Abstract
The synthetic beauty of landscape painting is derived from the organic combination of four interrelated forms of art including painting, calligraphy, poetry, and seal cutting. It plays an active role in human living, especially in the case of scholars in Chinese history. The art of painting landscape is not technique-oriented alone. It is also about how to enjoy, evaluate, and appreciate what is expressed in the painting. In order to illustrate this point, some selected methods and theories are introduced and explicated in this chapter. Moreover, a discussion of three levels of aesthetic experience is briefed with reference to landscape, culturescape, and literati painting.
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Notes
- 1.
The “four unique components” are known in Chinese as si jue (四绝), including hua (画), shu (书), shi (诗) and yin (印).
- 2.
Zhang Yanyuan, Li dai ming hua ji [Famous Paintings in the Preceded Dynasties] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang Renmin Meishu Chubanshe, 2011).
- 3.
The translation is modified according to my understanding with particular reference to the English renderings by Herbert Allen Giles and Lin Yutang. In Chinese the top principle is qi yun sheng dong (气韵生动), the second is gu fa yong bi (骨法用笔), the third is ying wu xiang xing (应物象形), the fourth is jing ying wei zhi(经营位置), and the sixth is chuan yi mo xie (传移模写). The English translation of the six rules are varied in expressions not only because of no verbal equivalents available, but because of the distinctive results of understanding and interpretation. A relevant example is found in this book: Susan Bush, The Chinese Literati on Painting: Su Shih (1037–1101) to Tung Ch’i-ch’ang (1555–1636) (Cambrige, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 127.
- 4.
Susan Bush, The Chinese Literati on Painting, pp. 16–20.
- 5.
Guo Xi, Lin quan gao zhi [An Essay on Landscape Painting] (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2011), “Shan shui xun” 山水训 [Of Mountains and Waters].
- 6.
Ibid.
- 7.
In his book on Chinese painting, Zhang Yanyuan knocks down the value of moxie as one of the six cardinal principles of painting. He argues that those who cling themselves only to moxie as imitation and representation will be confined to their self-satisfaction with formal or image resemblances while ignoring the expression of the vital rhythm, to the use of coloring on surface while losing the sketching expertise. See Zhang Yanyuan, Li dai ming hua ji [Commentary on the Famous Paintings in the History], in Shen Zicheng (ed.), Li dai lun hua ming zhu hui bian [Selections from the Famous Historical Writings on Chinese Painting], Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 1982), p. 36.
- 8.
Xie He who lived in the fifth century sums up the art of painting into six leading rules stated above. Zhang Zao who lived in the eighth century is renowned to advocate the motto of “wai shi zao hua, zhong de xin yuan” (外师造化中得心源) that emphasizes the apperception of the living rhythm within the artist and the appealing scenes in nature. On the occasion of this apperception as a living experience, the internal self is harmonious and interactive with the external cosmos.
- 9.
Shao Yong, Guan wu pian [How to Contemplate things]; also see Philosophy Department of Peking University (ed.), Zhong guo mei xue shi zi liao xuan bian [Selected sources in the History of Chinese Aesthetics], Vol. II, 17–20. The two methods in Chinese are yi wu guan wu (以物观物) and yi wo guan wu (以我观物).
- 10.
Wang Guowei, Wang Kuo-wei’s Jen-Chien Tsi-hua: A Study in Chinese Literary Criticism (trans. Adele Austin Rickett, Hong Kong University Press, 1977), pp. 41–42. The English translation is modified according to the original text. The four key notions in Chinese are you wo zhi jing (有我之境), wu wo zhi jing (无我之境), yi wo guan wo (以我观物), and yi wu guan wu (以物观物).
- 11.
Li Zehou, The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics, pp. 187–188.
- 12.
Li Zehou, The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics, p. 194.
- 13.
William Watson, Style in the Arts of China (London: Penguin Books, 1974), p. 83.
- 14.
William Watson, Style in the Arts of China, pp. 85–86.
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Wang, K. (2021). The Art of Painting Landscape. In: Beauty and Human Existence in Chinese Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1714-0_10
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