Page 11 - Studio International - October1973

means necessary today in which today's mid-air. provided the pretext for expression, and that
revelation manifests itself, resounds. The So acute is the mind in such instants of form is no more than a vehicle for feeling has
resonance is then the soul of the form which divine comprehension, also been central to the aesthetic of the Chinese
can only come alive through the resonance, and What chaos is there that it cannot marshal in literati since the Sung Dynasty, when the poet-
which works from within to without. The form • miraculous order ? painter Su Tung-p'o (1o36-1 I or) said that the
is the outer expression of the content'. gentleman painter is not attached to material
How is this inner content revealed ? By Kandinsky's dualism of outer form and inner objects; when he paints he merely 'borrows' the
absolute spontaneity first of all. The second of content had been stressed in the fourth century form of things in which, for the moment, to
Kandinsky's three types of creative art, which by the Chinese Buddhist and mystic Tsung `lodge his feelings'. But he does not leave them
he called Improvisation, he defined as 'a largely Ping, who opened his brief 'Preface on there, and so form attachments that would
unconscious, spontaneous expression of inner Landscape Painting' (Hua shan-shui hsü) with burden him. The catalogue (which appeared a
character, of non-material (i.e. spiritual) these words : 'The sages, cherish the Tao within few years later)' of the Emperor Hui-tsung's
nature'. Andre Breton called it Automatism, and them, while they respond to the objective collection, contains, in an entry on the bamboo
said it was 'the only mode of expression which world; the virtuous purify their minds, while painter Wen T'ung (d. 1079), the statement that
gives entire satisfaction . .. by achieving a they appreciate represented forms. As to he 'availed himself of things in order to give
rhythmic unity'. And Klee described how 'the landscape paintings, they both have material lodging to his exhilaration.' Dissociation from
creative impulse suddenly springs to life, like a existence, and reach into the realms of the the object has a long history in Chinese art.
flame, passes through the hand onto the canvas, spirit'. And again, 'The divine spirit is infinite; Even the aims and techniques of the Cubists
where it spreads further until, like a spark that yet dwells in forms and inspires likeness; and were, to some extent, anticipated by the
closes an electric circuit, it returns to the source, thus truth enters into forms and signs'. Forty Chinese landscape painter Wang Yüan-ch'i
the eye and the mind'. Creation, he said, 'must years later a scholar and musician named Wang (1642-1715), whose method of, as it were,
of necessity be accompanied by distortion of the Wei (not the famous T'ang painter-poet) wrote a • pulling his rocks and mountains apart and
natural form: only in that way can nature be short 'Preface on Painting' (Hsu hua) in which reassembling them into a tightly organized
reborn and the symbols of art revitalized'. he clearly distinguished between representation, mass, with a semi-abstract organic unity of its
When representation of the object was no which was the 'discipline' of painting, and the own, has been likened, in its laborious intensity,
longer the chief aim of painting the Western animating spirit, which was its 'essence'. to Cezanne's method of realizing his 'little
artist could abandon the traditional view that The concept of the 'inner resonance' of the sensation'. Wang Yüan-ch'i's particular method
space in a painting could only be made real object, which Kandinsky said constituted the of painting was indeed unique in Chinese art,
through the objects that occupy it. This was `material of art', and the 'rhythmic unity', which but the distortion of natural forms has been
forcefully expressed by Naum Gabo in the André Breton in 'What is Surrealism ?' saw as the common with Chinese gentleman painters since
Realist Manifesto of 192o: 'We renounce volume aim of painting, have much in common with the the Yuan Dynasty.
as a pictorial and plastic form of space; one first of the six principles of painting set down by Two centuries after Wang Yüan-ch'i, Paul
cannot measure space in volumes as one cannot Hsieh Ho between AD 53o and AD 550. This Klee spoke of the expressive distortion of form
measure liquid in yards . : . What is it principle, ch'i-yün sheng-tung (literally, 'spirit- as the only way in which 'nature can be reborn
(i.e. space) if not one continuous depth ?' And, resonance, life-movement'), has become the and the symbols of art revitalized'. We are
to emphasize this fundamental point, he cornerstone of Chinese aesthetic theory down forcibly reminded of the great Ming Dynasty
repeated, 'We cannot measure or define space the centuries. It means, in essence, that the critic and theorist Tung Ch'i-ch'ang (1555-
with solid masses, we can only define space by painted forms, which in Far Eastern art are 1636), whose painting and writing illustrate the
space'. Gabo also proclaimed the idea, which always to some degree conventionalized, must concepts of distortion and revitalization to a
was revolutionary in the West, that the plastic be brought to life by the animating spirit (ch'i). remarkable degree. In Tung Ch'i-ch'ang's
arts could embody, through movement, a Early Chinese painters felt that this 'spirit' was landscapes the rocks and mountains are twisted
synthesis of space and time, when he wrote, a cosmic force, external to the artist, with which and contorted, flat receding planes rise up to
`We affirm in these arts a new element, the he must intuitively identify himself through the confront us, forms interlock and interpenetrate
kinetic rhythms, as the basic forms of our contemplation of the natural world. Later with teasing ambiguity. In later scholarly ,
perception of real time'. Such pronouncements, writers held that the ch'i was something awaiting painting in general, and in Tung's work in
which seemed in their day destructive of all release from within the psyche of the individual particular, these are not merely distortions of
artistic values, are now, so profound has been painter. They would have agreed absolutely natural forms; they are, even more, distortions
the change in our thinking in the West, taken with Kandinsky that 'form harmony must rest of the forms created by the great early masters
for granted. To a Far Eastern painter, each of only on the purposive vibrations of the human in the amateur tradition, such as Tung Yuan and
them would have seemed a statement of the soul'. As Will Grohmann has observed 'the Far Huang Kung-wang, upon whom Tung Ch'i-
obvious. East is better equipped to understand ch'ang modelled his style. He acknowledged
The creative impulse described by Klee had Kandinsky than we are'. that no landscape painter could avoid using the
been the theme of a remarkable long poem, the Revolutionary ideas put forward by the schema inherited from his predecessors, but he
Wen fu ('Prose-poem on Literature'), written in symbolists also have their far older Oriental insisted that the repertoire must be creatively
AD 30o by Lu Chi, who analyses with passionate counterparts. The belief expressed by Aurier reinterpreted by each successive generation of
insight the joys and frustrations of literary that the painted forms can in some sense stand painters, and that this revitalization of the
composition. Here he describes the sudden for ideas, is central to symbolist theory. The symbolic language inevitably involved distortion
coming of pure inspiration and its equally Chinese summed up the theory in two words — of both inherited and natural forms.
sudden vanishing: hsieh i (literally, 'write ideas') — a purpose which In January 1949 Jackson Pollock described
Such moments when Mind and Matter hold gentlemen painters had held up since the Sung his method of painting in a few now famous
perfect communion, Dynasty as the true aim of painting; accurate sentences. 'When I am in my painting,' he said,
And wide vistas open to regions hitherto representation could be left to the court 'I am not aware of what I'm doing. It is only
entirely barred, painters and professionals. The aesthetics of after a sort of "get acquainted” period that I see
Will come with irresistible force, scholarly painting in China raise pictorial what I have been about. I have no fears about
And go, their departure none can hinder. symbolism to a level of subtlety undreamed making changes, destroying the image, etc.,
Hidden, they vanish like a flash of light : of by Gauguin and Aurier. because the painting has a life of its own. I try
Manifest, they are like sounds rising in Maurice Denis's belief that nature merely to let it come through. It is only when I lose
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