toward a structural analysis of chinese landscape painting.pdf

8/12/2019 Toward a Structural Analysis of Chinese Landscape Painting.pdf

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Wen C. FongToward a StructuralAnalysis of Chinese Landscape Painting

A critical and historical study of Chinese paintinghas long suffered from the lack of an acceptable methodfor dating paintings by style. Mr. Li Lin-ts'an of the Na-tional Central Museum in Taiwan has published a seriesof three articles dealing with this problem.' In "Rules forDating Chinese Painting," Mr. Li lists the study of mate-rial, technique, period style, personal style, signature andcolophon, and catalogue description as "six methods fordating."2 In "The Dating of Ink-bamboo Painting," hesamples eighty-eight bamboo paintings attributed to fa-mous masters, from the tenth through the eighteenth cen-turies, and attempts diagrams illustrating the technicaldevelopment of the bamboo stalks and leaves. These dia-grams show, for instance, "ring joint technique," "plainjoint technique," "dotted joint technique," "naturalleaves," "star-shaped leaves," "feathered-shaped leaves,"etc.3Mr. Li's classification of motifs and techniques con-tinues in the tradition of the "Mustard Seed GardenPainter's Manual" of the seventeenth century. By arrang-ing his motifs chronologically, he hopes to establish cer-tain criteria for dating. His demonstration suffers, how-ever, from two serious difficulties: firstly, he is faced withthe problem of circularity: that of having to date a styleby means of examples which themselves need to bedated; secondly, motifs are easily imitated and perpet-uated in the copies. Even if we assume that all of Mr.Li's samples are correctly dated and authentic, his dia-grams of motifs merely illustrate, as in the "MustardSeed Garden Painter's Manual," the technical traditionsof the various masters' manners. They provide no cluefor the actual dating of a painting, or a copy, in the man-ner of a given master.

IAn interesting appendix to Li's "Rules for DatingChinese Painting" shows seven illustrations by the fa-mous contemporary Chinese painter Chang Ta-chien (orChang Dai-chien), demonstrating the development of thedrawing of the hand as seen in Buddhist wall-paintingsat Tun-huang.4 Mr. Chang notes, for instance: in theNorthern Wei period, the drawing of fingers shows nei-ther joints nor nails; during the reign of K'ai-yiian, (713-742), the hand is plump and soft and has "nails that re-cede into the finger-tips": during the middle T'ang, thenails "grow over the finger-tip, tapering to a roundedpoint"; in early Sung hands, there is a short straight line

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Fig. i. Detail of Mirror, early 8th century, Sh6s6in Treasury, Nara, Japan.at the base of the finger nail. Mr. Chang's demonstrationis methodologically meaningful in at least two respects:firstly, since his wall-painting examples are archaeologi-cally discovered and dated, he does not have to concernhimself with the problem of later copying and imita-tion;5 secondly, by describing not only the shape of thefinger nail but also how it is grown on the finger-tip, heis observing a morphological detail, which, if verified byall archaeologically dated examples, may constitute a pe-riod characteristic that governs all figure paintings ofthat period. There is, from the point of view of descrip-tive method, a significant difference between Li's "star-shaped leaves" and Chang's "nails that recede into the fin-ger-tip"; the former merely identifies a two-dimensional

Mr. Fong teaches Chinese art at Princeton. This paper isa statement he wrote some time ago in preparation for abook on Chinese landscape painting. M

SLi Lin-ts'an, "Chung-kuo-hua tuan-tai-yen-chiu-li [Rulesfor Dating Chinese Painting], "in" Studies Presented toTung Tso-pin on His Sixty-firstBirthday," The Bulletinof the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica,extra volume no. 4, 1961, pp. 551-582; "Chung-kuo-hua-shih ti ch'ung-chien [the Reconstruction of Chinese Paint-ing History]." Ta-lu tsa-chih, XXXI, no. 5, 1965, pp. 1-5;"Chung-kuo mo-chu-hua-fa ti tuan-tai-yen-chiu [Study onthe Dating of Chinese Ink-bamboo Painting]," The Na-tional Palace Museum Quarterly, Vol. I, no. 4, 1967, pp.25-79.'Op. cit.,pp. 554ff.' Op. cit., betweenpp. 78-79.SOp.cit.,figures14-17.' There is, of course, the problem of repair and repaintingin wall-painting, which often complicates the task of sty-listic analysis.

ART OURNALXVIII4 388


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Fig. 2. Landscape with Riders on an Elephant, 8th century, Sh6s6in Treasury, Nara,Japan.

motif without indicating its structural relationship withother parts of the painting, while the latter, by showingconcern for the relationship between two motifs, the nailand the finger-tip, begins to describe a structural configu-ration. Mr. Chang, however, did not carry his sensitive

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"the brushwork is gentle and supple; it is capable of de-scribing some of very difficult hand gestures."When we try to identify and describe an individualmanner, we usually note its special form elements, mo-tifs and techniques on the one hand, and its uniqueexpressive qualities on the other. When we try to classifya style, however, we interpret the stylistic peculiarities ofan individual work as specific solutions to generic struc-tural problems.6 While neither motif nor quality givesadequate evidence for fixed positions in time, morpholog-ical analysis dealing with successive visual structures inhistory provides a key for dating a painting. From thestructural point of view, before a painting of whateverform elements, motifs or techniques can express a certainphilosophy or mental outlook, it resents first a solutionto the problem of delineation, modelling and composi-tion. Form relationships seem to change without directrelationship to meaning.' An obvious example is that de-spite the Chinese painter's avowed lack of interest in"form-likeness," they nevertheless successfully masteredillusion in painting.Every Chinese painting is at once representation,decoration and abstraction; it is the arranging of formelements to create a semblance of nature that exists in itsown right. From the representational point of view,Chang's illustrations show the development of the draw-ing of the hand from a two-dimensional silhouettedshape to a three-dimensional and fully articulated, grasp-ing organ: each stage is characterized by certain struc-tural problems and solutions. The Northern Wei handwas neither joints nor nails, because it is conceived as asilhouetted form without organically differentiated com-

Fig. 4. Autumn, Eastern Mausoleum at Ch'ing-ling, Eastern Mongolia, ca. 1030.

ponents. The early T'ang emphasis on complex hand-ges-tures reflects an interest in conquering the technical diffi-culties in representing a hand. Both the short nails "thatrecede into" the finger-tip and long ones "that growover" the tip show the middle-T'ang concern for organicdetails. Finally, the "short straight line at the base of thefinger-nail" seen in the early-Sung paintings represents anincreasing interest not only in modelling but in decora-tive stylization as well; both tendencies are typical of therepresentational art of the tenth century.

IIThe modern notion of a "period style" is based onWolfflin's famous assumption that "every artist finds cer-tain visual possibilities to which he is bound. Not every-thing is possible at all times."8 As an abstract conceptwhich deals with the structural principles rather thanspecifically identifiable motifs and qualities of a work ofart, however, a "period style" exists only as an idea.

SIn his well-known article on "Style" (in AnthropologyToday, edited by A. L. Kroeber, Chicago 1953, pp. 287-312), Meyer Schapiro notes that the word "style" is gen-erally used to describe three different aspects of a work ofart: 1) form elements or motifs, 2) form relationships, 3)qualities (including an over-all quality which we maycall "expression"). Following this definition, we mightsay that the Chinese critics have traditionally emphasizedform elements and qualities, but neglected form relation-ships, in their stylistic descriptions. See my article, "Chi-nese Painting: A Statement of Method," Oriental Art,new series, vol. IX, no. 2, summer 1963, pp. 73-78; alsomy article, "The Problem of Ch'ien Hsiian," The ArtBulletin, XLII, September 1960, p. 188.'In The Shape of Time (Yale University Press, 1962),Professor George Kubler writes: "the structural formscan be sensed independently of meaning. We know fromlinguistics in particular that the structural elements un-dergo more or less regular evolutions in time withoutrelation to meaning. . . . Similar regularities probablygovern the formal infrastructure of every art" (pp. vii-viii).

' Heinrich Wilfflin, Principles of Art History, 1915, trans-lated by M. D. Hottinger, Dover paperback edition, NewYork,p. 11. Italics added. George Kubler points out thatthe limits of the existing state of knowledge "confine orig-inality at any moment so that no invention overreachesthe potential of its epoch." (op. cit., p. 65).ARTJOURNALXXVIII 4 390


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While it is a natural process of the mind to comprehendfacts through generalization, the historian is caught for-ever in a seemingly absurd circle of having to understandindividual facts in terms of a general theory although thelatter can be formulated only on the basis of individualfacts.9Faced with a paucity of established stylistic facts inChinese art history, earlier Western art-historians tendedto lean too heavily on metaphors and Western analogies intheir characterizations of Chinese stylistic developments.Professor Ludwig Bachhofer, for instance, saw Chinese artas going through the familiar Wdlfflinian cyclesof graphic,plastic and ornate-or, archaic, classic and baroquestages.1' However useful it was as a pedagogical device,Bachhofer's dating of individual objects, on the basis of aStilgeschichte on the W6fflinian model, appeared dog-matic; in one reviewer's words: "There is firstof all an apriori framework into which works of art in evolutionaryprogression are made to fit .... [Bachhofer is] an art-his-torian who regards style as the be-all and end-all of arthistory: style is a kind of sinister autonomous force

which in all ages and in all climes inexorably induces art-ists to produce works of art in a certain preordainedfashion."It is of course distressing to those who value the in-dividuality of a work of art to have that individuality ig-nored by generalizations and classifications. To mostscholars, documents, literary evidence, and above all, theindividual qualities of the artist and his work remain thecentral important concerns of art history. Professor MaxLoehr has suggested that perhaps the dating of copies isnot important; "As long as we have no means of ascer-taining the authenticity of individual works and attribu-tions [by documentary and historical means], the histo-rian is constrained to concern himself with the questionof the authenticity, not of discrete works but of theirstyles."12He makes a careful distinction between "au-thenticity" and "importance"; copies and imitations offamous masters' works can be very important, whilearchaeological evidence may be authentic but unim-portant.13 "The importance of a work," he writes, "de-pends largely on [the historian's] insight into its one-time stylistic newness." A new style is a new idea .... Thehistorian is interested in the inceptions of styles, not intheir perpetuation.14 In his quest to understand an "im-portant" stylistic "idea," he prefers the evidence of latercopies to that of the archaeologically recovered works ofthe period, trusting himself to the "importance" of the"idea" in the copies. He lines up all the copies and attri-butions in a distinct manner, meticulously studies andtabulates their motifs, then makes an intuitive leap to an"insight into its one-time stylistic newness."'5

' Erwin Panofsky describes this circulus methodicus as an"organic situation." See Meaning in the Visual Arts,Doubleday Anchor Books, New York 1955, pp. 8-10, and35, n. 3. E. H. Gombrich discusses the problem as follows:"The paradox of the historian's position seems to me pre-cisely that the cherished particular can only be approachedon a spiralling path through the labyrinth of generaltheories, and that these theories can only be mapped outby those who have reached the particular. Think of theexciting adventure of deciphering an ancient script whichis not far from everybody's mind today. The individualinscription is studied for what we can learn of the secretsof the script, and the script in its turn for what it will tellus of individual inscriptions. To divorce the one from theother would not only be foolish, it would be impossible."'"Ludwig Bachhofer, A Short History of Chinese Art,Pantheon Books Inc. New York, 1946. According to Pro-fessor Bachhofer, the development of Shang bronzes "tookits natural course, from the simple to the complicated,"moving from the "graphic" to the "plastic" and finallyto the "ornate"; the Chou begins with "a new cycle startedon a new basis with very simple tectonic forms and endedwith complex atectonic forms." Similarly, "it was impos-sible . . . to keep sculpture from completing its cycle [ofarchaic, classic and baroque]." In painting, the majorcycle, according to Bachhofer, ends with the "baroque"phase of Southern Sung. With Chao Meng Fu (1254-1322)there began a "neo-Classicism in which many artists sawsalvation from the utter destruction of form wrought bya baroque style ... [by turning] deliberately to the linearart of the great T'ang masters." "Mannerism" and "ec-lecticism" dominated the remaining centuries, with ap-parently only brief interruptions such as when neo-classi-cism was fully re-instated by one of the great painters ofthe sixteenth century, Ch'iu Ying.

"Review of Bachhofer's book by Benjamin Rowland, Jr.,in The Art Bulletin, XXIX, 1949, pp. 139-141.2 Max Loehr, "SomeFundamental Issues in the History ofChinese Painting," The Journal of Asian Studies, XXIII,no. 2, p. 187." Loehr writes: "It is conceivable that we might arriveat a fairly accurate idea of the history of Chinese paintingon the basis of copies and imitations, if these are under-stood in their stylistic sequence, and it is equally conceiv-able that a body of undubitable original works (if thereis a way of establishing their genuineness) may not yieldan historically intelligible sequence." (Ibid.)14Ibid., p. 188."In his recent book, Chinese Landscape Woodcuts froman Imperial Commentary to the Tenth-century PrintedEdition of the Buddhist Canon (Cambridge, The BelknapPress of Harvard University Press, 1968), Professor Loehrmakes a "catalogue of [sixteen] motifs typical of the fourwoodcuts and of various paintings [attributed to the T'angand Sung periods] in which the same motifs occur" (p.42). He then summarizes the qualities which these motifsshare in common: "They are bold, even drastic motifs....There is an element of exaggeration in them, not con-trolled by rational restraint nor leavened by the experi-

391 Fong: Toward a Structural Analysis of Chinese Landscape Painting


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Fig. 5. Fragment from Khara-khoto, Inner Mongolia, ca. 1160-12, ink on silk.

Fig. 6. Wall-painting at Tomb of Feng Tao-chen in Ta-t'ang, Shansi, ca. 1265.

But a true historical synopsis must embrace bothconceptual discipline and individual facts. How can weformulate an historical development of Chinese paintingwhich, in short, combines the idea of periodic change inpictorial structure (or form-relationships) in painting,with the knowledge of continuous individual mannerscharacterized by individual motifs (including form ele-ments and techniques) and expressive qualities?We must study the archaeologically recovered earlyworks for the only remaining evidence of fixed visual po-sitions during the early periods. It has frequently beenpointed out that archaeological data (including firmlydatable works such as those in the Sh6s6in Treasury in

Nara, Japan) are of only limited value, because they represent the work of anonymous craftsmen rather than ofranking artists and, as such, tell us little of the great creative moments of the time. The significance of such datahowever, lies in their indubitable authenticity. Archaeological materials showing early Chinese landscape paint-ing through the late-thirteenth century are found fromJapan to innermost Asia, and these offer a clearly definable stylistic development. That widely scattered worksshould appear in a linked sequence of change is impor-tant. Even though these works' may not mark the stylisticfrontiers of their times, they indicate a set of visual posi-tions that must be taken into account whenever the dat-ing of an attributed work is in question.

IIIThe development of landscape painting shown byarchaeological evidence from the pre-T'ang (before 7th

ence of consciously explored visual reality" (p. 52). Seereview by Richard M. Barnhart to appear in ArtibusAsiae.ARTJOURNALXXVIII 4 392


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century) to the early Yiian period (late 13th century) isone ranging from ideographic motifs to the creation of il-lusionistic space. The principal elements in Chinese land-scape painting are mountains (or rocks) and trees. Ar-chaic representations of mountains and tress closely re-sembled their ideographic forms: t (shan) showingthree mountain peaks, a "host" flanked by two "guest"peaks, * (mu) describing both forking branches aboveand anchoring roots below. The first important composi-tional discovery was that overlapping triangular moun-tain motifs suggest recession (fig. 1). By the seventh andeighth centuries, fixed compositional schemas developed.All the three principal schemas, later described by KuoHsi (active ca. 1060-1075) as the "high-distance" (kao-yiian), "flat-distance" (p'ing-yiian) and "deep-distance"(sheng-yiian) views, can be seen among eighth-centurypaintings in the Sh6s6in, Nara, Japan (fig. 2), and ninth-century ones from Tun-huang (fig. 3).16 These three com-positional schemas have been basic to Chinese landscapepaintins ever since; the picture-plane dominated by verti-cal elements, the picture-plane filled by a series of hori-zontal elements, and the picture-plane divided verticallybetween these two alternatives. In the T'ang and early-Sung examples, space is compartmentalized, a picture isentered in stages, each with a suggested receding planetilted at a different angle towards the viewer. As seen inthe wall-paintings at Ch'ing-ling in East Mongolia, datedaround 1030 (fig. 4), which represents a panoramic "flat-distance" view, individual motifs are organized on an ad-ditive principle; they are seen part by part, and motif bymotif.In the silk fragments of landscape sketches from theCentral Asian site of Khara-khoto, dated archaeologicallybefore the early-thirteenth century as (fig. 5), and the re-cently discovered wall-painting at Ta-t'ung in northernChina, dated 1265 (fig. 6), spatial continuity developed.This was done first through the fragmentation of moun-tain masses (fig. 5). Disconnected silhouettes of dissolvedforms, ranging continuously through space, are united bythe mist or void around them. Finally, physical integra-tion of landscape elements is achieved through the estab-lishment of a consistent, receding ground-plane. In thewall-painting of 1265 (fig. 6), mountains and trees are or-ganic masses. Brushstrokes are fused and blurred; theysuggest forms seen through atmosphere.

Fig. 7. Fan K'uan (ca. 990-1030), Travellers among Streams and Mountains, Na.tional Palace Museum, Taiwan.

Each mode of representation corresponds to a wayof seeing. Archaic graphic conventions (cf. fig. 1) reduced,transposed and re-created nature; the words of the latefourth-century landscapist Tsung Ping explain this ap-proach: "A vertical stroke of three inches may equal aheight of several thousand feet; a horizontal passage ofink of a few feet may represent a distance of a hundredmiles.""1During the late-T'ang and early -Sung period

16 Four paintings on biwas in the Shas6in, all dated before756, show the three principal schemas: "Sitting under aMountain" represents the "high-distance," "Hawks andDucks" represents the "flat-distance." "Tiger Hunt" and"Musicians on an Elephant" (fig. 2) represents the "deep-distances." In the 9th century Buddhist silk banner fromTun-huang (fig. 3), the top scene is a "deep-distance," themiddle is a "high-distance," and the bottom one is a "flat-distance."

'TP'ei-wen-chai shu-hua-p'u, chilan v/2a. Translated byAlexander C. Soper, "Early Chinese Landscape Painting,"The Art Bulletin, xxiii/2, June 1941, p. 164.393 Fong: Toward a Structural Analysis of Chinese Landscape Painting


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Fig. 9. Chao Mang-fu (1254-1322), Autumn Colors in the Ch'iao and Hua Mountains, dated 1296, National Palace Museum, Taiwan.

(cf. fig. 2, 3 and 4), philosopher-landscapists systemati-cally translated natural phenomena into different sets ofinterdependent yin-yang relationships. As motifs, therewere for instance "earthen mountains" (t'u-shan) and"rockymountains" (shih-shan), densely foliaged trees andbare branches. In technique, there were brushed linesand inked dots or washes. The "principles" (li), so oftendiscussed by early-Sung theorists, referred to both theprinciples of nature and the principles of pictorial struc-ture. What was observed in nature must be articulated intheoretical principles as well as pictorial forms. Thepart-by-part compositions of the Northern Sung, hereseen in the magnificent hanging scroll in the PalaceMuseum in Taiwan, attributed to, and commonly ac-cepted as by, Fan K'uan (ca. 990-1030) (fig. 7) by reveal-ing different views of landscape in a controlled sequence,

represented no mere retinal impressions of nature, butimages of the macrocosm. In Chang Huati's (twelfth century) words: "Painting distinguished the 'black' ofheaven from the 'yellow' of the earth; it disclosed the secrets of the yin and yang of creation. ... Whatever canbe comprehended through the figures of the diagrams [ofthe Book of Changes] may be represented with physicalform.1s The Southern Sung treatment of simplified land-scape forms in mist, archaeologically exemplified by theKaraikhets ragment (fig. 5), is described in a text by HanCho (12th century).'9 In Sailboat in Rain attributed to,and acceptable as by, Hsia Kuei (ca. 1190-1230)at Boston(fig. 8), there is no ground-plane that actually links orholds the objects, but the space depicted is unified andcontinuous. Frontal silhouettes of mountains and treesare made to float and fade into a void, representing amist which ties the elements in a sequential fashion,motif by motif.The illusionistic technique shown by the wall-paint-ing of 1265 (fig. 6) is explained in a text by HuangKung-wang (1269-1354),which in turn perfectly describesthe drawing and brush technique seen in the famous

handscroll by Huang, Dwelling in the Fu-ch'un Moun-tain of 1350 (fig. 10). The most important work for thestudy of early Yiian painting is the short handscroll Au-tumn Colors in the Ch'iao and Hua Mountains, dated1296, by Chao Meng-fu (1254-1322) (fig. 9)..20 As a workthat exemplifies the Yiian scholar-painting aesthetics, thepainting is well known for its use of archaic motifs andcalligraphic brushstrokes. Yet in spite of their differencesin form elements and brush idioms, there are great struc-tural similarities between this handscroll and the ar-" P'ei-wen-chai, chiian b/7a."See Osvald Sirdn, The Chinese on the Art of Painting.Peiping 1936, pp. 81-87." See Chu-sing Li, Autumn Colors on the Ch'iao and HuaMountains, Ascona, 1965.

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Fig. 10. HuangKung-wang 1269-1354), Dwelling in the Fu-ch'anMountains,dated 1350, NationalPalace Museum,Taiwan.

chaeologically discovered wall-painting of 1265 (fig. 6).Both paintings show an illusionistic technique of creat-ing forms with fused brushstrokes of mixed ink tones,and an integrated spatial organization with a physicallydescribed ground-plane. The similarities indicate that, inthe second half of the thirteenth century, an anonymousprofessional wall-painter in the North and a great schol-ar-painter from the South, despite their differences inexpressive intent and artistic reputation, were at approxi-mately the same level in solving the structural problemsof landscape representation.It was precisely at the moment when illusion wasmastered that leading Yiuanpainters sought increasinglyfor the extra-representational qualities in painting. NiTsan (1301-1374) expressed the Yiian interest in "idea-writing" (hsieh-i), when he wrote: "I do not seek forform-likeness, merely using painting to amuse myself."21Likeness, a matter of eliciting recognition, or the lack ofit, can be understood of course only within the context ofthe visual structure of the time. Although the Yiian paint-ers applied calligraphic techniques to painting, they didnot paint calligraphic abstractions. In the accepted worksby Chao Meng-fu, Huang Kung-wang and Ni Tsan, indi-vidual brush-strokes are subordinate to representation, al-ways describing and modelling form. After the Yiian,brushwork increasingly assumed an independent expres-sive quality, and eventually dominated the representa-tional form (figs. 11 and 12). Structurally, while the Yiian

painters were concerned with the problems of creatingdepth and recession and the treatment of forms in space,the Ming painters turned, more and more, to problemsof surface organization and decorative values in painting.The very complex details resulting from the "conquest ofillusion" in painting demanded new organizationthrough pattern and stylization (fig. 11). Calligraphicmannerisms and archaizing motifs were explored, in theMing period, for decorative purposes, and at the very endof Ming and in early Ch'ing, as abstract forms in space(fig. 12).

IVVisual structure alone, of course, does not fully ex-plain style; an artist's style changes not because of evolu-tionary law, but because of conscious stylistic choice.22Inthe second half of the thirteenth century, for instance,Chao Meng-fu (fig. 9) chose to paint in a calligraphicidiom, while the Ta-t'ung wall-painter (fig. 6) used amore conservative ink-wash idiom. Art-historically, this

" P'ei-wen-chai, chiian villb.

" Max Loehr has formulated this problem well: "Tenta-tively I would conclude ... that changes of style are notcaused by immanent forces; that 'immanence' is a con-struct derived from an apparent logicality in sequencesof style; that this logicality stems from the rational andconscious act of innovation achieved by an individualartist; and that without the creative individual's mindthere would be no change, no sequence, no logicality, andno inevitability to speculate upon." ("Some FundamentalIssues .. ," p. 189).395 Fong: Toward a Structural Analysis of Chinese Landscape Painting


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Fig. 11. Wen Cheng-ming (1470-1559), Landscape in the Manner of Wang Meng,"dated 1535, National Palace Museum, Taiwan.

difference is more important than the fact that they bothworked within an illusionistic structure. Similarly, itmeans little to say that Ming painting is "decorative"and Ch'ing landscape is "abstract,"unless we can relatethe Ming surface decoration and the Ch'ing abstractspace to the scholar-painters's expressed interest in callig-raphy and the aesthetics of hsieh-i, or "idea-writing."The aim of structural analysis is to reconstruct theformal problem to which stylistic changes must corre-spond as linked and purposeful solutions. In this recon-struction, historical and literary records, artistic treatises,as well as attributed works which constitute the bulk andessence of the available visual material must necessarilyplay an even more important role than the archaeologi-cal evidence. Literary records usually ignore the commonand stress the unique; annals of art record the great mo-ments of creative invention in much the same way as dy-nastic histories emphasize the heroic exploits of the greatleaders. The stylistic development deduced from the ar-chaeological evidence, on the other hand, represents ahistory of style without knowledge of individual contri-butions. With the help of literary records, individualcontexts and critical purposes can be reconstructed.Attributed works must be studied in the light of notonly archaeological and literary evidence, but also allother attributed works. I suggest that the following con-siderations may eventually bring order to the complexi-ties of Chinese painting history: First of all, we assumethat the manners of the ancient masters underwent visi-ble structural alterations in each century at the hands of

their admiring imitators. When a painter paints in themanner of an ancient master, he borrows first the ob-vious identifying brush idioms, form elements and com-positional motifs. If he hopes to produce a close likenessof his model he also tries to capture its expressive quali-ties. In expanding the original solution and giving itfresh understanding, however, the copyist deviates fromthe original and makes subtle structural changes, thusbringing his work to a new visual position. The copyist,in short, shows in his work not the real ancient master,but a transmitted and transformed image of him. Whilequalitative differences are difficult to argue about, struc-tural changes can be more easily detected anddescribed.23

Secondly, since the visual material in the Chinesepainting field abounds in copies and imitations, it lendsitself to Professor George Kubler's idea of "formal se-"An exact tracing copy may preserve much of the originalstructure, but it suffers from a lack of spontaneity in exe-cution. For various methods of forgery, see my article,"The Problem of Forgeries in Chinese Painting," ArtibusAsiae, Vol. XXV, 2/3, 1962, pp. 95-119.

ARTJOURNALXXVIII 4 396


11/11

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Fig. 12. Tung Ch'i-ch'ang (1555-1636), Landscape in the Manner of Huang Kung-wang, Cleveland Museum of Art.

quences" and "linked solutions."24 Copies and deriva-tions of a single composition, done in various periods,form one kind of sequence. Imitations and forgeries ofworks of a given master, done in various periods, form asecond kind of sequence. Signed works of well-knownpainters of different periods that are deliberately couchedin the distinct manners of some earlier masters, say,"Huang Kung-wang," "Wu Chen," "Ni Tsan" or "WangMeng," form yet a third group of sequences. Properlystudied, all the works in different sequences should ap-pear in series of linked solutions, beginning with theoriginal work, or its closest copy, and passing throughsuccessive stages of replication and transformation. Sincethese sequences, or continuous traditions, form parallelstylistic movements, they will corroborate, enrich andmodify each other, eventually filling out a general stylis-tic development through the different periods.Thirdly, to prove the authenticity of an individualwork, we must go beyond structure. To prove that one oftwo attributed works in a stylistic sequence is an originaland the other a later imitation; or forgery, we must givein order the following evidence: firstly, that the "correct"

4Op. cit., pp. 33ff. By characterizingstylistic developmentin terms of "sequences"and "linked solutions," ProfessorKubler avoids the difficulties of both the biographical ap-proach, which limits stylistic description to an individuallife span, and a Stilgeschichte on the Wdl;flinian model,which implies a necessary sequence of styles. (See ibid.,p.36).

painting is structurally, a work of the period to which itis attributed; secondly, that together with literary andother attributed material, the painting not only contrib-utes to the understanding of the personal style of themaster, but also explains the transmitted image of themaster's manner in later periods; and finally, that the"wrong" painting can be explained and placed in a laterperiod, within the attributed master's stylistic sequence,or tradition. When the best of the attributed works areestablished as original masterpieces, or their close copies,they will reveal the great moments of creative progress.

El GrecoThese saints do not believeThat God can forgive. NotAll the Prophets's reassurancesCan shake their prideful intelligence.No, not even love, given fullyOr received, makesany difference.

-Thomas B. Brumbaugh397 Fong: Toward a Structural Analysis of Chinese Landscape Painting

toward a structural analysis of chinese landscape painting.pdf

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