China and the West

Moore, Marianne. Tedium and integrity. Typescript Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia. [Lecture about Tao of painting by Mai-mai sze].
. . . This whole theme—the thought of integrity—was suggested to me by THE TAO OF PAINTING, with a translation of THE MUS¬TARD SEED GARDEN MANUAL OF PAINTING 1679-1701, by Miss Mme Mme [Mai-mai] Sze; published by the Bollingen Foundation, 1956. Hsieh Ho [Xie He] whose Six Canons of Painting were formulated about a.d. 500 said, "The terms ancient and modern have no meaning in art." I indeed felt that art is timeless when I saw in the Book Review section of The New York Times last spring, the reproduction of a plum branch by Tsou [Zou] Fu-lei, XIV century—a blossoming branch entitled A Breath of Spring. (Sometimes, I am tempted to add, when one breaks open a plum, one gets a fragrance of the blossom).
Tao means way or path. There is a Tao and there is The Tao, as Miss Mme Mme [Mai-mai] Sze explains. In Chinese writing, which is pictographic as you know, The Tao is portrayed as a foot taking a step (ch'o [zu]) and a head (shou). So we have the idea of wholeness of total harmony from head to foot. Step by step progress requires deliberateness, suggesting that meditation is basic to living, to all that we do, and that conduct is a thing of inner motivation. Pictographically, man is but a pair of legs, whereas the Tao is an integration of body, legs, arms, and above all a head. China’s concept of The Tao as the center of the circle, the creative principle, the golden mean, is one of the oldest in Chinese thought, shared by all schools. The Tao is the mark. The soul is the arrow. Indeed Lieh Tzu [Liezi] said, "To the mind that is still the whole universe surrenders."
It is not known in what period the idea of Yin and Yang originated, but as early as the XI century [b.c.] they were mentioned as the two primal forces. The Yang, the Male Principle — symbolized by the right foot—was identified with sun, light, action, positiveness; and Yin, the Female Principle, with the moon, darkness and quiescence.
There are two important features of Chinese painting.
1. The close relationship between painting and calligraphy. Writing Chinese characters developed a fine sense of proportion—prominent in every aspect of Chinese life. Confucius regarded a sense of fitness as one of the Five Cardinal Virtues.
2. The view that painting is not a profession but an extension of the art of living. Usually therefore, painting was an expression of maturity. A painter was likely to be an astronomer, a musician, perhaps a medical man. In acquiring the education prescribed by the Tao of Painting, a painter underwent rigorous intellectual discipline which included in-tensive training of memory. So authorship in China is integral to education, please note—not a separate proficiency to be acquired. (Rather humbling to those of us who devoted much time [to] incidental aspects of writing.) Chinese philosophy, Mme Mme [Mai-mai] Sze observes, might be said to be psychology—a development of the whole personality; and egotism—or what the Bhuddist [Buddhist] called ignorance—obscures a clear vision of the Tao. It is unusual, at least in my experience, to come on a book of verse which has not a tincture of sarcasm or grievance, a sense of injury personal or general, and I feel very strongly what Juan Ramon Jiménez said in referring to something else—to what is not poetry—"there is a profounder profundity" than obsession with self.
Painting should be a fusion of that which pertains to Heaven— the spirit — and of matter, which pertains to Earth, as effected by the painter's insight and skill. The search for a rational explanation of nature and the universe encourage a tendency to classification—almost a disease as noted by Miss Mme Mme [Mai-mai] Sze, when carried to an extreme; and in China Six Canons of Painting were formulated, as has been said, about a.d. 500 by Hsieh Ho [Xie He], Of these the first — basic to all—controlled the other five and applies to all kinds of painting was spirit. The word ch'i [qi]—in the Cantonese version pronounced hay, is almost hke exhaling a breath, cognate in meaning to pneuma and the word spiritus.
2.The Second Canon says "The brush is the means of creating structure." The ideal takes form. The spiritual aspect has tangible expression, and while one result of the tendency by Sung [Song] academicians to stress faithful representation, was to hamper spontaneity, a happy result was the superb paintings of insects, flowers, animals, and birds. In Volume II of the Manual where methods are illustrated, we have bud and buds beginning to open, thick leaves that withstand winter, plants with thorns and furry leaves, grasshoppers, large grasshoppers, crickets, beetles and the praying mantis; small birds fighting while [flying], a bird bathing and a bird shaking off water.
3. According to the object draw its form.
4. According to the nature of the object apply color.
5. "Organize the composition with each element in its rightful place." One is reminded here of Hsieh Ho's [Xie He] statement: "Accidents impair and time transforms but it is we who choose." In Volume II, in which methods are illustrated, one has "tiled structures at several levels, at a distance," (nests of very beautiful drawings), walls, bridges, temples, a lean-to of beanstalks. "If a man had eyes all over his body," the Manual says, "his body would be a monstrosity. ... A landscape with people and dwellings in it has life, but too many figures and houses give the effect of a market-place." Perhaps the most important factor in harmonizing the elements of a picture is space, Miss Mme Mme [Mai-mai] Sze feels: "the most original contribution of Chinese painting, the most exhilarating." "Space of any kind was regarded as filled with meaning—in fact was synonymous with the Tao. A hollow tree was not empty but filled with spirit. The spaces between the spokes of a wheel make the wheel, and inner space, not the pottery of the pitcher, is its essential part," it is not a set of walls but "the space in a room that is its usefulness." One of the Twelve Faults was "a crowded ill-arranged composition"; or "water with no indication of its source."
6. In copying, transmit the essence of the master's brush and methods. Chinese thinking abounds in symbolism and the circle as a concept of wholeness is surely one of great fascination. Everything must be in proper relation to the center. A circle's beginning (its head), and end (or foot) are the same, unmoving and continually moving and still life — nature morte—is contrary to the whole concept of Chinese painting. The Tao (a path) lies on the ground, is still, yet leans somewhere and so has movement; and we have, therefore, an identity of contraries which are not in conflict but complementary opposites or two halves of a whole, as in the Yin and Yang—symbolized by the disc divided by an S-like curve. It is not known in what period the idea of Yin and Yang originated, but as early as the XI century [b.c.] they were mentioned as the primal forces. The Yang, the Male Principle identified pictographically with the right foot—was identified as well, with sun, light, action, positiveness; and Yin, the Female Principle, with the moon, darkness, and quiescence.
The Chinese dragon is a symbol of the power of Heaven, a main characteristic being constant movement — slumbering in the deep or winging across the Heaven. At will it could change and be the size of a silkworm or swell so large as to fill the space of Heaven and Earth, and so represents totality. It had also the gift of invisibility. A second type of symbol pertains to flowers, birds, and animals —the phoenix, the tortoise, the unicorn, the crane, the pine, the peach, being motifs for long life, and the bamboo, a symbol of elegance.
So complete is the Manual that the brush, the ink, inkstone, and paper (or silk) — the Four Treasures — are minutely discussed. In making the brush into one end of the hollow bamboo holder, a tuft of hair or fur is inserted and fixed with a little glue. As for glues, the much- esteemed Tang-o [Dong'e] glue was made by boiling donkey-hides in Tang [Dong] River water, which contained special minerals. Other good glues were made from deer horns or fish skin. The jet blackness and sheen of a certain ink made from pine-soot, also depend on the preparation. "To dull the ink, pulverized oyster-shells or powdered jade were added although jade was put in principally as a gesture of respect to the ink." "Old ink sticks and cakes have a unique fragrance, often heightened by adding musk, camphor, or pomegranate-bark" "Old ink is treated like a vintage wine." "Not only can great variety of tone be produced from one stick, but several kinds are often used in one painting, since ink often blended with color, enriched the venerable air of trees and rocks," the Element of the mysterious, the dark and fertile dignity hovering over hillock and pool."
"The aim of the entire Manual is to develop the painter's spiritual resources." "There is an old saying": (quoted in this Preface to the Shanghai Edition (1887) of the Manual) "that those who are skilled in painting will live long because life created through the sweep of the brush can strengthen life itself, both being of the spirit—the ch'i [qi]."
"To achieve trueness and naturalness is to be in harmony with the Tao—the equival of an act of worship." "Natural spontaneous brush-work is like the flight of a bird." "The function of brush and ink is to make visible the invisible."