Chinese Art Treasures

The Chinese Art Treasures on exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston through Sunday offer an excellent chance for a comprehensive view of Chinese art, life, and thought. Sponsored by the government of the Republic of China, the exhibition contains items formerly belonging to the imperial court at Peiping and represents over eight hundred years of imperial collecting. The items themselves range in time from Shang ritual bronze pots which date about 1500 to 100 B.C. to eighteenth century Ch'ing dynasty enameled vases. Many of the items have not been displayed in more than twenty years. Due to the extreme security measures taken during the transfered of the collection to Taiwan, they have remained crated during and since their removal.

Painting dominates the exhibition. Calligraphy is also well represented. These two categories overshadow the bronzes, jade, ceramics, tapestry and embroidery. It is in the landscape painting and calligraphy that I feel the exhibit really surpasses the Boston Museum's own fine collection.

Since the fifth century, Chinese art has been guided by the Six Principles of Painting formulated by Hsieh Ho. It is extremely remarkable to the Western viewer that such a philosophy has survived and still serves as a criterion for judging art; the West has no comparable set of principles but has known many. To the Chinese, the endurance of Hsieh Ho's Six Principles is no oddity; the principles provide a general framework within which the artist may work freely. At the same time the principles enable the viewer to approach the individual works with more sensitivity.

The first of the Six Principles is the most important. The artist must capture the essence of his subject by reaching beyond a superficial resemblance to express its life movement and very breath. It is said that one of the Chinese masters would seclude himself in his room, drink freely of strong wine, remove his garments and creep about the floor, imagining himself to be the very beast he wished to paint. Then, his imagination stirred, he would seize his brush and paint the tiger or dragon, having identified himself with the essence of the subject. Whether the Chinese painter meditates quietly on his subject or applies himself violently to the task, the criterion of art is met only when the artist has "captured the beast"--the essential vitality of the subject.

The remaining principles of Hsieh Ho include proper usage of the brush, careful depiction of forms, "pleasing" application of color, and transmission and perpetuation of the masters. This sixth principle deeply influenced Chinese painting. Imitation of the great masters tends to become unimaginative repetition. There is no taboo on plagiarism in the East as in the West. The imitator was apt to become less forceful, further from the essential nature of the subject, as a result of his study of the masters. Continuities of style certainly mark Western art, too, but the variations have been more extreme and are not bound by the strict Chinese categories of subject matter for painting: landscapes, figures, animals, birds and flowers.

Historical Inertia

The paintings in the exhibition seem mysteriously timeless. This quality is in great part dependent on the stability of the Chinese civilization. In such a tradition-oriented country, receptivity of new ideas from the outside world was slow. Though early united by a belief in her supremacy over the neighboring barbarians, the "Celestial Kingdom" lacked the internal unity which derives from a rapid system of transportation or a common spoken language. Thus, with little exchange of ideas, progress was negligible.

The imperial collection is representative of Chinese art as a whole, for the emperors had as their command the leading painters and artisans of the day. The examination system which supplied the government with its officials bred gentlemen well versed in Confucian classics, calligraphy and poetry as well as painting. The majority of Chinese paintings are the works of such Confucian gentlemen, most of whom worked in the court, though some retreated from the capital to paint in seclusion.

What did interrupt this continuity were the periodic barbarian invasions which jolted the civilization from its static condition. These invasions coincide with a new force and vigor in the art.

One such renegade scholar was Shen Chou, whose delightful study of a cat is done in exuberant brush strokes of ink and wash. Shen Chou's acute observation of nature is expressed differently from the literati schools, which tended towards meticulous brush work well exemplified in a Sung drawing of a cat by Li Ti. The lively spirit of the cat is spontaneously displayed by Shen Chou's expressive brush. It is nearly lost amid Li Ti's minute strokes.

The brush stroke is the substance of Chinese painting. The relation between calligraphy and painting is close; in both the emphasis is upon dexterity with the brush and ink. Brush work is developed in painting to such an extent that the individual painter may be recognized by his rock or leaf stroke.

The greater part of the paintings are monochromatic, due to the influence of calligraphy which originally was considered a higher form of artistic expression than painting. Color was never considered as important to the painting as the brush stroke; only the black outline is essential. The potential of color was nearly exhausted by the tenth century. The magnificent "Deer among red maples" of the Five Dynasties period (906-960) shows the height of realistic color. This scroll is covered with foliage of red and brown earth tones, and deer are set naturally in the landscape.

Where the collection fails to be representative is in the works of the Ch'an (Zen) Buddhist monks which are noticeably sparse--no doubt because court and monastery failed to maintain close relations. Among the traditional scrolls of calligraphy there is an "Autobiographical Essay" by a monk which shows the Ch'an Buddhist application of Hsieh Ho's first principle. The characters appear like scribbles of a child among the stylized work of the emperors and scholars. A Zen counterpart in painting is the "Sage," a work by another monk. In a few rough, abrupt, sometimes unfinished brush strokes the figure is forcefully rendered.

The landscapes are the most impressive expression of Chinese thought in the exhibit. Zen Buddhist sceptisism, denying man's rational ability to explain the meaning of the universe, also denies to the artist the possibility of capturing space with his brush. The sense of incompleteness one feels in the division of a hanging landscape scroll into planes separated by mysterious mists and clouds is a ploy to stimulate intuitive completion. Miss Waite '62 is writing her thesis on the dragon in Chinese art and civilization.