still recognize in it Chang Dai-chien's style. What set him apart especially from so many other talented painters, however, was his dedication and hard work. He really knew how to put his nose to the grindstone. Take, for example, what he did at Tunhuang. No one else could have done what he did."
As an indication of Dai-chien's dedication and willingness to work regardless of hardships, his performance at the Tunhuang Caves, in China's Kangsu Province, clearly stands out. He crossed the Gobi Desert to one of China's least inhabited and inaccessible regions to reach the caves, and then, on his second trip, spent almost three years, from 1941 to 1943, copying their Buddhist wall murals and paintings. Although the burdens of the task can be verbally enumerated, the actuality can only be imagined.
Working in primitive conditions in the company of a few dedicated students and family members, he often had to paint by candlelight. With paintbrush in one hand and a candle in the other, and temperatures outside near freezing, the party's hands would turn purple with cold; however, they would grit their teeth and continue.
Living under the constant threat of forays by raiding tribes—still active in that virtually unpopulated area—they had to hire troops to protect them. But despite the presence of the troops, there were still some close calls. Once, too, on the desert, having run out of water, they were forced to kill one of their horses and drink its blood.
To finance the effort, Dai-chien personally went into debt to the tune of five hundred (small) bars of gold. Given the magnitude of the achievement and the fortitude required to accomplish it, photographer Chin-san Long was certainly not far off in saying that "no one else" could have done it.
Why exactly did Dai-chien spend three years copying the Tunhuang cave murals? Actually, the first time he crossed the Gobi desert to Tunhuang, he brought only three months worth of provisions with him, not intending to stay longer. Arriving at Tunhuang, he could not wait to see the paintings and entered the first cave by candlelight at two o'clock in the morning. He was dumbstruck by what he saw before him. The walls were covered with Buddhist murals of every description—Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Lohans—dating from the Six Dynasties period in the Fourth Century A.D., to the Yuan Dynasty in the 14th Century. There, on the walls in front of his eyes, was a massive history of Chinese painting. After closer inspection, he found that the paintings had been commissioned by kings and emperors of various dynasties and executed by master artists from each given time period.
When Dai-chien returned to China proper, he immediately began preparations for an extended stay at Tunhuang, returning several months later with 78 donkey carts of provisions and painting equipment in tow. He was now prepared to undertake what was to be a two-year, seven-month period of painstaking copy work. He and his entourage would enter the caves at dawn and work through till dusk. Often they would work prostrated on the ground in order to accurately copy mural areas near to the junctions of walls and floors.
In addition to difficulties inherent in the undertaking, such as poor lighting, cramped work space often necessitated the use of makeshift easels, instead of the traditional work tables; the limited size of available painting silks mandated sewing and other special preparation; and the air in the caves was often oxygen-sparse, filled with smoke from the burning candles.
A relentless perfectionist, Dai-chien insisted that in the copying process, not one line was to be added or deleted. He wanted each copy to be one hundred percent faithful to the original, and if he detected any difference whatsoever, he would have the incorrect portion redone. In such a manner, Dai-chien and his retinue suffered the freezing winters and scorching summers of the Gobi Desert. They completed 220 paintings in all, some as much as 30 feet high and over 100 feet long. All of the paintings in the Tunhuang Caves could not be reproduced, since Dai-chien's provisions and the strength and stamina of his party finally neared exhaustion. However, he did copy those he had identified as most important.
The influence of the Tunhuang Caves on Dai-chien was immense. He felt that while he was copying the wall murals one by one, he was also just beginning to really understand the essence of Chinese portrait painting. This is by no means surprising: Though portrait painting in China reached its zenith in the two dynasties preceeding the Sui, from the Fourth to Seventh Centuries A.D., only a few rare works survived that period—with the exception of those on the walls of the Tunhuang Caves.
Dai-chien had an opportunity afforded to few, if any, other artists over 1400 years of Chinese history: to directly study and copy these historic Chinese portrait masterpieces. Tunhuang was a watershed stage of Dai-chien's development period and, certainly, the greatest copying exercise of his life. He obtained enormous benefits from it, maturing as a painter, and the resulting contribution to the study of Chinese painting and history far surpassed his personal gain.
But he did significantly advance his career. The following year, an exhibit in Szechuan of some of his Tunhuang copies caused Dai-chien to be hailed as a premier figure of Chinese arts and culture. And rightly so. The historical importance of Tunhuang in these respects cannot be overemphasized. For example, the dress, customs, lifestyles, and religious impulses of the Chinese people during vast periods of Chinese history were depicted in the Tunhuang murals and made available to scholars and artists via Chang Dai-chien's reproductions. Many historical blanks were filled and errors corrected. His earlier successes had made him a name in his own time. What he accomplished at Tunhuang put his name into the history books.
Tunhuang became for Dai-chien both a beginning and an end, marking the termination of his first period of development as a painter and his entry into a second period, known in the Chinese by a designation literally translated as "using nature as one's teacher." Dai-chien had always had a lust for travel; however it wasn't until after Tunhuang, when he had just passed 40, that he completely indulged himself in that desire, visiting scenic spots the world over to seek inspiration for his paintings—to India and around Asia, to Europe, North and South America, and back.
The Chinese traditionally hold that "to travel 10,000 miles will benefit one like having read 10,000 books—the ideal balance of educational experiences. Including his trip to Tunhuang, Dai-chien had probably already logged enough miles within China—which has more than its share of beautiful scenes—to qualify. Actually, it was the fall of the mainland in 1949 to the Communists which caused Dai-chien first to flee to Hongkong, then to travel to all corners of the globe, a voluntary refugee as well as artistic voyager.
Although less dramatic than his earlier adventures, this new period was no less important in his artistic development. He first went to India, where he spent several months researching Buddhist cave paintings. His conclusion, contrary to the previous assumptions of many scholars and artists, was that they did not hold the artistic origins of the Tunhuang Buddhist paintings.
After India, Dai-chien went on to Argentina, where he staged a well-received exhibition of his works and ended up spending a year. Mundane visa problems were behind his subsequent departure for Brazil, a longer-term stopping-off point for Dai-chien and the locale for one of his famed garden residences. He built Eight Virtues Garden in the one-time Portuguese colony, exercising his skills in other fields than painting—especially landscaping and spending money.
Some contend that Dai-chien was a chronically poor handler of money, completely alien to austerity in the management of his finances. They are right. They are, nevertheless, countered by others who suggest that this was all in the spirit of the true artist, who places no importance on money other than as a vehicle with which to pursue art and life. In any case, money flowed through his hands, especially toward those pastimes he liked the best—eating, landscaping, and collecting paintings. Even when there wasn't a dime left in his coffers, he would continue spending in his customary manner.
When it came to putting together his garden residence in Brazil, he spared no expense to bring in exotic and valuable trees and plants and unusual boulders from all parts of the world. To make use of a loophole at that time in Brazil custom law which restricted introduction of botanicals from overseas, he imported the plants on the pretext that they were necessary for the purpose of carrying on his painting—and perhaps, in a moral sense, they were.
The buildings were in traditional Chinese style, and a huge man-made lake dominated the center of the property. Chin-san Long took several hundred photographs of the Eight Virtues Garden residence during the numerous occasions he stayed there as Dai-chien's guest. He recalls the landscaping "as if taken from one of Dai-chien's paintings."
"Everything had its proper, yet never unnatural place, and the whole thing worked together very harmoniously. In fact, the way he put the whole thing together was the same way he created a painting. A boulder here, a tree there, and little by little the whole thing took shape. Eight Virtues Garden, like everything else Chang Dai-chien did, was completely a reflection of the artistic genius within him."
Despite the fabulous shrubbery, plants, pavilions and what not which abounded at Eight Virtues Garden, perhaps the most interesting and intriguing of his creations there was a small pond he called Ling Chih (Spirit Pond). When it rained, the pond would fill, and when a dry spell came, one would see the bottom of the pond.
However, most coincidentally, the pond's water supply, according to Chang Dai-chien, was also a foolproof indicator of the family's money supply. And not only did he really believe that, but so did his whole family. One time when he had gone off on a trip to Hongkong, he received a letter from his wife back in Brazil saying that the family was out of money. This came as no surprise, since there was less than US$100 when he left. But he was pleased to note his wife's following comment that money must be on the way, for the pond was now full again. Actually, he told friends, just before receiving that letter he had transferred US$6,000 back to Brazil, which his wife would receive any day.
Helping to keep Dai-chien's bankbook in the red was his hobby of collecting antique paintings—as with most everything else, price was no object. As soon as he caught wind that someone had an old painting he might be interested in, he was off and running. One time after returning from Tunhuang, he held another exhibition in Shanghai using the same 100-painting, lottery-distribution format as previously. He was already one of China's most famous contemporary painters, and all 100 paintings were spoken for the first day they went on exhibit, bringing in five hundred ounces of gold. The very next day, he went out and spent it all on a painting by Tung Pei Yuan and once more found himself penniless.
Another time, Dai-chien heard that Pu Yi (1906-1967), the last emperor of the Ching Dynasty—who was living in Tientsin after the overthrow of the Japanese-backed Manchurian puppet government—had gotten his hands on some of China's National Palace Museum paintings and calligraphy, which were being shipped out of the way of the Japanese invasion. Living under rather adverse conditions, the hapless ex-emperor was selling them to make ends meet not daring however to sell them to Chinese, but only to Japanese...and then only by introduction.
Knowing of this situation, Dai-chien went to see Li Chih-sheng, one of the people taking care of the introductions, and asked if there was any way he could get to see the paintings. Li Chih-sheng, who had known Dai-chien previously, advised him to dress in the Japanese fashion and also warned him to keep silent lest he let the cat out of the bag. When they were ushered in to Pu Yi, the fallen Emperor took out three handscrolls to show them. Looking at the first two, Chang Dai-chien said nothing. Then Pu Yi, unrolling the third handscroll, which was Kuan Chung-chi's work, commented that the colophon written by Yao Kuang-hsiao was really a rare find. And Dai-chien, unable to contain himself further, blurted out, "There's nothing that unusual about Yao Kuang-hsiao's colophon. It's Shu Nan-tang's inscriptions that are really something!"
With a shocked look on his face, Pu Yi turned to Li Chih-sheng: "This Japanese gentleman certainly speaks fluent Chinese!"
Although the spirit pond in his Brazil garden residence must have frequently emptied, Chang Dai-chien continued to collect paintings. In 1955 in Tokyo, high quality reproductions he had published of his collection, in a four volume set quickly sold out. After his death, his whole collection, according to the instructions in his will, was turned over to the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
The year 1956 not only witnessed Chang Dai-chien's first travels through Europe from Paris through to Rome, but an onlooker's dream: a meeting of the artistic giants of East and West—Chang Dai-chien and Pablo Picasso. Dai-chien took the initiative in setting up the meeting and was invited to Picasso's villa. The first thing after his arrival, the famed Spaniard requested that Dai-chien look over and comment on five portfolios of Chinese paintings. Dai-chien responded with critiques on each one. He later presented a set of Chinese paint brushes to Picasso for the latter's experimentation commenting that they were more suitable for Chinese painting styles than the brush designs used for Western oils and watercolors. Picasso presented to Dai-chien and his wife a painting that, even years later, caused Dai-chien to chuckle when he thought back on it.
After lunch, Picasso took out portfolios of his own paintings so Dai-chien and his wife could look them over. As they were going through them, they came across one which caught his wife's eye; it seemed to her especially strange and rather ugly. She asked what it was. Picasso replied that it was a Spanish shepherd-spirit and asked if she thought it well painted. To be polite, she said she thought it was fantastic. Picasso presented it to her. For years Dai-chien's wife regretted having made a fuss over that painting, saying that if she had known that Picasso was going to give them a painting, she would have fussed over one that pleased her.
In the almost 50 years since he first picked up a brush, at almost 60, Chang Dai-chien had reached the very summit of the contemporary painting world. He had won recognition in prestigious art circles on every continent, and had even obliged Pablo Picasso's personal request for instruction. It was the time to enter the third and final period of his development as a painter, in the Chinese, "using one's heart as a teacher."
Dai-chien once stated:
In some ways, painters consider themselves similar to God—they have the special privilege and ability to create anything. If you want it to rain, then it rains. If you want the sun to shine, then the sun shines. The power of creation is in your hand and not the least bit at the mercy of external circumstances. If a mountain peak is missing here, then a mountain peak is added. If there should be a pile of stones there, then they are painted-in. If you have a fairyland in your heart, then it can be put down on the canvas. This is what modern science might call "altering nature," and what the ancients considered "using the brush to compensate for nature's inadequacies."
Always, an artist, in his painting, can create a whole new world. How exactly it should be painted is completely up to the artist. Sometimes he aims for realism; at other times realism is not to be given too much consideration. This type of picking and choosing is completely according to one's own ideas and wishes. What exactly does this mean? Explained simply, when painting something, the artist should not aim to paint it too realistically and, also, should not purposely deviate very far from realism. However, if one paints too realistically, then why not just photograph it? And if the choice is to paint so far from realism that the image no longer bears semblance to the original form, then why bother painting the original? Therefore, one must achieve, somewhere between realistic and unrealistic, a portrayal which surpasses the original form in beauty. This is art.
Perhaps it is this conviction which most characterized Dai-chien's third period of development. Vibrant splashes of blue and green tend to highlight, if maybe overstress just a little, the natural colors. None of the lines are delineated too clearly, yet nothing is hazy or sufficiently out of proportion to be unrecognizable. Hovering just at the appropriate point between real and unreal, Chang Dai-chien has indeed created on paper a world which closely portrays the original, but exceeds it in beauty as well as depth. The works in his inksplash style, which few other major artists have dared to attempt, are among his most powerful and mature.
Some have suggested that he really shifted to this style as a result of the impairment of one eye as a result of the ravages of diabetes. Whether that be the case or not is most irrelevant, since the resulting artwork stands in testimony to itself. Using the traditional brush techniques of Chinese painting, Chang Dai-chien created a whole new style which can be said to be unique within the last 1,500 years of Chinese painting. His larger works in this style, such as his panoramas of Mt. Lu and the Great Wall, will certainly be catalogued at some future date with the masterpieces of Chinese painting created during those 1,500 years.
Having achieved worldwide status as a painter, and knowing that his work had brought staggering sums of money, Dai-chien, one would expect, would have been most careful about giving away any of his paintings, if only to maintain their scarcity and value on the market. But he was contrary, willing to give paintings to any of his friends who asked him for such.
According to Dai-chien, paintings originally were not something people sold, but were done for the "art of it." Due to his family's financial misfortunes and changing times, however, he said he went with the fashion and sold his paintings. Yet, he said, he never considered his paintings to be obtainable only by purchase, and in fact felt that if friends wanted to have one of his paintings, that showed that they respected and looked up to him as an artist.
Sometimes, as an expression of appreciation, he would just voluntarily present a painting. Onetime, when he was being discharged from a hospital, he gave a painting to each of the doctors and nurses who had attended him. When someone suggested to him that it was hardly necessary to give each of them a painting, he replied rather curtly, "Yes it is. Those people saved my life!"
Chang Dai-chien's generosity extended beyond his paintings, and in more than one instance he helped others out in financial difficulties, regardless of his own financial straits. Such people were not necessarily even close friends or relatives, but included casual acquaintances...and people he had never met.
On one occasion, a watercolor artist became ill and, on entering the hospital, learned that his days were numbered. Although he had never met Chang Dai-chien, they were both natives of Szechuan Province, and he had admired Dai-chien very much, even when the ill artist was still a student in high school. He had previously never dared to ask Dai-chien for a painting, but facing the end of his life, had a mutual friend now pass on his request. Dai-chien immediately responded by executing a lotus flower painting, had it framed, and sent it over to the man's hospital room. In addition, he penned a get-well note to the artist, enclosing NT$200,000 (US$5,000) to help cover his medical expenses. Although everyone believed that the ill artist, who had always lived frugually, had ample savings, this didn't stop Dai-chien from doing what his heart dictated.
In 1976, after close to thirty years of drifting around the world, often with his family in tow, Dai-chien decided that it was time to go back home and settle down. He flew to Taiwan and purchased a plot of land in the hilly suburbs of Taipei, where he built another one of his grand garden residences, Mo Yieh Ching Shih. Just as he planned every detail down to the last pebble at his former residence in Brazil, so he did with Mo Yieh Ching Shih (see Free China Review, December 1983), a perfect environment for him, complete with those aspects of nature and greenery he specially loved. Here, the friends he treasured so much joined him over dinners and teas, whiling away the time in conversation. Here, he painted to his heart's content. And here, most importantly to him, he was back home in his own land.
Although these were the twilight years for Chang Dai-chien, a time when he battled failing health, he refused to let that weaken his spirit. Professor James Yueh, Dai-chien's close friend and daily companion during his later years, says of him: "Chang Dai-chien's spirit was indomitable. He refused to bow down to age. When one reporter suggested that the Mt. Lu Panorama was more than Chang Dai-chien could handle in his advanced age, Chang Dai-chien's reply was that not only would he finish the Mt. Lu painting, but next he would do an even more impressive painting of the Yellow Mountains in Anhwei. The reason for this determination was that Chang Dai-chien had actually never visited Mt. Lu, and so painted it as he imagined it to be. But he had not only toured the Yellow Mountains, they were one of his favorite areas in all China, and his portrayal of them would be just as they long ago stood, before his eyes."
Certainly, his painting of Mt. Lu, which he promised as a present to a friend in Japan, was an incredible undertaking for a man his age. The large size of the painting—1.8 meters high and 10 meters long—necessitated special structural changes in his painting room and forced him to spend prolonged amounts of time in stiff postures in order to reach the top of the painting silk—excruciating for a man half his age. He never complained, but continued to work on for almost two years, attempting to finish it by the day appointed for its exhibition at Taipei's National History Museum—January 15, 1983. It was another show of his tremendous dedication and capacity for hard work, reminiscent of the old days at Tunhuang. And he did finish it, except for a few final touches (and his signature) in time for the exhibit, which he attended. Despite his having never been to Mt. Lu, it is a breathtaking and impressive rendering.
As for the Yellow Mountains, we'll never know what was in Dai-chien's heart's eye: He passed away peacefully just months later on April 2, 1983. And as the whole country went into mourning for the great artist, it seemed very difficult, as many people tried to do, to arrive at some finite appraisal, to draw some exacting conclusion as to just what Chang Dai-chien's place was in the history of art and how he had influenced the art world, both here and abroad.
Dai-chien lived through a time when Chinese painting was at a crossroads between the revival of China's ancient styles and acceptance of Westernization. He chose to follow the traditional road and carryon with thousands of years of Chinese culture rather than to be a leader along some new and unexplored pathway. However, within China's traditional framework, he produced paintings which were not only new and fresh, but understood and appreciated in his own country, where the traditions had originated, and throughout the world. Certainly, his contribution in the way of the Tunhuang Cave paintings must figure in prominently.
A great many who know of this artist would agree fully with the sentiments expressed by Professor Yueh: "With the passing of Chang Dai-chien, not only did the world lose one of its greatest artists in recent history, but also one of its greatest human beings."
(Jeffrey Mindich currently teaches Chinese history at the Taipei Dominican School. In addition, he writes and lectures about Chinese culture and customs.)