ENGLISH EDITION OF THE WEEKLY CHINESE NEWSPAPER, IN-DEPTH AND INDEPENDENT
What Makes a True Grandmaster?
Summary:


By Spiritual Mouse Den (半窗灵鼠斋)
Issue 600, Dec 24, 2012
Lifestyle, page 58
Translated by Laura Lin
Original article: [Chinese]

In the history of Eastern and Western art, the aesthetic standards for painting have been more or less the same. The most esteemed paintings were large scenes with people in them. They can be broken down into the two categories, of either historical or  religious nature.

The classic scene of Christ being taken down from the cross naturally involves a lot of other characters, the Virgin Mary and the repentant Mary Magdalene being the most familiar. Where more than one person was depicted, the painting required both more skill and more effort.

In China, religion was relatively less important. Nevertheless, the paintings can be also divided in two categories, depicting either emperors and lords or the religious themes of Buddhism and Taoism.

However, as the Chinese dynasties progressed the way people were depicted in paintings changed. Painted during the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–589 AD), a period of disunity, instability and warfare, the famous Nymph of the Luo River (洛神赋) by Gu Kaizhi (顾恺之), shows human figures that are bigger than the mountains and the trees.

But by the High Tang Dynasty (late 7th to mid-8th century), the golden age in which China was at its pinnacle of culture and power, the Shan Shui (山水) - mountain and water - style of landscape painting in brush and ink had become the prominent art form. The painting Emperor Minghuang's Journey to Shu (明皇幸蜀) by Li Zhaodao (李昭道), shows Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty (685-762 AD) trapped in Sichuan province during the Anshi Rebellion. The mountains are towering and majestic whereas the figures are tiny in comparison.

The emperor, even though he is riding a horse, is almost too small to be seen. If one were not careful he might be overlooked entirely. If an emperor was depicted this way in paintings, one can imagine how ordinary people were viewed. Those who painted human portraits were considered to be "craftsmen" (匠人) by the landscape painters.

The three major schools of painters during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) were all Shan Shui artists.During the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), apart from Liu Songnian (刘松年), who was a painter of Buddhist and Taoist themes, the four major schools of painters also mainly painted landscapes.  
   
In the Yuan or Mongol Dynasty (1279-1368), ink monochrome landscapes were the only standard for valued painters. Ni Zan(倪瓒), who also went by the name Ni Yunlin (倪云林), (1301-1374), one of the "Four Masters of Yuan," never represented people, deeming that they would "sully" (肮脏) the painting.

Dong Qichang (董其昌), a prominent Ming Dynasty painter as well as calligrapher who lived from 1555 to 1636, was a typical follower of Ni Zan. He rarely represented people, and when he did, they were depicted in hasty and cursory brushwork, the eyebrow and moustache blurred together without any detail.

It was the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) masters who put an end to the suppression of human depictions in painting, which had lasted a thousand years. They rejuvenated portrait painting. These masters included Wen Zhengming (文徵明 - 1470–1559), along with his contemporaries Tang Bohu (唐伯虎 - 1470-1524) and Qiu Ying (仇英 - 1495-1552) all from the city of Suzhou, in the province of Jiangsu in Eastern China.

The Impact of "Old Lotus"

But it was Chen Hongshou (陈洪绶 - 1598-1652), known under the sobriquet Chen Laolian (陈老莲 - "laolian" means old lotus), who undoubtedly possessed the greatest skill, made the greatest impact and had the finest style.

Unlike the relaxed brushstrokes of his paintings – solid and long – the Old Lotus only lived to be 54. According to the history books, he had offended an important official and was killed. This wouldn't be at all surprising in the chaotic times of the Ming
Dynasty.

Extremely lecherous as he advanced in years, the Old Lotus more or less lived in brothels. Money did not mean much to him, but sponsoring him with the gift of a fine lady was the way to get him to work right away. One can only imagine the extraordinary vitality that he had!

The Ming Dynasty looked to the past for its inspiration and in art, the yardstick of aesthetics was to copy the ancient masters. Particular attention was paid not just to the appearance on the surface, but it had also to be deep and authentic. Old Lotus was the master of this. His paintings had the charm of the Jin and the Tang Dynasties, imprinted with the strangeness of line and elegance.  

By the mid-Qing Dynasty, Chinese portrait painters were gradually released from the pressure to produce landscape paintings. From the late-Qing Dynasty through to the Nationalist period and Communist China, basically all of the Southern Chinese figure painters have absorbed their artistic nutrition from the Old Lotus.

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