Taiwan Today

The choice of a Chinese painting for collection or display is of course a matter of taste. But it is much more than just saying "I like it." After all, no one wants to be cheated by a dishonest dealer, of whom there are many. No one wants to pay more than what the article is worth. No one wants to have on his walls something which is an obvious forgery. A certain measure of expert knowledge is called for. It is sensible to know something about what you are acquiring. It is foolish to go about it in ignorance.

Chinese paintings come in a variety of shapes. The most popular shape is the vertical-rectangular, or in Chinese the tiao fu, literally the upright scroll. The size of the scroll varies, some longer and some shorter, some wider and some narrower. Of course, the larger sizes are usually more expensive, everything else being equal. In an old-fashioned Chinese drawing room, there is usually one of these upright scrolls on the wall directly facing the entrance. The scroll is therefore sometimes known as the chung t'ang, literally middle of the hall. The scroll, which is a painting, is generally flanked on each side by a pair of couplets in calligraphy. The scroll and the flanking couplets, representing both painting and calligraphy, form the center of attraction. In the parlance of modern day interior decorators, they "unify the room."

A less popular shape may be called the horizontal-rectangular, or heng fu. This, too, varies in size. The heng fu is generally hung above a row of chairs in the old Chinese houses. It is particularly recommended for modern houses where the ceiling is low. If sufficiently large, it can also serve to "unify the room," although it cannot be flanked by couplets. Chinese painters in the old days did not favor this shape, so there are only a few truly great paintings in this form. More frequently, the calligraphers used it to write a few large characters horizontally, from right to left, to be hung across the top of the doorway. It is considered good taste to have something like that at the entrance to the main hall or high near the ceiling of the main hall facing the entrance. It is clear that it would be rather impractical to use this shape for painting since it would be hung so high that one would need binoculars to see it.

More popular among the great painters is the long scroll, or shou chuan, literally hand roll. This is considered a convenient shape to capture what one sees on a trip, such as boat trip along the Yangtze Gorges, or to tell a story. For instance, the masterpiece by Ku K'ai-chih (334-406), called "Admonitions of the Imperial Preceptress," is eleven feet and three inches long, representing a series of illustrations arranged in nine sections recounting nine episodes to illustrate a text on the various admonitions of the instructress to the ladies of the court. Another instance is the scroll by Yen Li-pen (d. 673), showing thirteen emperors chosen from among the many sovereigns who reigned over one part of China from Ch'en Wen Ti of the Western Han Dynasty (179-157 B. C.) to Yang Ti of the Sui Dynasty (605-617 A. D.). Instead of doing individual portraits of the thirteen emperors, the artist chose to paint them one by one in a long series. These instances show the versatility of the long scroll which may by adapted by the artists for various purposes.

The long scrolls are usually not more than two and a half feet in height, but can extend in length to thirty or forty feet. They are therefore entirely unfit for hanging on walls or for any form of public display, and they are not meant for such purposes. They are generally viewed by laying them on tables and rolling them along, viewing them section by section, as if one were sailing along with the painter on a boat trip on the river, or climbing a mountain with him along a winding path, or following: a story he is telling. The long scrolls are also impossible to photograph or print. However, reproductions of sections of such scrolls are common nowadays.

Small paintings of uniform size are often collected into albums, or in Chinese ch'e yeh, literally leaf albums. The leaves are usually individual paintings but of a generally similar nature, such as scenes of a particular locality, or different scenes of the four seasons. One of the most famous paintings is "Boating by Moonlight" by the great master of the Sung Dynasty, Ma Yuan (active from 1190 to 1224). It is one leaf of an album by the great artist, representing the half-light of an early spring morning, still absolutely silent although the morning breeze is already caressing the tops of the willows. It has been said that "all the poetry of Sung landscape painting is concentrated in this small, nearly monochrome picture." It is one of the most widely reproduced paintings. Its small size is because it is a leaf from an album.

An album generally contains from eight to twelve pictures. It is a form which is difficult to hang on the wall. However, if we take the leaves apart and have them framed and displayed in a cluster, say, four grouped together into a square, they may achieve a highly artistic effect. Such a form of display, it must be said, is not in accordance with the original intentions of the artist, but it is permissible without doing violence to his artistry.

The Chinese originated the fan shape. Fans usually have a painting on one side and calligraphy on the other. Both can be taken off the frames and mounted, either in rectangular or squares. The materials used may be either paper or silk. The shape of the fan may also be round, or square with rounded corners. People in the Ming Dynasty were particularly fond of using gold-colored paper for their fans. Paintings and calligraphy have been done on the gold-colored paper. Ming chin, or Ming Dynasty Gold, has become a special term for these fans. They are to be found also in great abundance. An album can be made of these fans, either fan-shaped or round or square. A cluster of dismounted fans, or a row of them, when framed, may be displayed on the wall with salutary effect.

Chinese paintings, generally speaking, are of these five different shapes. Great paintings are to be found in each one of the them. There is one final variation which must be mentioned. Some artists like to paint four or eight vertical-rectangular, or tiao fu, making them into a group. This form is known as the p'ing, so that four pictures in such a group would be called ssu p'ing. The artist may use such. a form to depict the four seasons. He may also use eight depicting eight horses, the pa chun.

One can have a completely free choice in all these shapes. He can pick them to fit his particular surroundings, such as the dimensions of the space on his wall, the height of his ceiling, and so forth. If he aspires to be a real collector, he may go in for the long scrolls, which he can take out after dinner for the admiration of his guests.

Calligraphy, of course, is difficult to appreciate by those whose culture is non-Chinese. Japanese and Koreans have no difficulty in this respect. Some of the great calligraphers in Chinese come from these countries. Some of their works are extremely valuable.

A truly Chinese decor somehow lacks authenticity and effectiveness without some pieces of calligraphy. Calligraphy goes with Chinese paintings because the two forms of art, the Chinese believe, are of the same origin -"the artistic arrangement of graceful lines." It is for this reason that in the display rooms of most museums in the West, there are practically always a few calligraphy scrolls mingled with a large number of painting scrolls. This is to make the display typically Chinese, although the museum curators know very well that most visitors do not understand calligraphy at all.

A typical example of Western lack of understanding of calligraphy is a picture of the great Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh, who saw some Japanese prints and proceeded to copy the calligraphy onto his canvas in oil. The painting is a masterpiece, but the calligraphy is like the penmanship of a six-year old. This may not matter at all to the Europeans or Americans. To a Chinese, a Japanese, or a Korean, it is a painful sight indeed. For van Gogh fails completely to capture the grace and meaning of calligraphy. It simply cannot be done with a Western-styled brush in oil on a canvas.

This goes to show that the Westerner must exercise great caution in trying to include calligraphy in his display, although to lend a genuine Chinese atmosphere, calligraphy is well-nigh indispensable. Perhaps the situation can be saved by obtaining prints or reproductions of calligraphy, which are generally of the highest quality, because no colors are involved. One or two choice prints would complete a display of Chinese paintings admirably.

II

Chinese paintings in the very ancient days were done on stone or on slabs of bamboo. Later, they were done either on silk or on paper.

To the people of the Western world, paintings on silk are somehow considered more valuable than those on paper. When I show a painting to them, almost always the first thing they notice is the silk base. "Look! It is on silk, they exclaim.

There is some basis for this line of thinking. Painters of the more remote days, such as during the T'ang and Sung dynasties, say about a thousand years ago, like to paint on silk, which was rather coarse and not too expertly woven. Silk also has the tendency to turn deep brown with age. Threads may break or fall off. All these elements give the impression of age, and what is old is generally regarded as valuable. It has been said that "many Western collectors have felt that no Chinese painting made later than the Sung Dynasty (ending 1276) was worth collecting." This concept is, of course, entirely wrong. Collecting works of art is not merely collecting antiques. The objects collected must have artistic value, and not all great artists lived in the remote past. We shall see in a subsequent article that there are plenty of excellent artists in later days.

Furthermore, to confine one's interest to very old paintings is rather foolish, to say the least. For one thing, good T'ang and Sung paintings are extremely rare and all of them have been carefully catalogued and put into the museums. There is almost no chance of a "lucky find" these days.

It is also erroneous to believe that paintings on silk are necessarily more valuable. To the wise collector, whether the painting is done on silk or paper is a matter of little importance. As a matter of fact, paper is generally preferred to silk, for the simple reason that silk deteriorates faster, and therefore a painting on paper is usually better preserved and can be better preserved. The age of the painting is determined by the age in which the painter lived. It does not have to be determined by the deteriorated state of the painting, unless one is totally ignorant of the painter himself.

Three criteria are used by collectors to judge the value of a painting. First, it must be authentic, not a forgery or fake. Secondly, it must be a good specimen of the painter's work. Thirdly, it must be well preserved. The Chinese say of these three criteria: chen, tsin and hsin.

To determine whether or not a painting is authentic requires a considerable measure of expert knowledge. This can be acquired only through painstaking study. There are many aids to such study, such as the voluminous commentaries written by art critics throughout the ages. But no aid is more useful and rewarding than studying the originals in the museums or the published reproductions. The National Museum of the Republic of China, located at Taichung, Taiwan, publishes a series of reproductions some of which are of high quality. The Japanese also have published excellent reproductions of Chinese paintings in Japanese possession. Mention was made in a previous article of the fine reproductions done by UNESCO.

After intensive study of the work of an artist, one would come to know his peculiar qualities. The brush work of a renowned artist, even one or two strokes, can readily be identified, just as the Westerners say that "one stroke of Rembrandt is as much Rembrandt as is a whole painting."

The Chinese painters usually supply you with other clues, much more the Western painters. They usually sign their works clearly and prominently, so that their signatures are of a great help. They also put their seals on the paintings, sometimes two or three or four seals. These seals are extremely important, so much so that an expert in examining a painting almost always goes after the seals first. Seals, carved of stone and occasionally of ivory, are somehow harder to forge than either painting or calligraphy. Even today, Chinese banks accept seals in lieu of signatures on checks.

Chinese paintings usually have a few lines of poetry on their paintings. This became the fashion particularly after Wang Wei (698-759), the founder of the Southern School of landscape painting, proclaimed that "there is a poem in a picture, and a picture in a poem."

The calligraphy of the painter, therefore, becomes yet another way of determining the authenticity of a painting. Calligraphy is itself a form of art in China. Many of the great painters were also great calligrapher. The expert collector examines the calligraphy of the inscriptions much as a bank clerk examines the signature on a check.

Furthermore, the great collectors of the past were in the habit of stamping their own seals on the paintings in their possession. One of the greatest among them was Hsiang Tsi-ching, who lived in the Ming Dynasty. There were many others, such as the four houses, Pan, Lu, Wu, and Yeh, of South China. They all put their seals on the items in their enormous collections, and collectors of subsequent generations value these marks highly. The Emperor Ch'ien Lung (1736-1795) of the Ch'ing Dynasty was an avid student of Chinese art. He too was in the habit of putting his imperial seals on the items of his vast collection. All through his peaceful reign, which lasted for sixty years, he devoted himself to studying art, aided by the most discerning experts at his court, so that his stamp of approval is something of great value.

Art-lovers have condemned this habit of defacing the great works of art, and rightly so. Great paintings of China are generally full of seals, although care was taken to put seals on the empty spaces of the paintings. This certainly has the effect of distracting attention from the paintings themselves. This is especially so with Ch'ien Lung who, being an emperor, always put his main seal right at the top center of a painting, that is, at the most prominent location. This habit was followed by subsequent Ch'ing emperors. Even some of the warlords in the early R.epublican era followed this tradition. The result is most deplorable. Fortunately, this habit started relatively late, more or less with the Ch'ing Dynasty. Had the T'ang, Sung, Yuan, Ming emperors done the same thing, an old painting would be so full of seals that it would be defaced beyond recognition. Also fortunately, this deplorable habit terminated soon. When the National Government of China was established in 1928, the entire body of the art treasures in the imperial palaces in Peiping passed into the custody of the National Museum, and the paintings are no longer subjected to such mutilation.

The collectors' and emperors' seals, however, serve one useful purpose. They are invaluable aids to determine the authenticity of the paintings, provided of course that the seals themselves are authentic. I am told that there are six different sets of Ch'ien Lung seals now in Hongkong, only one set of which is probably authentic. So we can see that the fakers have not neglected this department.

Still another aid to determine the authenticity of a painting is the commentaries. Art-lovers and collectors throughout the centuries have been in the habit of writing something on the mounting of the paintings, sometimes an essay telling the story of the painting, such as through whose hands it had passed, sometimes an essay of research, such as determining the exact year in which the painting was done by the artist, and sometimes a poem or two singing the praise of the artistry of the painting itself. Chao Meng-fu (1254-1322), one of the immortals in Chinese art, and Tung Ch'i-ch'ang (1555-1626), another such immortal, were particularly prolific in their commentaries. Their own calligraphy is a thing of the highest artistic value. Their judgment also is something to be trusted. Their commentaries, if authentic, are sometimes considered even more valuable than the paintings themselves.

It appears from the above account that forging a Chinese painting is not an easy matter. The forger must forge the painting, the painter's calligraphy, his seals, the seals and calligraphy of the collectors, and sometimes the calligraphy and seals of the many commentators. Somewhere along the line, he may slip up. It is up to the expert to detect his mistake.

But there are a lot of forgeries of Chinese paintings in the market, and the serious collector must be on guard on all occasions.

Some of the forgeries are so flagrant that they are amusing. I have been shown a work on paper attributed to a man who lived at a time when writing was still done on bamboo, for paper-making had not yet been invented. I have been told of a painting supposedly inscribed by the painter himself with a well-known poem which, however, was composed after the painter had died. These forgers ply upon the gullible and the ignorant. To have such things in one's house, no matter what the interior decorator says about its decorative value, is like having the original manuscript of the Bible displayed. The forgers know that the phrase "I like it" would lead a person to buy the most outrageous trash. So they make a good living doing violence to the sanctity of Chinese art.

The question of authenticity is further complicated by copies and duplicates. All artists begin their training by copying the masterpieces. As they become proficient, their practice copies may be confused with the original. In China, an authenticated copy of a masterpiece by a master is considered valuable. Sometimes the artist tells you that it is a copy he makes. The contemporary Chinese artist, Chang Ta-ch'ien, for instance, is very good at copying the Ming Dynasty painter-monk, Shih T'ao (1630­ 1707). He makes himself rather unpopular with his fellow artists by copying Shih T'ao's calligraphy and seals as well, without noting that it is a copy. Such practices are considered unethical, and are unbecoming to an accomplished artist.

When a painter is particularly fond of one of his works, he may do a duplicate of it. For instance, at an exhibition, it is quite permissible for you to ask the artist to do a duplicate of a person. The original and the duplicate are both authentic and equally valuable.

The determination of the authenticity of a painting, it can be seen, depends upon many factors. Even the experts are sometimes cheated.

The value of a particular painting is not to be determined by its authenticity alone, although it is the most basic condition. It is also to be determined by the quality of the particular specimen, that it is a good representative of the artist's work.

This is just plain common sense. An artist usually starts learning to paint in his youth. He probably paints all through his life. Somewhere during his lifetime, he reaches his prime. In his old age, he may lose command of some of his faculties. His hands may tremble excessively; his eyesight may fail. His early works are immature, his late works may be inferior. They are curiosity items. The truly valuable works are done at his prime.

It follows that, if one were to pick a picture by a particular artist, he should try to get one which is truly representative of the artist's work. A drawing by Rembrandt when he was six years old is an interesting item but it certainly is not representative of Rembrandt's art.

Besides being authentic and a good specimen, the value of a painting is also determined by the state of its preservation. A painting in an advanced state of deterioration is not considered worth having. Mention was made earlier why the collectors prefer paintings on paper to those on silk. A painting may have been soaked in the water. The worms may have eaten their way through some portions of it. Its colors may have faded through long exposure to sunlight and moisture. All such conditions detract from the value of the painting.

In the long history of China, the imperial court has always collected art objects for the enjoyment of the sovereign and the study of the court scholars. Such collections naturally concentrated on the choicest specimens. The top experts of the realm were on hand to pass on their authenticity and quality and state of preservation. Over the centuries, wars, floods, fires, lootings, have all taken their toll of such collections. Yang Ti of the Sui Dynasty (589-618), for instance, lost the bulk of his fabulous collection when the boat carrying it to Yangchow sank in the Canal. Tai Tsung of the T'ang Dynasty (reigned 627-649) was so infatuated with the original manuscript of the Lan T'ing Hsu by the greatest calligrapher, Wang Hsi-chih (321-379) that he ordered the manuscript buried with his body when he died.

What is left, however, is still voluminous. To stroll through the display rooms of the National Museum is to feast oneself with the very best of Chinese art. There one truly communicates with the immortals.

III

Chinese paintings, generally speaking, fall into six different categories as far as their subject-matters are concerned. They are:

1. Landscapes, in Chinese, shan shui, literally mountains and waters;

2. Portraits and human figures, or jen wu, literally men and things;

3. Flowers and birds, or hua niao;

4. Bamboos and stones, or chu shih;

5. Animals, or tsou shou; and

6. Buildings, or lou ko, sometimes called kung shih, literally palaces.

This enumeration of categories is slightly simplified. Hui Tsung, the last emperor of the Northern Sung Dynasty, himself a great artist and calligrapher, founded a museum in his court and searched all over the land for fine paintings and art objects. A catalogue was drawn up, describing and classifying his enormous collection which was completed in the year 1120. In addition to the above six categories, Hui Tsung added four:

a. Taoist and Buddhist paintings, i.e., religious paintings, or tao shih;

Barbarians, or fan tsu, clearly a reflection of the fierce struggles with the frontiers peoples of his times;

b. Dragons and fishes, or lung yu; and

c. Vegetables and fruits, or shu kuo.

Chinese paintings, generally speaking, fall into six different categories as far as their subject-matters are concerned. They are:

1. Landscapes, in Chinese, shan shui, literally mountains
and waters;

2. Portraits and human figures, or jen wu, literally men and things;

3. Flowers and birds, or hua niao;

4. Bamboos and stones, or chu shih;

5. Animals, or tsou shou; and

6. Buildings, or lou ko, sometimes called kung shih, literally palaces.

This enumeration of categories is slightly simplified. Hui Tsung, the last emperor of the Northern Sung Dynasty, himself a great artist and calligrapher, founded a museum in his court and searched all over the land for fine paintings and art objects. A catalogue was drawn up, describing and classifying his enormous collection which was completed in the year H20. In addition to the above six categories, Hui Tsung added four:

a. Taoist and Buddhist paintings, i.e., religious paintings, or tao shih;

b. Barbarians, or fan tsu, clearly a reflection of the fierce struggles with the frontiers peoples of his times;

c. Dragons and fishes, or lung yu; and

d. Vegetables and fruits, or shu kuo.

The above list of categories is not in chronological order. Historically, figure-painting, i.e., portraits and human figures, appeared first. We have, of course, no surviving specimens of ancient works. But we are told that the Chou and Han emperors, ever mindful of their duties in the governance of their realm, had portraits of both good and bad rulers of the past publicly displayed in their chambers as a sort of double reminder to emulate the good and avoid the bad.

Figure-painting was soon to be dominated by Taoist and Buddhist paintings, that is, religious paintings. Elaborate frescoes were painted on walls of the temples and portraits of the Buddha and other religious figures were put up for public worship. Wu Tao-tsu, (680-760), is generally regarded as the most renowned figure-painter of all times. His is the name chiefly associated with the conversion of the Buddhist painting from images, which mayor may not be art, to the literary side, which is definitely of artistic value.

Figure-painting was followed, historically speaking, by landscape painting. In due course, by reason of its intimate connection with philosophy and poetic literature, landscapes came to overshadow everything else. The other categories, such as flowers and birds, animals and fishes, vegetables and fruits, were regarded as minor manifestations of the love of nature.

In this succession of interest, two men stood out prominently. On the one hand, it was Ku K'ai-chih (334-406), the famous figure-painter of the fourth century, who first put a landscape as background to his figures. In the only extant painting of this master, we see that his figures were cast against a background of a mountain with a few wild beasts. To Ku K'ai-chih also belonged the distinction of being the first man known to have written a treatise on landscape-painting which he called "On the Painting of Cloudy-Terrace Mountain."

On the other hand, while landscape-painting was gaining the ascendancy, it was Wu Tao-tsu, the great figure-painter, who finally gave landscape-painting the confidence and dignity of stroke and set the pattern for development in subsequent centuries.

In the course of the T'ang Dynasty (618-906), landscape-painting entered its glorious period. In due course, two schools emerged, and have represented the art of landscape­ painting down to the present day.

The two schools are known as the "Northern" and "Southern." The terms, however, do not signify geographical positions. They are differentiated by their methodologies and their treatment of subjects.

Although students of Chinese painting still differ somewhat on the subject, it is painting you like when the one on exhibition has been sold to another generally conceded that the "founder" of the "Northern." school was the Tang artist Li Ssu-hsun (651-716), while the "founder" of the "Southern" School was Wang Wei (699-759).

The characteristic of Li Ssu-hsun's paintings, it may be stated, was its strong, severe form and design, leaving little to the imagination. His method was precise and laborious, characterized by detailed workmanship, with emphasis upon balance and symmetry. He was also lavish in his colors, so that he was regarded once as "the greatest colorist of his time."

Wang Wei, on the other hand, chose to blaze a path of his own. He was the man, it will be recalled, who made the classic declaration that "there is a poem in a picture and a picture in a poem." Following this basic concept, he painted mostly with ink and water. He used colors very sparingly and occasionally. His works were therefore in sharp contrast with the precise lines and heavy colors of Li Ssu-hsun.

While Li was a public official of high position, Wang was essentially a philosopher and a Buddhist, preferring a peaceful, meditative life among mountains and streams to the rigors of public profession.

In due course, the tradition of Wang Wei, or the "Southern" school, gave rise to the wen jen hua, or the scholar-painter, which is to become typically Chinese. By the Sung Dynasty, it had become a standard practice and fashion for scholars to do some painting. In other words, painting and literature had by then firmly joined hands. The trend was so strong that the Sung Emperor Hui Tsung made the painting of a picture, along with literary significance, part of the qualification for officialdom. It was Hui Tsung's habit to choose a line or two from a famous poem and require the candidates for office to do a painting on them. The emphasis here was clearly the connection between picture and poem, painting and literature. It opened the gate wide, therefore, for wen jen hua, the scholar- painters.

Once, for instance, Hui Tsung chose a line from a poem which read:

"A temple buried deep in the mountains."

The candidates were supposed to paint a picture depicting the image of this poetic line. The winning choice showed a mass of mountains, with the small figure of a monk in the foreground fetching water from a stream. There was no sign of a temple. The idea was that the temple must be hidden in the mountains. It must be there, or else where did the monk come from?

At another time, Hui Tsung chose two lines of a poem which read:

"When I returned from trampling on flowers,

"The hoofs of my horse are fragrant."

In the winning picture, there was no field of flowers, nor any scene of a horse trampling on flowers. It only showed a horse trotting along a narrow pathway, with a pair of butterflies fluttering around its hoofs.

The Chinese are particularly fond of this kind of games. They love to leave the obvious to the imagination, while the picture makes sure in what direction the imagination will lead.

The vogue for wen jen hua, in a sense, was a form of liberation. Its emphasis was upon feeling. Techniques, though required, were considered important. It was an impressionistic, idealistic art, with even a touch of contempt for the craftsmanship of the masters. To leave much to the imagination; the utmost economy of lines was practiced.

The masters of this form of art were often hermits. A good example was Ni Tsan (1301-1374), more commonly known as Ni Yiin-lin. Ni came from a wealthy family. He gave away his fortune and chose to live in self-imposed, obscure poverty. His pictures were characterized by the dry brush. He never put any human figures in them. This was the way he sought to express what he called "the poetry of loneliness." He refused to sell his pictures. He preferred to give them away free to his friends. To a rich man who offered him a high price for one of his paintings, he retorted: "I have never painted for the vulgar! I am no paid artisan!"

Over the centuries, the two schools, the "Northern" and the "Southern" schools of landscape painting, remained in contention. The final score has not yet been settled. However, since the Yuan Dynasty, the "Northern" school seemed to be losing ground steadily.

The above discourse is strictly elementary. It is written to drive home a point which I consider to be of interest to the art-lovers in the Western world and in countries which have not been exposed to Chinese art.

Over the centuries a prodigious amount of paintings have been produced. It is customary for textbooks writers to classify them either as belonging to the "Northern" or the "Southern" school. While there are some grounds for such classification, the important thing is that, for a painter to achieve fame, he must have something of his own to offer. He cannot be a slavish copier of some master. This is particularly so with the wen jen hua, which is characterized by its intense individuality. Of course, this is just commonsense. The French Impressionists do not paint alike. Why should those of the "Northern" school or the "Southern" school?

It follows from this general premise that there were great painters of either school in the different dynasties. Technically, they may be said to belong to this or that school. But they achieved fame because they were creative, with a style distinctly their own.

When I show some Chinese paintings to my friends from the Western world, they almost always ask me: "How old is it?" There is, of course, some ground for such a question. In dealing with art objects, the element of age, which is closely associated with the element of rarity, is bound to be involved. The general proposition is, the older the picture, the more valuable it is.

Mention has been made in a previous article that there is a sharp distinction between collecting art objects on the one hand and collecting antiques on the other. The bed that George Washington once slept in is an antique of value. But it is not necessarily an object of art. This point is so obvious that it really needs no further elaboration. The reason why it is brought up again is that, when it comes to Chinese art objects, this simple concept was often forgotten, and the emphasis has so frequently been placed on age rather than artistry.

In the field of Chinese painting, the Yuan (1276-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Ch'ing (1644­ 1911) dynasties have produced artists of the highest calibre.

In Chinese history, this is known as the modern period. A difference of a few hundred years does not really make any difference. For instance, a painting by Chu Ta (who signed his name Pa Ta Shan Jen), who lived 1626-1705, is in all probability more valuable today than one by Shen Chou (Shen Shih-tien) who lived 1427-1509, fully two hundred years earlier, although both were great artists and their works have always been in great demand.

In the Ch'ing Dynasty alone, there were a number of artists whose works were of great artistic value. We have the four Wang's - Wang Shih-min (1592-1680), Wang Chien (1598-1677), Wang Hui (1632-1717) and Wang Yuan-ch'i (1642-1715). Although they were not outstanding innovators, they were highly accomplished "transmitters" of the previous centuries belonging definitely to the "Southern" school. There was Wu Li (1643-1708) who was probably even better than the four Wang's in landscape painting. His life was most remarkable, for he was a Jesuit priest and for a time led a hermit's life with the Portuguese Jesuits in Macao. We have Yiin Shou-p'ing (Yun Nan-tien), 1633-1690, who courageously upheld the tradition of the "Northern" school. He started by painting landscapes, but gave up in favor of his friend Wang Hui, and devoted himself to doing meticulously executed piclur'es of flowers. He did not like the impressionists, and was probably the most notable artist in China to paint directly from nature. His concentration was in pattern, form and rich colors. W e have also the two monks, Shih T'ao (1642-1704) and Pa Ta Shan Jen (1626-1705), who discarded both ancient tradition and modern influence to create styles which were freer than· even before.

In the old days, lovers of Chinese art in the Western world concentrated upon the ancient and medieval masters to the neglect of the more recent painters. Museum-curators generally ignored the works by the four Wang's in favor of older paintings. Only very recently, the more recent artists were "discovered." I am told that some American collectors are particularly fond of the works of Pa Ta Shan Jen and Ch'i Pai-shih, a great painter who lived until 1957.

It goes without saying that this trend reveals that Chinese art is being more and more appreciated in the Western world. Chinese art objects, Chinese paintings, are no longer considered as antiques. They are beginning to betaken for their intrinsic artistic value, which is essentially ageless and timeless.

On the surface, it would appear that there is an enormous gap between Chinese and Western art. As late as 1842, the British artist Benjamin Robert Hayden, writing for the Encyclopedia Britannica, dismissed two thousand years of Chinese painting as "miserable and wretched." On the other hand, the Chinese art chronicler of the Ch'ien Lung court, Chang Keng, declared that Western painting, by "copying every single hair," is "neither refined nor convincing."

However, one should record the remarkable exploits of Pere Giuseppe Castiglione, an Italian Jesuit priest who arrived at Peking in 1715 and remained there until his death in 1766. He had learned to paint in Italy. When he got to China, he started to paint with brush and ink and colors in the Chinese manner with considerable success. On the other side, we have the contemporary Chinese artists, Liu Hai-shu and Hsu Pei-hung (Ju Peon), who learned to paint in Paris and returned to China to paint in a style blending the East and the West. These were the people who sought to bring the two worlds together, with a measure of success. On their path, many are traveling today.

IV

In the previous article, I have dwelt rather extensively with landscape painting in China. I do so because since the T'ang Dynasty, some one thousand years ago, it has come to dominate Chinese painting. It is due perhaps to the fact that landscapes lend themselves more readily to the creation of what the Chinese call yi ching, which may roughly be translated as "conceptual vista." They are a more appropriate medium by which the artists may find expression for an idea, a mood, a religious experience, a view of life. The majesty of the towering peaks, with their waterfalls, and the mist which surrounds them, form fitting themes to convey the grandeur and mystery of nature and man's love for it. In most landscapes, somewhere there is a man, small and inconspicuous, but somehow forming the center of the scheme of things. It is nature which puts man in his place, and yet his love for nature can only be expressed through him.

It is a strange thing that Chinese landscapes as a general rule deal with mountains and streams. Seldom does one find a picture of the sea. There are some pictures which may be called seascapes, but always, on the far horizon, there are a peak or two, hidden by the clouds, but showing just enough to announce their presence. The technique of painting water is concentrated on the ripples of the rivers and streams, the dash of the waterfalls, the stillness of the ponds, rather than on the vast expanse of the ocean and the angry waves.

Chinese landscapes also seldom deal with plains and meadows. This is perhaps dictated by the most popular shape of Chinese pictures, the vertical-rectangular, or the upright scroll, which does not lend itself to the flatness of either the sea or the plains. Perhaps there are other reasons for it. Whatever they are, the fact remains that Chinese landscapes, the shan shui, tend to limit their subjects to mountains and their accessories.

Mention was made before that figure painting antedated landscapes. From the earliest examples, usually found in stone engravings, we notice that they fall into three categories. First, the descriptive, depicting stories of human life taken from history and the classics. Second, the realistic, portrayals of social customs and the clothes people wore at a particular period. Third, the imaginative, dealing with legends and myths, especially the dragon and the phoenix, imaginary creatures which no human eye has ever seen.

From these early dates, roughly during the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.), we move on to the period when religious influence came into prominence. Buddhist and Taoist paintings came to dominate the scene. The Chinese artists were under strong Indian influence brought back by the pilgrims. It has been said that the artists' aim was to express all the attributes of divinity in their paintings-mercy in combination with sternness, compassion, renunciation.

Perhaps this is an appropriate point to tell the story of one of the most fantastic art finds in history. I am referring to the fabulous treasures of Tun-Huang. The Tun-Huang caves were the last stopping place in Central Asia on the way to China, or the last outpost of China on the caravan route to Central Asia, India, and Persia. Here, in what is now Kansu Province, are situated the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas. There are nearly five hundred such cave-temples honey-combed in irregular tiers. They contain a fantastic wealth of Buddhist art in the form of wall paintings as well as sculpture, pictures on silk and linen and paper, books and woodcuts. They cover a thousand years. The first cave temple was built in 366 A.D. and some of the shrines were still being painted and kept up in the Yuan Dynasty, a thousand years later.

In 1035, the area was invaded by the Tartars. Probably then, some twenty thousand rolls of manuscripts (of Buddhist scriptures) and paintings and sutras were collected and deposited in one place and walled up. They remained forgotten for nearly nine hundred years, until they were accidentally discovered by a Taoist monk. The most remarkable phenomenon is that the dryness of the desert air has served to keep the entire collection in a perfect state of preservation. The discovery of Tun-Huang is easily the most fabulous event in the history of Chinese art.

Now the treasures of Tun-Huang are open to the entire world. Many specimens found their way abroad, to places such as the British Museum in London. Renowned contemporary artists such as Chang Ta-ch'ien spent years making copies of the originals.

Figure painting during the T'ang Dynasty gradually gave way to landscapes. However, there are great names in this form of painting down to the present day. Mention was made earlier of Wu Tao-tsu (680-760) being the greatest figure painter. Of great fame also were the two brothers, Yen Li-teh and Yen Li-pen (latter part of seventh century) and Li Kung-lin, more popularly known as Li Lung-mien (1040-1106) of the Sung Dynasty. Although religious themes continued to predominate, many artists delighted themselves by painting the strange and outlandish peoples of the frontiers, the Turkistanis, the Tibetans, the Mongols. As we move into the Sung Dynasty, attention was again directed to the daily life of the people, especially the ladies, with their graceful stature and colorful garments.

It may be noted that the Chinese figure painters seldom take pains to achieve exact likeness. Rather, they try to depict a person as he (the artist) conceives of him, and sometimes his conception is all wrong. For instance, in the masterpiece by Yen Li-pen (died 673) of the portraits of emperors, mentioned in an earlier article, Chen Fei-ti, one of the rulers painted, was pictured with a heavy mustache and long beard, while historically that ruler died when he was only nineteen years of age. Again, the portrait of Confucius by Ma Yuan (active from 1190 to 1224) or that of Lao Tsu by Ch'ao Pu-chih of the Sung Dynasty, were painted imaginatively, like the many paintings of God in Western art. Exact likeness to them did not particularly matter. What they wanted to convey was their conception of these great men, ch'uan sh'eng, as we say it, which means literally "transmitting the subject's spirit" in the absence of knowledge of their physical features.

This is not to say that figure-painters deliberately refrained from studying their subjects if they could do so. Ancestor portraits which have become such a vogue in the Western world were usually done from life. But they were done not by the great artists, who considered such pursuits below their dignity. They were done by artisans who were generally nameless.

Just as there are the "Northern" and the "Southern" schools of landscape painting, so there is a school of figure-painting which places emphasis on details with colors and a school which champions the utmost economy of brush strokes. A good example of the latter is the portrait of the T'ang poet Li Po (Li T'ai-po) by Liang K'ai (about 1200). In this masterpiece, the artist made only a few bold strokes depicting the poet's profile in a flowing robe seemingly taking a stroll. There was no set background, not even a line to depict the ground the poet was walking on. To one European student of Chinese art, Liang K'ai's portrait of Li T'ai-po "is possibly the greatest masterpiece of Chinese painting." To the Chinese, this type of portraiture is known as "written figure," which calls for undisputable genius.

Besides landscapes and human figures, the Chinese paint a great deal of other things: flowers, birds, animals, insects, fishes.

Flower painting did not come into vogue until the T'ang Dynasty. In due course, two separate and distinct methods came to be employed. One method, known to the Chinese as shuan ko, or "double-hook," was to paint the leaves, petals, stems of flowers and the shape and plumage of birds, by outlining their contours, and filling in the spaces with ink or colors. The other method, 'known as mo ku, or "without-bone," was to avoid the outlines altogether, and to reproduce the shape of the flowers and birds with the dextrous application of brush strokes. From the T'ang Dynasty on, these two methods have existed side by side, although it may be said that in later days the "without-bone" method seemed to be more favored.

It would seem natural that the painting of such colorful subjects as flowers and birds would require the use of colors. This was generally the case. However, during the Yuan Dynasty (1276-1368), there was a school of flower and bird painters, notably Wang Yuan and Pien Wu, who chose to paint these colorful subjects with the use of only black ink. This has come down to modern times, as evidenced by some of the paintings of the monk Pa Ta Shan Jen (1626-1705) and the contemporary artist Ch'i Pai-shih (1863-1957).

In our discussion of Chinese painting, we have from time to time talked of the trend toward black-and-white and away from colors. To paint in black-and-white was the innovation of the T'ang Dynasty artists, and has captured the imagination of artists in succeeding centuries. To the Chinese, the color represented by the Chinese ink (usually made of pine needle soot) is the sum of all colors. By varying the shades of the black ink by diluting it with varying amounts of water, the artists believe they can adequately express all colors. To achieve such desired effects, they believe, is the essence of artistry.

An elaborate set of norms exists with regard to the use and application of fink. They have what they call the "five inks" and the "six colors." The "five inks" are: dry, black, heavy, light, and wet. The "six colors" are: black, white, dry, wet, heavy, and light. Variations between dry and wet are sometimes described in the manuals as follows: heavy, light, black, burned, dry, wet, aged, tender, splashed, broken, cumulated, and flying. All this may sound rather technical, but in the study of Chinese art, one should know something about such techniques, in order really to appreciate the artistry of the different painters.

In the painting of flowers, the Chinese liked to concentrate on a few-among the fruit-f1owers, pear, peach, pomegranate, apricot, vine and plum; among the grass-flowers, peony, begonia, chrysanthemum, orchid, mallow, narcissus; among the tree-flowers, magnolia and rose; and the floating lotus.

Mention must be made in connection with flower painting of the name of Yiin Nan-t'ien (1633-1690), who is considered one of the greatest, overshadowing in fame the masters of older days. One of his paintings was known as the "five pure things," which were: water, rock, bamboo, pine and plum blossom. Most artists like to paint the dominant flower of the four seasons, plum blossom for winter, orchids for spring, bamboos for summer, and chrysanthemum for autumn. Sometimes these four are known as the "four gentlemen."

Special attention should be directed to bamboo painting which has been a popular subject throughout the ages. It has been said that, to the Chinese, the bamboo symbolizes what we understand to be the qualities of the "gentleman." This plant particularly appeals to the scholar-painters who like to paint as a hobby without the use of colors. Bamboo-painters were most prolific during the Yuan Dynasty (1276-1368), Including such great names as Kuan Chung-chi (Mrs. Chao Meng-fu), K'o Chiu-ssu, Wu Chung-kwei, and many, many others. Earlier, in the Sung Dynasty, there were· such masters as Wen T'ung, the tablet of whose grave was inscribed with one of his bamboo pictures with this epitaph by his friend and admirer, the great all-around genius Su Shih (Su Tung-po):

     "So that the sight of the bamboos .... would lead posterity to
      comprehend the nobility of heart of my lamented friend, who was
      bent  and punished (like the bamboos) by the elements, but never
      broken."

The Chinese do not consider animals particularly desirable as subjects of paintings, except the horse and the tiger. Three masters of horse painting may be mentioned: Han Kan (720-780) of the T'ang Dynasty, Li Kung-lin, commonly known as Li Lung-mien (1040-1106) of the Sung Dynasty, and Chao Meng-fu (1254-1322) of the Yuan Dynasty. The modern artist, Hsu Pei-h'ung (Ju Peon), educated in France, is perhaps the best known horse-painter of modern times. The painting of the tiger is confined to a few specialists, of which the contemporary painter Chang Shan-tsi is an example.

In the paintings of flowers, the Chinese artists sometimes introduce the birds, all kinds of birds. The artists also find it pleasant to introduce fishes into paintings of water plants, such as the lotus.

The Chinese artists, however, seem to be more interested in insects, the butterfly, of course, and also the bee, the wasp, the grasshopper, the cricket, the cicada, the mantis, the dragon-fly. It has been the habit of some painters to paint a cluster of flowers with the bold stroke, and to accompany it with one or two insects done with the minutest detail, down to the tiny web in the insect's wings. This dramatic combination of the two techniques achieves a most desirable effect. The contemporary artist, Ch'i Pai-shih (1863-1957), is a master of this combination. He is also an innovator in the painting of fruits and vegetables of all sorts, somehow striving to make a thing of beauty out of an eggplant or a watermelon. His pictures of shrimps, chicks, and even toads, are all highly treasured nowadays.

If only to emphasize once again the difference between the Chinese and the Western styles of painting, one may mention the lack of what is known as "still life" in Chinese painting. There are few pictures of fruits well arranged, or of a dead fish lying on a plate, or even flowers in a vase. The Chinese prefer to paint these things in their natural state, although they seldom paint them just as they are. They try to make them artistic, and in so doing often make some alterations in nature.

This is so, for instance, in the painting of trees, of which the pine and the willow are the favorite subjects. But the artists like to view them from a particular angle, perhaps showing portions of them, perhaps decorating the pine with some vines, or picturing the willow swaying with the wind. The Japanese flower arrangements are done by cutting off some branches or leaves or flowers to improve upon the gracefulness of the plant. Similarly, the Chinese artists, in their paintings, like to make slight alterations here and there to improve upon nature. To them, a tree in autumn, with the loss of some foliage, is somehow a more appealing thing than one in the summer, when the foliage is just a mass of green. It is for this reason that, except for some flower painters, Chinese scenes in paintings are usually set in autumn and winter, seldom in the height of summer.

I was told the other day that once European writer comments on Chinese painting with the pronouncement that the empty spaces usually found in Chinese paintings show that the artists have "no statement to make." This pronouncement betrays a lack of comprehension of what is basic to Chinese art. For the Chinese believe that the artists' statement can be made through a variety of means. He can, of course, show you the subject by painting it. He can also communicate with you by taking certain things for granted. For instance, he considers it quite unnecessary to picture the water when he paints a fish which is obviously swimming. He can, more importantly, leave something to the imagination. To make his painting truly an artistic creation rather than a photography, he likes to cut off the extraneous and the repetitious. This is why the Chinese artist almost always leaves some space in his painting, whereas the Western artist generally works on every inch of his canvas. I am not trying to pass any judgment as to which one of these contrasting approaches is higher. It is sufficient to know that the contrast exists, and that one approach is not to be judged by the standards of the other.

Through two thousand years, the Chinese have evolved an art form, which is multifarious in its manifestations. Creative artists are found in each of the succeeding generations, so that a Chinese painting can be dated as readily as any Western painting. They can also be classified into a number of schools, ascending and descending as the centuries march by. There may be an excessive veneration for the old. The Ming and Ch'ing artists have been accused of being overly rigid in their conformity to the academic tradition. This may be so, for instance, with the "four Wangs" in landscape-painting. But in these two dynasties, there were also great innovators, to mention only Shih T'ao and Pa Ta Shan Jen, who broke so completely with the past tradition that they have been frequently called "rebels." In the contemporary era, Ch'i Pai-shih is definitely in a class by himself. A genius will always break barriers and assert himself. Surely, two thousand years of Chinese art has shown unmistakably that the Chinese art form, far from being a prison of man's creativeness, is so free and variable that almost every man can find expression through it.