Landscape Painting of China and Japan. Hugo Münsterberg
services, should he still stand aloof, neglecting the responsibilities of honor and righteousness? In face of such duties the benevolent man cannot seclude himself and shun the world. He cannot hope to equal in spirit virtuous hermits such as Chi Tzu and Yin Hsü-yu or share the name of Hsia Huang-kung and Ch'i Li-chi.8
Since in doing his duty to society the lover of landscapes is cut off from the joys of nature, it is to the painting of landscapes that he must turn in order to participate, in spirit at least, in these delights, and Kuo Hsi goes on to say:
Having no access to the landscape, the lover of forest and stream, the friend of mist and haze, enjoys them only in his dreams. How delightful then to have a landscape painted by a skilled hand! Without leaving the room, at once, he finds himself among the streams and ravines; the cries of the birds and monkeys are faintly audible to his senses; light on the hills and reflections on the water, glittering, dazzle his eyes. Does not such a scene satisfy his mind and captivate his heart? That is why the world values the true significance of the painting of mountains. If this is not recognized, and the landscapes are roughly and carelessly approached, then is it not like spoiling a magnificent view and polluting the pure wind?9
Thus the onlooker, reverently unrolling a painting, was invited to identify himself with the tiny figures wandering about the valleys, standing at the water's edge, or contemplating the scenery. Kuo Hsi, discussing the different types of landscape, talks of those in which one can travel, those which can be gazed upon, those in which one can ramble, and finally, those in which one can dwell, stressing that it is the last two which are most praiseworthy. Few, he says, will ever achieve this effect, but these beautiful works arouse in the superior man the yearning for forest and stream. This emphasis on the landscape itself is peculiar to Chinese painting: in most Western art, the landscape is merely a backdrop for human activity, while here the reverse is the case, and man is subordinate to the immensity of nature.
In selecting a particular motif, the artist often drew upon traditional subjects, especially scenes which had been celebrated by the poets of the past, such as Li Po or Tu Fu. There is a Chinese saying that poetry is a picture without form and painting a poem with form, and a few lines from a lyric often served both as inspiration and subject matter. Kuo Hsi, discussing poetry, wrote: "The beautiful lines give full expression to the inmost thoughts of men's souls, and describe vividly the scenery before men's eyes."10 One of the most popular subjects was the group of eight views of the Hsiao and Hsiang Rivers, each of which represents a scene from the shores of Lake Tung-t'ing that Li Po had celebrated in the following famous poem:
On the Tung-t'ing Lake
Westward from Tung-t'ing the Chu River branches out,
While the lake fades into the cloudless sky of the south.
The sun gone down, the autumn twilight steals far over Chang-sha;
I wonder where sleep the lost queens of Hsiang of old.11
The very titles of these views are deeply suggestive of the spirit of this kind of landscape painting: The Evening Bell from a Distant Temple, Sunset Glow over a Fishing Village, Fine Weather after Storm at a Lonely Mountain Town, Homeward-Bound Boats off a Distant Coast, The Autumn Moon over Lake Tung-t'ing, Wild Geese Alighting on a Sandy Plain, Night Rain on the Rivers Hsiao and Hsiang, and Evening Snow on the Hills.
Other paintings show the valley of the Yellow River, a fisherman in a boat, a hermit in the mountains, a sage gazing at the moon or visiting a friend in his retreat, mist over the mountain tops, and many similar scenes. The overwhelming aspect of nature, especially of mountains, and the minuteness of man contemplating this majesty are the ever-recurring subjects of Chinese painting. In depicting such scenes, the artist was taught that he must first of all identify himself with the landscape and become one with the Tao which pervades all of nature, for only then could he begin to do justice to his theme. He was not concerned with that outward appearance of nature which absorbed the French Impressionists, but rather with its innermost spirit. Thus, he concentrated on the essentials, for only in so doing would he be able to present the soul of the cosmos. We are told over and over again how the great painters of China would spend months and even years wandering through mountain landscapes, immersing themselves in the forms of nature until they had discovered their true being; and then, and only then, would they take up their brushes and record their impressions. Preparatory sketches of the type common in our civilization are almost unknown in Chinese art, and painting directly from the scene itself was very rare, for the artist, after having achieved a mystical identification with the spirit of nature, recreated the vision from within himself.
Although the landscapes are often identified by name, and certain famous motifs are done again and again, this does not mean that these paintings are to be thought of as realistic versions of particular scenes, painted the way a Courbet might have painted an actual place, but rather that these traditionally admired sights were considered ideal landscapes. These scrolls were the expression of a cultural ideal which during the Sung period and after dominated the artistic output of the Chinese painter-scholars. During later periods, such as the Ming and Ch'ing dynasties, artists often derived their inspiration not from an actual scene but from a celebrated scroll by some painter whom they particularly admired, usually one of the great masters of the T'ang, Sung, or Yuan periods. This is not to say that these works were outright copies but rather that they were painted in the spirit of the artist who had inspired the work, so that the earlier painter became a kind of godfather to the later one. This, in a way, assured the continuity of the great artistic tradition of China, but at the same time it often had a stultifying effect upon the output of later periods, when a dead academicism replaced the vital artistic spirit which had prevailed in earlier times. This attitude also creates particular problems for the historian and the connoisseur of Chinese painting, since it becomes next to impossible to determine with certainty which scrolls are by the artists to whom they are ascribed and which are no more than copies of originals or works inspired by some famous masterpiece of one of the great painters of the past.
The landscapes represented were shown in a variety of moods depending upon the time of day, the weather, and the season of the year. There were morning or evening views, rainy or sunny scenes, tempestuous or tranquil ones, each represented in its own peculiar manner. As Kuo Hsi had said:
The spring mountain is wrapped in an unbroken stretch of dreamy haze and mist, and men are joyful; the summer mountain is rich with shady foliage, and men are peaceful; the autumn mountain is serene and calm, with leaves falling, and men are solemn; the winter mountain is heavy with storm clouds and withdrawn, and men are forlorn.
The sight of such pictured mountains arouses in men exactly corresponding moods. It is as if he were actually in those mountains. They exist as if they were real, not painted. The blue haze and white path arouse a longing to walk there; the sunset on a quiet stream arouses a longing to gaze upon it; the sight of hermits and ascetics arouses a longing to dwell with them; the rocks and streams arouse a longing to saunter among them ... the meaning of these pictures is wonderful.12
In painting these scenes the artist was not expected to give a life-like and detailed view, but rather a general impression which would convey to the onlooker a feeling of the scene as a whole. Too many intricacies would only interfere with his vision, for, as Kuo Hsi wrote: "When the artist succeeds in reproducing this general tone and not a group of disjointed forms, then clouds and atmosphere seem to come to life." Perhaps this ability to bring many details together into a unified and expressive whole, alive with the very spirit of nature, is the quality which distinguishes the great masters of Chinese painting from their many imitators and followers. These lesser men might be able, technically, to render every detail as the painter's manual had prescribed it, but they could not fuse these elements into a meaningful whole, and the result is an art both academic and eclectic, without any of the mysterious power which so pervades the masterpieces of Chinese painting. It is this that Hsieh Ho, the great fifth-century critic, had in mind when he made his first principle of painting the rendering of the "spirit-resonance and life-movement," or ch'i-yün sheng-tung in Chinese,13 a principle that lies at the very core of the Chinese conception of art. If the painter possessed this, he was, through inspiration, able to grasp the mysterious quality of nature, while if he lacked it, then the greatest