23. Painting
In ancient times, painting was done mainly for practical purpos-
es, such as decorations for clothing, buildings, furniture and utensils.
There were also paintings on superstitious articles. Some of those ear-
liest works were beautiful and interesting enough to evoke the admi-
ration of people of today, especially archeologists. The painters' names
were of course never known, for they were not professional artists,
but craftsmen.
The first painter mentioned in historical works was perhaps Mao
Yanshou, who was ordered by an emperor of the Western Han to
paint portraits of the women in the palace. This event of about 2,000
years ago showed that figure painting started very early in China.
During the Han, Wei and Jin dynasties, many names of painters
and the names of their paintings were recorded in various books, but
none of their works were extant today except one by Gu Kaizhi
(344--406) of the Eastern Jin. Gu was an official-scholar born in
Wuxi, Jiangsu, said to be good at painting many things, including fig-
ures. He painted a handscroll(a long horizontal painting rolled up to
be unrolled when viewed)called "Admonitions to the Court Ladies,"
in which there were several persons, all vividly done. It was one of the
rare objects owned by the Qing royal faimly. In the war of 1900,
when western armies invaded Beijing, it was seized by the British
troops, and today it is in the British Museum in London. This paint-
ing is the earliest one that can be found today.
In the period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, as Bud-
dhism was widely spread in North and South China. Buddhist sculp-
ture and painting flourished in many places. In Yungang near
Datong, Shanxi, and Longmen near Luoyang, Henan, a series of caves
were built with hundreds of stone images of Buddhist gods carved in
them. They are all excellent sculptures. As for Buddhist painting, the
largest treasure house was in Dunhuang, Gansu.
For several hundred years, from the 4th to the 10th centuries,
believers in Buddhism built grottoes in Dunhuang, and in each grotto
they painted beautiful pictures of Buddhist gods and scenes from Bud-
dhist scriptures and stories. Today there are still 492 grottoes with
about 45,000 square meters of paintings in them. In addition, there
are over 2,000 colorful clay sculptures. Known all over the world, the
grottoes attract hundreds of visitors daily from other places in China
and other countries. The paintings and the manuscripts and books dis-
covered in those grottoes are most valuable as relics of Chinese cul-
ture. They have been studied by scholars not only of China, but of
many other countries.
In those early periods, landscapes were also painted, but they
mainly served as the backgrounds of figures. It was in the Sui and
Tang times that landscape painting gradually became independent.
Wu Daoxuan, also called Wu Daozi, and Li Sixun, both Tang
painters, were once asked by the reigning emperor to paint the
scenery of the Jialing River in Sichuan. Li spent one whole month on
the work, while Wu used only one day. Li's painting was rich in de-
tails , and Wu's was free and imaginative. Later, the famous poet
Wang Wei, who was also a good painter, painted all kinds of things,
including landscapes. Of his achievement, Su Shi, the great Song po-
et, said that there was painting in Wang Wei's poetry, and there was
poetry in his painting.
Some painters of the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten States
(907- 979)were specially good at painting flowers and birds. During
the Song Dynasty that followed, landscapes and flowers and birds
were more popular than figures among artists, who tended to think
that landscapes, flowers and birds were of greater aesthetic value.
Therefore there were three main themes in painting: figures, land-
scapes, and flowers and birds. In addition, there was Buddhist art.
In the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing periods, landscape painting
was far more important than the other categories. This had something
to do with the part played by the scholar-officials, or literary men,
who took painting as their pastime or means of expressing their vision
and personality. In painting landscapes, they did not try to reproduce
faithfully what they saw in nature. Instead, they often altered the real
scenery or highlighted some aspects of it to reveal their emotions or
aspirations.
In such landscapes, human beings are usually not an important
part. They are seldom in the foreground or in the center. If there were
human beings in a painting, they were generally very small in contrast
with huge mountains and rivers. They stand or sit among trees or
rocks, gazing at and admiring distant mountains or waterfalls. They
are in perfect harmony with nature, or rather they have become part
of nature. This perhaps shows the influence of Taoist philosophy on
those scholar-official painters.
Some literary men enjoyed painting plums, orchids, bamboo and
chrysanthemums. To these painters the four plants were especially el-
egant and had no vulgar taste. Moreover, they thought these plants
were symbolic of certain moral qualities. The plum blossomed before
other flowers, in cold winter or early spring, and the chrysanthemum
in late autumn disregarding frost. They had their pride and persever-
ing spirit. The bamboo was upright; and the orchid pure.
Before the Tang, most painters were professionals, or people
whose main work was painting. They commonly aimed at reproducing
the fine details of the things they painted. But after the Tang many
literary men also painted. Their style was different. To them ideas
were more important than the real appearance of objects. They paint-
ed ideas. So they painted with greater freedom than professionals.
Traditional Chinese painters form pictures mainly with lines, and
often in one color--black. The brushes they used were made of the
hair of animals, including rabbit, sheep, goat and wolf. Black ink came
from solid sticks made of pine soot and glue. Paper and silk were the
usual painting surfaces. In short, the tools for painting were exactly
the same as those for handwriting.
Color was of secondary importance. In one colored painting there
was often one prominent color to highlight its main part, and there
might be other vague colors to strengthen the effect.
There were different formats. The handscroll had a long, hori-
zontal form. It was suited to long and narrow paintings, like that of
the scenery of a river or scenes of a city . กฐ Riverside Scene on Qing-
ming Festival," done in the Northern Song period, presented the
scenes of a busy street with bridges, shops, houses and hundreds of
people, was perhaps the longest and best-known painting of this type.
The hanging scroll was more common. It was long and vertical,
with various sizes. At its bottom there was a wooden cylinder to pro-
vide weight when the painting was hung, and make the rolling easy
when it was stored.
Fans, either round or oval ones made of silk, or foldable ones
made of paper, were often painted by artists, who had to suit their
compositions to the fixed shapes.
One unique feature of traditional Chinese painting was the in-
scription. When a painting was completed, the artist himself, or a
friend of his, or a later owner of it, might write comments on the
work, usually interpretations of its theme or significance, in beautiful
handwriting. Such comments were often written in verse. They made
the work enjoyable in three ways: as a painting, as a literary work,
and as a calligraphic achievement.
Then there was the artist's personal seal, which was imprinted in
special red paste on the painting below his name. Although a seal con-
tained only the two or three characters of a person's name, its design
and the way the characters were written were infinitely varied. A
well-designed seat was a small precious work of art. Many painters
were also good at designing and. carving seals. So the traditional
Chinese artist might be a master of four arts: painting,, calligraphy,
poetry and seal making.