Masterpieces of Chinese Art [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION The art of China has many faces. Some of these, such as celadon porcelain, have been internationally famous for centuries, whilst others, such as the carving of personal seals, are virtually unrecognized in the West. Still others, such as Buddhist sculpture, had long been abandoned in obscurity until rediscovered by connoisseurs, frequently Western, ofthe present age. The West has played a notable role in this latter process, basically one of breaking down a very rigorous distinction made by the Chinese tradition between art and craftsmanship. Ceramics, as well as sculpture, are an outstanding example of this and it was the West that was largely responsible for bringing it out of the Imperial crockery cupboard onto its podium as one of China's artistic glories. But the West still largely ignores some ofthe finest expressions of her genius. Calligraphy, for example, which for many people is probably most closely associated with groceries in China Town, in the Chinese tradition is the highest achievement of visual art. Even in painting, a much more obviously universal language, a work can appear with quite different qualities when viewed according to Chinese visual habits. This book makes no attempt to present an historical sturvey of China's art; instead it illustrates some ofthe major themes running consistently through a tradition of many centuries. For the distinctiveness of this tradition is important in the measure to which it further clarifies values that are universal and, in an age when the socio-economic structure that supported China's artistic tradition has finally come asimder. Western artists have begim to explore forms of expression that for centuries were central to that tradition. The works of art here selected are grouped to represent, firstly, aspects of form (Plates 1-4), material (Plates 5-9) and technique (Plates 10-13). Then follow comparisons of taste in two main spheres of artistic activity, the courtly and the scholarly (Plates 14-25), together with some underlying and enduring trends, especially that of calligraphy (Plates 24-32). The last section (Plates 33-48) illustrates the Chinese artist's approach to a variety of aesthetic choices, such as those between different quahties of hne, in dynamics of composition and technique, between linear brushwork and painterly inkwash, and in the balance between representation and expression. FORM There is no art without form and the artist's approach to this most basic phenomenon can be endlessly varied. But within a tradition we may sometimes characterize a general approach. The Chinese were certainly particularly conscious of form in its purest presence, unlike the Japanese, for example, whose genius was rather one of texture and pattern. Chinese artists rarely present the visual feasts we find in Japanese art and sometimes perpetrate a dullness, or even a grossness, firom which the Japanese were protected by their fine taste. But the Chinese sense of form could achieve expression of such strength and integrity that the rewards of acquaintanceship grow ever greater. The greatest forms of this expression are in ancient bronzes, sculpture, ceramics, and painting and calhgraphy. Plate I. The chiieh is the most distinctive among the many forms of vessel associated with Chiaa's bronze libation vessel, chueh tripodj Bronze Age. Bronze appeared in China aroxmd the sixteenth century bc and so rapidly Shang dynasty, 12th century bc; reached high sophistication of technology and art that some historians suspect the h. 7.^in. British Museum, London. impetus must have been imported from further west. But all the evidence to date indicates that the development took place wholly within China. Its most important phase falls within the Shang period (c. 1600-1027 bc), when the use of metal was confined to a ruling class, which built China's first cities and held a Stone-Age peasantry in thrall. It was not until the 1930s, when the Shang capital city near the modem town of Anyang was excavated, that the twentieth century accepted the Shang and their bronzes as historically authenticated. The bronze vessels are now admired as among the finest of Bronze-Age art. The Shang rulers formulated elaborate rituals of ancestor worship, some of which entailed hundreds of human sacrifices. The chiieh was a wine vessel for ritual libation and various attempts have been made to explain its extraordinary shape in practical terms, such as a derivation from a short hom bound to two bamboo legs. The basic tripod is the most characteristic of early Chinese vessels and the form of the chiieh, which still appears tense with ritual purpose even to our modem eyes, shows this essentially practical type shaped by a highly origmal aesthetic sense. So effectively did this sense serve its ritual master, that when the Shang and their rituals were destroyed by the Chou conquerors, the chiieh vanished too. Plate 2. guardian lion, white marble with traces of This magnificent lion epitomizes the Chinese genius in sculpture. The art occupies an polychrome; eccentric position in the Chinese tradition, having flowered in a sudden glory during T ang dynasty, early 8th century; five centuries of Buddhist influence, from the fourth to the ninth centuries ad, and then h. iifin. Nelson Gdlery of Art, Atkins rapidly declined into a minor role. In traditional records it is almost wholly the work of Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City. anonymous craftsmen and we know nothing of the sculptors of the eighth century, an