tang dynasty times

Huizong's Plum Blossoms 宋徽宗〈蠟梅山禽〉

  

Mountain birds, unfettered and proud;
Plum blossom pollen, soft and scattering softly.
This painting-- but a promise
Of a thousand autumns to come
Painting mountain birds

山禽矜逸態 梅紛弄輕柔  已有丹青約 千秋猜白頭

A promise of a thousand autumns... he writes these words in calligraphy of such stunningly elegance that it continues to take my breath away every time I catch glimpse of it.

I had even said that it was his calligraphy that should be admired more than anything about him-- arguing defiantly against Professor Wong's claims that it was the cataloging of the ancient bronzes that remain his crowning achievment.

Of course, if you asked Him, he would just insist that it was his collection of fantastical rocks which were his ultimate achievement. Those rocks-- transported to the capital by a myriad of boats costing so much money that many cite that particular project of his as being one of the causes that ruined the empire.

Rocks and Rites; bronzes and calligraphy like dancing crane legs-- one could also be forgiven for forgetting to mention painting.

But, in fact, he also loved painting and one of the first things he did upon taking the throne was to request that the painting and calligraphy section of the Imperial Collection be sent to his private quarters for study. As a result he was cautioned by the Director of the Collection against performing acts such as this which could be perceived as unfilial:

"The late emperor has just passed away, the Nation is still in mourning.  Should this demand for pleasurable objects be known to the public, Your  Majesty will be highly criticized. The prestige of Your Majesty is now  like the rising sun... To lose reason in personal pleasure is against the  principles of your ancestors”

Unfilial or not, to Huizong, the art of painting was much more than a mere personal pleasure. Painting was his great passion, and rising up the general standard of the art, as well as reforming the Court Painting Academy were among the most important items on the imperial agenda for Huizong right from the beginning of his reign. (You've gotta love a man with a mission).

Up until that time, in fact, painting had been held in much lesser esteem compared with the great Tang art forms of poetry and calligraphy. Whereas poetry and calligraphy were thought to be direct expressions of the moral virtue of the artist, painting was considered to be more of a decorative craft, along the lines of porcelain, for example. In many ways similar to Western art, early pre-Song Chinese painting had seen as its main preoccupation the mastery of the technical methods which would enable the painter to achieve a truly realistic representation of his subject.

The early Greeks called this mimesis, and it was this “imitation of reality” which they considered to be the main goal of art. The Italians of the Renaissance mastered this in the early Fifteenth Century (in a period which scholar E.H Gombrich refers to as “The Conquest of Reality,”) and this preoccupation with naturalism continued on in the West all the way down to quite modern times.

In contrast, scholar-artists in Song China began turning away from realistic representation, and they derided the professional paintings of the Academy, describing such works as “overly realistic, decorative and contrived,” and instead aimed at what can be described as moving in the direction of symbolic self-expressionism. Su Shih famously remarked that as long as it was painted “with spirit” even “bamboo painted in vermilion ink would do.”

Often, in fact, a given artist’s work would be admired by Song scholar-officials as much for the eccentric lifestyle or virtuous conduct of the artist as for the art work itself. In comparison, the work of the painters of the Academy was thought of as being overly polished and lacking in depth. 

Huizong sought to change this, however-- thereby raising up the level of the Imperial Academy. And, taking his cue from the great scholar-officials of the day, introduced the lyrical component into Academic painting. At Huizong’s Academy, painters would be assigned themes from poetry, and the finished art works were judged not only by their naturalism and form-likeness, but also for the subtle and sophisticated way in which the artist was able to convey the subjective emotion of the theme.

Two particularly famous poetic topics given to his court painters are described by James Cahill:

 “When, for example, the assigned verse was ‘A wineshop by
 a bridge surrounded by bamboo,’ the award went to Li T’ang for
 his having chosen to depict not the establishment and its customers,  as others did, but only the wineshop flag protruding from the bamboo  grove, indicating, by a device akin to synecdoche in poetry, the presence  of the shop. When it was ‘The horses hooves were fragrant on returning  from trampling flowers,’ the winner was the one who responded  by showing butterflies, attracted by the fragrance of the flowers, fluttering  behind the horses.” 

I had the most vivid dream about this scene a few years ago-- a painter in the academy, we had been given the theme of "horse hooves were fragrant from trampling flowers"-- and, of course, I froze. In pure terror, stage fright is probably the best word for desribing my paralysis. As, of course, this kind of painting on a theme is performance at its best. No touch ups, no corrections, no going back. And, in fact, I woke from the dream drenched in sweat, still with no idea how to draw a painting on that theme to satisfy my Emperor-- who was, while perhaps flirting with the lyrical, in the end remained a true perfectionist.

For interestingly, at the same time that Huizong accepted the preference of the scholar-officials toward the lyrical over the merely decorative, he was still firmly committed to naturalism, and therefore any painter at his court who couldn’t produce a natural and accurate representation of a subject would be sent home, rejected for being artistically immature (or as my calligraphy teacher repeatedly stated: it's only interesting to break a calligraphic rule if you first show you knew the rule in the first place) 

Another famous anecdote (again here quoted from Cahill) has one newcomer at the Academy being rewarded for what others considered his mediocre representation of a tea-rose. When asked why he valued this particular painting so highly, Huizong responded:

 “There are few who are skillful enough to paint the tea rose, for its flowers, stamens and leaves all differ with the four seasons and the time of day. Here without the slightest error, he painted one at noon on a spring day. That is why I rewarded him richly.”

We can perhaps best see in Huizong’s own art works the unique blending of the lyrical with Academic naturalism which so characterizes the art of his Court. In Birds in a Blossoming Wax-plum Tree, a hanging scroll (now in Taipei) which most scholars believe to be from the Emperor’s own hand, we find two plump starlings resting on the thick branch of a fragrant, blossoming wax-plum tree. Beneath the plum tree are narcissus flowers, also in bloom. In bloom right now here in Tochigi, the flowers-- both dazzlingly pale and fragrant blossoms-- are symbols of early spring.

Delicately drawn, the picture takes up perhaps a third of the space. And complimenting the picture is a poem, written in the Emperor’s own fabulous calligraphy:

 Mountain birds, unfettered and proud;
 Plum blossom pollen, soft and scattering softly.
 This painting-- but a promise
 Of a thousand autumns to come
 Drawing mountain birds 

 

Most people realize that Chinese paintings are often inscribed with calligraphy, but as Professor Cahill explains, while the composition of poetry on paintings is an old practice in China, “for the painter himself to inscribe it was a new one, probably no older than Huizong’s time.”

Did I mention-- he also loved drawing peonies. 

 

 

 

dream journeys 臥遊

--from the peony archives

   

A friend and I were talking about the way certain places can leave a deep and indeliable impression on a person.

He said, It's always cities that draw me.

Really? I replied, For me, it is almost always landscapes. But like with people, it's not that every place will have the power to move me, but rather that I long for certain landscapes like I long for certain people.

And, I cannot remember if I said this aloud or just thought it, but so tied is this feeling of being moved to the workings of my inner world (that place where my heart beats) that some of these landscapes I have never even actually traveled to; they are, nonetheless, no less significant to me 

By this time-- and some of you may even know this much about me-- I was already on my tiny boat, drifting very slowly downstream as each of the legendary Eight Views passed in front of my eyes. Bathed in mist, the pale landscapes seemed to be themselves drifting hazily in and out of focus-- drawing me in through their ambiguity. This ambiguity being characteristic, of course, of all the finest Southern Song landscapes, where the imagination of the viewer and the emotion of the landscape merge. 

Dream Journey over Xiao Xiang 瀟湘臥遊図巻

The painting is a Song dynasty masterpiece, and now a National Treasure of Japan. Without a doubt, it is within this landscape that I travel more than anywhere. Maybe many of you will feel the same when I say that very rarely do I meet a person who is so agreeable; who engages me so fully on the level of the heart that I am quite certain that a lifetime with that person would never be enough. That is also how I feel about this painting. And, for 10 years it has been my computer desktop wallpaper. Some of you will, I suppose, be thinking: Wow, 10 years-- that's a long time to look at the same painting. Believe it or not, though, I never grow tired of gazing at it; as it continues to fascinate and draw me in.

So there I am alone on a boat just ahead of my lover, who is drunk and trying to paint peonies in the boat just behind mine. Sometimes it starts to rain-- ruining the painting-- and therefore ruining my always precarious mood.

Can you see us? Slowly, slowly floating downstream as the landscapes unfold-- one after the other-- in front of our eyes (here I present them in the traditional Japanese order):

Autumn Geese Descending on a Sandbar  平沙落雁  
Returning Sails off Distant Shores  遠浦帰帆 
Mountain Market in Clearing Mist 山市晴嵐 
 River and Sky in Evening Snow  江天暮雪
Autumn Moon Over Lake Dongting 洞庭秋月
Night Rain on Xiao Xiang 瀟湘夜雨 
Evening Bell from Mist Shrouded Temple 烟寺晩鐘

As I wrote elsewhere about the painting, Song landscapes are not only viewed but are paintings that one can "walk around in." This is the Dream Journey implied by the painting's title. It is the potentially rich empty space in the painting-- the hallmark of Southern Song landscapes-- that in effect carries the viewer far beyond the painted images into a pure and natural realm beyond the "dust of the everyday world.

Obviously, it isn't easy to brush off the dust when one is living down on the flatlands-- where the air is foul and stifling-- so one needs props. "Gayu" is the Japanese pronunciation of the characters 臥遊 "dream journey." Like the ability to imagine mountains even when you are down on the plaines, for a literati scholar it was paramount to always be able to access this world of cultivated mind and spirit-- even from within the dusty and oftentimes unbearable confines of ordinary life in the city. 

My beloved was very fond of using this theme at his academy. However, while He seemed to appreciate both the landscape and the idea of Xiao Xiang, He never actually painted in that style Himself. Always preferring to paint colorful birds and peonies. (I hope no one will hear this as a complaint for I have nothing but good to say of my man of Kaifeng).

And, where are these landscapes located, you are wondering? Well, the celebrated Eight Views of Xiao Xiang 瀟湘八景　are to be found-- in the parlance of the ancients-- in the southern part of the Kingdom of Chu. Yet another Chinese "watery world of lakes and marshes," the northern part of the region in particular is known for the beauty of the great river (where it flows east of the Three Gorges). One of the Yangzi's major tributories, the River Xiang also flows east ending its own long journey pouring into Lake Dongting, after being augmented along the way by dozens of smaller rivers and streams-- one of which is thought to be the River Xiao. 

The theme of the "Eight Views of Xiao Xiang" were, in fact, already old by my Lover's time, having been celebrated hundreds of years earlier in Tang dynasty verse. It is thought that it was an official working in the Tang Ministry of Transport and Administration in Changsha who painted the very first series of "Eight Scenes." The paintings unfortunately no longer exist, but some suggest that they were painted on the walls of a terrace that stood overlooking the Xiang River in Changsha. Whatever their appearance, they must have been stunning, as before long they had created such a stir which continued all the way down to the late Song court.

Not only did my lover and I talk of Xiao-Xiang unendingly, but so too did our pet peeve Su Shih (Okay, I admit, Su Shih was mainly my pet peeve, and I took every chance I could, too, to blacken his name at court-- really, how could I resist?) In any event, before I could stop him and his endless grumbling, he had composed a set of poems which became so famous, that the Eight Views of Xiao Xiang became the stuff of legend. 

A legend that would travel to my new home of Japan where it become celebrated in true 文人 style.

As much as Su Shih annoyed me (and indeed, I must admit to you Dear Readers that I often fantasized about putting him down a well); in fact he did say something rather wonderful about how, while even a child could produce a work of realistic likeness, that only a true scholar and a gentleman was able to create art of moral value; so that-- again-- even from within the confines of the city (or God Forbid, from within the walls of a gulag), that the viewer could be utterly transported. Su Shih praised this kind of art that could induce a state which could put the viewer in touch with the simplicity of nature-- or in his words: with the dao.

To be continued...

**

Recommended reading: Dreaming the Southern Song Landscape/Van Gulik's Chinese Pictorial Art by the Connoisseur/ Barthes, A Lover's Discourse (adorable! as fascination)

Finally: These images. MW: the large title calligraphy "Dreams of Mists and Clouds" (氣吞雲夢) was written by Qianlong. I wrote about my favorite calligraphy by Dong Qichang in that comment (do you remember where I wrote that? I can't find it)

**

Listening to the night rain on Xiao Xiang (瀟湘夜雨 )-- it is a thousand years of tears (and it's as close as I could get to the Eight Views):

Thinking of Mi fu

--from the Peony archives

The other day, talking about how beautiful Japanese kimono are with a friend, he said that he thought it was a shame that we too don't have more chances to dress up in the styles of a hundred years ago. 

Dressing in the styles of a hundred years ago...

After pausing ever so slightly to imagine what exactly that would look like, I found myself smiling and thinking immediately of Mi Fu. Madman Mi, as he was also lovingly known, served for a brief time at the court my lover the Emperor-- for indeed, the two shared much in common, and I like to imagine that maybe they were even good friends.

Born in Shanxi (Hubei?) Province, it is believed that Mi Fu's family was also of Sogdian origin-- a fact that Peter Sturman suggests Mi Fu went out of his way to conceal-- even changing one of the characters used to write his name (to give it a more Chinese sound).  Thanks in part to his mother’s connections at Court where she served as a Lady-in-waiting to the Consort of Emperor Shenzong, Mi Fu was able to enter the official bureaucracy without ever having had to take any of the official examinations.

Despite his excellent connections, though, Mi was never particularly "career-oriented" as he remained till the very end devoted to the creation, study and collection of art. In fact, to this day, Mi Fu is considered to be one of the greatest connoisseurs of art in Chinese history. His passion started while he was still quite young, and he has described in his writings how his mother more than once sold her ornamental hair combs in order to fund his collecting while he was still only a child.

To call him an eccentric would only be an understatement.

For he walked the streets of the capital dressed in the fashions popular hundreds of years earlier during the Tang dynasty, because he claimed he admired the styles back then.

He was also known for introducing himself and bowing to especially fine specimens of garden rocks which were of the type he collected; addressing them politely as “elder brother.” Greatly admired by Emperor Huizong for his knowledge and style, he was appointed Director of the Calligraphy and Painting Institute at Court where the Prime Minister was said to have observed, “Mi Fu is the kind of person we must have one of, but cannot afford to have two of!” Even though his knowledge was formidable, his personality was such that he didn’t last long at Court.

Spending his later years roaming the waterways of the country on his houseboat, named “The Mi Family Calligraphy and Painting Barge,” he managed to acquire an immense collection of important works of calligraphy, painting, ancient bronzes, and other antiquities. His acquisitions were sometimes of a dubious method as he was known to have replaced some originals of borrowed works with replicas, and on more than one occasion threatened suicide to friends who wouldn’t agree to sell their masterpieces to him. He was also reported to have stolen the plaques from temple gates because they provided fine samples of a particular style of calligraphy. His foibles were usually forgiven, because, of course, he was considered a genius. What Mi Fu was unable to acquire, he managed to at least find the opportunity to view, and so his knowledge of Chinese art was encyclopedic.

In addition to being a painter, he is most famous for his calligraphy, which as a practitioner further deepened his academic knowledge of the subject. His theories of identification and authenticity of calligraphy earned him a red belt from the Emperor after he helped in the research of certain pieces in the Palace Collection when the new inventory was being made. Because many of the original works of jin calligraphy which Mi Fu was able to view have long since disappeared, his opinions regarding the authenticity of various pieces of calligraphy in Huizong’s collection have become invaluable to scholars down to today.

When I think of Mi Fu, I always smile for I, too, like his style. With his huge personality and great appreciation and knowledge of art, like my Emperor, he is, in the end, forgiveable.  Thinking of my recent conversation with the mysterious Professor A. Ku, I wonder if it could even be argued in Kierkegaardian terms that Mi Fu's thievery and conniving was just another case of the suspension of the ethical-- that is, it was all in the line of duty. For art was for Mi Fu, his life's Defining Commitment, absolutely defining him in the way all geniuses are defined by their art.

**

Mi Fu is the kind of guy I would love to go to coffee with-- but you will notice he was not selected to go to Paradise with me. Why? Well, perhaps I have grown tired of big personalities-- which I have noticed lately seem to come with their equally bad side.

My friend in the Hanlin Academy is also concerned with issues of character (人徳等) and says, think about what the difference is between having a lot of personality and a lot of character. I believe perhaps it is true that character demands a kind of consistency-- in one's speech and actions-- and more, that such consistency itself demands a kind of restraint (rather than a leap into something new as in Kierkegaard, for example).

This is probably a famous anacdote but my tea sensei loved it. She said, Michaelangelo didn't sculpt images in marble as much as he simply cut away what was unnecessary and extraneous, thereby allowing that which was already present in the rock to come forth. She said that this was the Way of Tea. The removal of everything unnecesary or superfluous. Each movement has meaning, she said. "Do what comes natural to you" (I found, though, it worked better for me when I did the opposite of what came natural...!)

I know my Emperor would have been delighted if I had invited Mi Fu to Paradise with us.... but really, like with so many people with big personalities, I think the dangers were not worth the risk.

**

This is the best book on Mi Fu I have read. It is probably hard to come by now...

Above painting by Vietnamese painter Hong Viet Dung, Girl with Lotus Leaf. Below: Boy with Lotus Leaf

And, The World of Mi Fu's Art: another National Palace Museum wonder.

 

between mountains and the sea

My lover the Emperor spent the remainder of his days in a cold Manchurian prison-- not far from present-day Harbin. Many of You will recall his lonely last poem; a poem which continues to haunt me.

  

 Swallow Mountain Pavilion
 I tell of the sorrow of partings upon partings
 To a pair of swallows
 Who refuse to understand

 The heavens are so faraway; the earth so faraway
 Separated by countless rivers and countless mountains
 Oh, where is that old Palace?

 How can I ever forget that old Palace?
 Sometimes I visit in dreams
 And yet all alone
Sometimes I am even unable to dream

There between mountains and the sea, my man is unable to even dream. And, on many a dreamless afternoon, he and I would engage in silent conversations, like those famous conversations that had occurred between Marco Polo and the Great Khan hundreds of years later. 

Sitting by an open window, the frigid, northern wind would blow in us, and I would imagine asking him questions that he would imagine answering. Wiling away our cold days together, we engaged in unending imaginary conversations in this way.  

Sometimes we would talk of empire.

If we could go back in time and dream up a more perfect political philosophy, what would our empire have been like? What kind of state would create the greatest happiness for the largest number of people.That this should be our aim, we both silently agreed. He had by this time given up his predilection for daoist philosophy. While it sounds good, it was a potential disaster in terms of politics. Confucianism seemed a more sound and promising philosophy, he said, on which to found an empire. And so, we proceededed from there.

It remains my opinion that he was a man who could think outside the box. Often going against the prevailing tide, he found himself often behind one after another cause célèbre. Perhaps it could be said that he agreed with me that it was the second generation of rights that should be given priority. Water, food, health care, education, safety-- and safety nets-- for the entire population, some might call our empire paternalistic. Maybe. And, if that is so, the system would only be as good as the father was good; thereby requiring elaborate checks and balances to ensure this.

Government by the many (democracy)/Government by the best (oligarchy)/Government by the one (monarchy)

Similar to Plato's conclusion, because each of these forms of government have their inevitable weak points, we both were inevitably drawn to some sort of mixed government which would make optimal use of the ideas of mixing democracy, scholars/non-hereditary elite and monarchy, much as was also described by Aristotle in his Politics.

Anyway, it was always fun to discuss the details.

The other day though, influenced by a certain sexy thinker's thoughts on Epicurean philosophy, I found myself undergoing a kind of change-of-heart, regarding our Confucian pact. When he read my posting on the topic, however, he seemed to worry that I was advocating some form of hedonism.  

And so I extemporized an answer I thought would persuade him:

I read that, in fact, hedonism comes from a root meaning honey-- that pleasures are sweet...... To say that life should be full of pleasure-- as the ancient hedonists said-- is NOT the same thing as claiming that our every desire and hunger should be satisfied (as the modern Americans do, right?) 

Epicurus had his Garden school, around the time of Aristotle's Lyceum and Plato's Academy... and while Plato and Arristotle sought to found a moral system on political virtues, Epicurus sought to found a moral system on social virtues-- not unlike Confucius, perhaps?
 
Epicurus focused on friendship and brotherhood rather than family-- but the focus was on increasing overall happiness and pleasure through the *limiting* and *refining* of one's own desires with the great social virtues being consideration for others and suavitas. It is this last virtue that I have been particularly drawn to with regard to our own project.

Don't you agree that our empire should be a place where people enjoy delicious wines and cheeses; where people engage in thinking; where philosophers have a part in ruling? 
 

**

I had such high hopes for my argument-- but in fact he only ended up all the more recalitrant. 

**

Who provides the material foundations for philosophers? Isn't it 10000 farmers for every intellectual, as Mao put it? Shouldn't we be perturbed with injustice and seek the improve the world politically? And responsibilities to needy members of the family seem to have dropped out of the picture, as we discussed earlier? It's fine to be epicurians on the weekends, so to speak, but that's about all our Empire would tolerate.

It is true.  As always he is correct. For I too think that the ultimate aim of rulership ought to be the provision of what to my mind are the true inalieable rights of all citizens: health, safety and education. However, with Mao in mind, in the same way that Rome had its Stoics and Epicureans, so too did the China of my man's times have its Confucians as well as its scholars and literati 文人. Without the cultivation of certain so-called elite social virtues in at least some part of the population, I wonder if a descent into Maoist anti-intellectualism or American philistinism is not inevitable? It's like what the Northern Song Minister said about our friend Mi Fu:

“Mi Fu is the kind of person we must have one of, but cannot afford to have two of!”

Whether it be Stoicism or Confucianism, I wonder if too much focus on duty and virtue as obligation would not be just as disasterous a project as too much focus on pleasure. Everything interesting in life is always in the details and cultural or aesthetic cultivation is perhaps the only thing that can really ensure the generating of certain types of ethical sensibilities (not to mention the preservation and continuation of cultural legacy) will be represented in any population. In that way, I do believe strongly that-- yes, even if it's just on the weekends-- that Republicanism demands the personal literati-style aesthetic cultivation of its citizens (friends, Romans and countrymen). For it will always be the artists, philosophers and poets, as Harrison says, who will be the people to unmask "society's self-serving fictions... and false idols."

 

知者樂水 仁者樂山 知者動 仁者靜 知者樂 仁者壽
The wise delight in water while the virtuous delight in the mountains.
A wise person is active and enjoys change while a virtue person seeks serenity and enjoys long life (accepting this as they come)

In an enlightened empire, both the wise and the virtuous are necessary. (All the Japanese glosses on this passage that I looked at do not position virtue above wisdom but rather stress that both types of people serve a necessary function in the world).

Imagining myself telling him all this, I close my eyes and imagine him nodding his head in agreement.

**

For more on Epicurean virtues: In Epicurus' Garden.

On my ipod: Entitled Opinions: Virgil (Archives: Oct. 25, 2005) From Republicanism to Empire-- I highly recommend this particular program, though I stand by my opinion that Aeneas is a terrible wet blanket. Yes, Aeneas certainly did cry-- as a later great poet once described:

And the sea became a sea of tears.
But, as one knows, precisely at the moment
of despair, the auspicious wind begins to blow.

And the great man left Carthage.

However, remaining the Stoic par excellance, so intent was Pious Aeneas to carry out his duty, that his actions were in the end over-thought, hard-boiled and not sensitive to the situation. Which is to say he could have done with a bit more Epicurean cultivation-- especially when it came to letting Dido down more easily!

Between Mountains and the Sea, I leave you with the Dido & Aeneas water ballet again here and below the Akhmatova poem, is the Chunqiu (Spring & Autumn) video, Between the Mountains and the Sea:

 

11

I abandoned your shores, Empress,
against my will.
-- Aeneid, Book 6

Don't be afraid -- I can still portray
What we resemble now.
You are a ghost -- or a man passing through,
And for some reason I cherish your shade.

For awhile you were my Aeneas --
It was then I escaped by fire.
We know how to keep quiet about one another.
And you forgot my cursed house.

You forgot those hands stretched out to you
In horror and torment, through flame,
And the report of blasted dreams.

You don't know for what you were forgiven ...
Rome was created, flocks of flotillas sail on the sea,
And adulation sings the praises of victory.

--Anna Akhmatova1962
Komarovo

 

 

shimmering blue

   

Kublai Khan: There is a sense of emptiness that comes over us at evening with the odor of the elephants after the rain and the sandalwood ashes growing cold in the brazier, a dizziness makes rivers and mountains tremble on the fallow curves of the plainspheres where they are portrayed, and rolls up, one after the other, the despatches announcing to us the collapse of the last enemy troops, from defeat to defeat, and flakes the wax of the seals of obscure kings who beseech our armies' protection, offering in exchange annual tributes of precious metals, tanned hides, and tortoise shell....Italo Calvino

I recently read that so tightly controlled was the Great Khan's empire that it was claimed that a beautiful woman could cross the great expanse of pax Mongolica carrying a solid gold tray atop her head and be assured of arriving wherever she was going in perfect safety. 

Empire does have its advantages, I suppose.

In spite of his tremendous power and wealth, however, the Great Khan seems restless; and while he doesn't necessarily believe everything the Venetian tells him, still he enjoys the listening; for indeed, there is no better way to wile away the evenings than in storytelling.

And so like a magnificent Caliph in a long and luscious dream, Kublai Khan listens to the Venetian tell stories of marvelous and exotic cities located on the edges of his vast empire. And, in this way, the Khan and his humble servant Marco Polo engaged in the most exquisite conversations-- where sometimes they even speak without words, as one imagines what the other wants to say, the other imagines answering.

You will recall that I too sometimes have conversations with an emperor. While we often talk about the way the light reflects on the icy cold river, whose waters flow slowly south from Siberia; sometimes he will silently-- extemporizing a poem-- describe one of his paintings; delicate and perfectionist paintings of flowers or tiny, plump birds-- "paintings

which are but a promise
of a thousand autumns to come
Painting Autumn birds"

Every so often too, we will playfully try and describe a partiular shade of color. This game often goes on for hours as describing a shade is never easy. Some may even say it is impossible to describe a color.

He said, "Close your eyes and imagine the color of the sky, in early morning after a rainshower..."

I closed my eyes and recalled that

over the years, my Emperor and his unquenchable “yearning for blue was a beautiful, imperial dream which had somehow worked its way into my own heart (in the way of all truly fine conversations). And, I became fascinated not so much by his passion as by his method-- for what better way to capture a shade than in porcelain?

And as the wish of the great Emperor, it wouldn’t take long for the ingenious potters at nearby Ru to provide him with exactly what he as looking for either.

The most beautiful porcelain in the world

Because Ru ware was created with the Emperor’s particular taste in mind and then disappeared mysteriously without a trace after the fall of his dynasty, it has been forever after associated with my man. And, with less than 100 surviving examples, a very small piece was sold several years ago at Sotheby’s in New York for approximately 1.5 million dollars. The National Palace Museum in Taipei holds the great majority of the remaining pieces, with a large amount held British museums as well.

As rare as they are stunningly beautiful; the celadon glaze ranges from pale green to a lavender blue and is characterized by its delicate opalescent quality caused by minute crystals and air bubbles trapped in the glaze. It is this shimmering quality--this transportive luminecence-- which reminds me of the luxerious purple of the Roman emperors.

The glaze is also characterized by a fine crackle, a quality which was highly appreciated as a kind of natural decorative element to the otherwise unadorned vessel. Due to its watery translucency and magnificent green-blue color, the quality of its much admired glaze reminds one more than anything else of jade, and although countless artists and even scientists have tried to re-create it, its exact method of production remains a mystery. 

Researcher, Fumito Kondo, on assignment for Japan’s NHK, visited the Ru kiln site not all that long ago, and he describes his meeting with a Chinese researcher, a certain Mr. Zhu, who had been working for over 20 years en-situ, attempting to unlock the glaze’s secrets. Kondo writes,

On the day we arrived at Ru to begin filming, 30 pieces of celedon were being fired. The color in celedon glaze is extremely delicate and so  slight changes occur depending on where the vessel is placed inside the kiln. Mr Zhu, carefully removing each piece, upon examing
them, discovered that not one piece had turned out! Mr. Zhu then
exclaimed that 20 years at Ru together with all the advances in
modern technology had been unable so far to bring back that very
mysterious color blue.     

Its not just Ru ware either. Many of the most renowned Song dynasty glazes as yet remain impossible to perfectly reproduce. Isn't that amazing?

My emperor. When he spoke of his Palace so faraway-- it was almost as if like a swallow traveling south-- his eyes too were locked faraway on the horizon.

 How can I ever forget that old Palace?
 Sometimes I visit in dreams
 And yet all alone
Sometimes I am even unable to dream

To not be able to dream-- and yet, so well did he describe that  rain-drenched color of the morning sky after a rain-- that, well, I don't believe he ever stopped dreaming-- though sometimes I understand how he felt.

-- It's not the voice that tells the story but the ear (Calvino's Cities by Colleen Corradi Brannigan)

-- Recommended viewing: Ru Ware at the Palace Museum

 

  

 

city of dreams

         

夢の都...

It was known as the "City of Dreams." But not much remains of what was once the most populous city in the world; for the ever-flooding Yellow River has all but washed away the history of this once beautiful capital city of a thousand years ago, Kaifeng.

Fortunately there is a famous hand-scroll, thought to have been once part of my lover's collection and now kept at the Palace Museum in Beijing, called Going Up-River at the Qing Ming Festival, which shows us something of what the city must have been like in its heyday.

A full five meters in length (!) the horizontally unrolling handscroll begins at right-- in the suburbs. Well outside the city gates of Kaifeng, we see people traveling on donkeys or on foot among the willow trees and thatched-roof dwellings in what is really a semi-rural scene. Just for those few out there who may not recall, the Qing Ming Festival referred to in the painting’s title is an important festival in China even today, and occurs on the third day of the third month according to the lunar calendar. It is a day of Purification when Chinese people travel back to their hometowns to sweep the tombs of their ancestors and celebrate the return of spring, and the people we see in the painting are perhaps home from the capital to visit family or to pay their respects at the family tomb or shrine.

Canals created from the great Yellow River dominate the scene with boats traveling lazily up and down the waterways. If we follow the canal from the suburbs traveling down the painting, we soon find ourselves drifting closer and closer toward the great gates of the capital. As opposed to the Tang dynasty when the gates at Chang’an and Loyang were guarded during the day and then shut firmly at night, I am told that at Song Kaifeng, the city gates were open twenty-four hours a day, and people were free to move in and out of the city as they liked. 

And so we too walk through the great gate..

Traveling through the painting, before long we arrive at the gracefully arched Rainbow Bridge-- considered by many to be the central focal point of the painting of the handscroll. Packed with people (there are over 700 people drawn carefully into this picture), the bridge is lined with food stalls and vendors, with ladies being carried aloof in palanquins trying to make their way through the crowded city scene. As a large boat packed with passengers struggles to negotiate its way under the bridge, we finally make our way though the great city gate and enter the city proper. Passing a camel train of traders on their way out of the city, we come to the painting’s secondary focal point: the town pub. An imposing two-story building, the sign out front reads: zhengdian (?), the “main branch” of what must have been a chain of pubs.

From here we come to a main intersection, crowded with ox-drawn carts, more palanquins full of aristocratic ladies and all variety of people; we see merchants, Buddhist priests, professional story-tellers, gentlemen, peddlers as well as deliverymen all making their way through the crowded scene. Although the artist, Zhang Zeduan, was an Artist at Court, in this picture he depicts not the refined world of the Palace but rather the vibrant and prosperous world of this great merchant city-- which is reminiscent of another, much later "Eastern Capital" to the east (東京).

**

Kaifeng

It was into this city that my man was born and raised in. The readers of these pages will-- I am quite sure-- recall that, perhaps more than anything, I love to think of him roaming the busy streets disguised as a scholar.

Didn't Peter the Great also take a long overseas trip disguised as an aristocrat? I remember reading about him causing all kinds of trouble in England when he wanted to keep up his show but of course everyone knew he was the emperor-- or did I only imagine reading that? And wasn't another emperor's galavanting in disguise the reason why you still knock your fingers on the table after receiving tea in Hong Kong? Don't quote me, I am away from my books and my trusty librarian Señor Borges isn't returning my calls again-- so this is just how I remember it-- not necessarily how it really was...

**

And, so he had special tunnels dug under the Forbidden City in order to visit his favorite courtesan’s house or walk the streets of Kaifeng un-detected and so could continue obliviously writing his poetry and lavishly spending on the arts as his country teetered on the edge of disaster.

I think when one is facing a terrible dilemna there are 3 possible approaches.

One, you can ignore the problem.

Two, you can face the problem head-on

or

Three, you can seek to eliminate the causes of the problem so that the problem will cease to arise.

His detractors perhaps could accuse Huizong of the first, while those who are fond of him might prefer to posit the third.

And, there he was. The country on the brink of disaster and rather than mobilizing the army, he sought instead to throw himself into the study and re-cataloging of the ancient bronzes. As if to say, in the words of one of my aristocratic friends, if I could just get the bronzes right, everything else would follow suit.

Great archaeological and art historical research-- respected even today-- was undertaken to both interpret the inscriptions found on the bronzes as well as to properly reconstruct the rituals in which they were used so that “[k]nowledge that was barely retained in the Han period, and was all but lost since the third century, was recovered almost in an instant.” For this purpose, Huizong created several palace institutes devoted to the Rites and Music, and countless new bronzes vessels were re-cast closely following the aesthetic and technical blueprint of the ancients, to the success that, also in the words of James C.Y. Watt, “[t]oward the end of the Northern Song, period, bronzes made in the archaic style were virtually indistinguishable from Shang and Zhou prototypes.”

**

Knowing their government by seeing their ritual; knowing their virtue by hearing their music (Mencius)

It is such an obvious point and yet for some strange reason, it is one that I delight in thinking about. And that is, that in the same way that ritual served as an expression of the government and an music expression of the virute of the people, so too did ritual also serve to shape and affect the government as music helped to influence the virtue of the people. Because probably not all that unlike the way you couldn't perform the elaborate procedures of tea ceremony unless you had prepared yourself, at the same time the performing of the procedures would itself have a profound affect on the performer.

Alan Baumler wrote a post a few days ago concerning teaching about the Rites and Music to US-based students. Like Alan, in my thinking, I tend to somehow remain focused on the Rites, when in fact it might just be the music that will serve to be the more interesting thing to think about. Awhile back, I was told by a man serving at the Court in Yogyakarta that the Javanese gamelan had its roots in this ancient Chinese ritual music. I don't know whether this is accurate or not, but when I think of this ancient music that so delighted my man, I almost always imagine it to sound like the music in one of my favorite gamelan recordings, Court Music of Kraton Surakarta (King Records). All the japanese recordings in this series are absolutely gorgeous, but this one in particular has a strong affect on my mood.

Alan ends his post, with this link to a Daniel Bell book (concerning Confucianism and music), and so I guess I too should add that the much-awaited (??) Daniel Bell book reading will start here sometime next week and continue on at Chris' place-- or vice versa. For those interested, please check back next week.

Cheers!

*

Google has a really surprisingly good article on the painting here.

 

 

Two Emperors and a Shogun

     

Part 1: Slender Gold

He was born in the City of Dreams. Known throughout history as the “Aesthete Emperor,” he devoted himself almost exclusively to the arts and scholarship, and much like Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria 750 years later, his passion for the beauty would cost him his throne. Actually, it would prove so devastating as to help lead to the downfall of the dynasty itself.

Born in 1082, as the eleventh prince of Emperor Shenzong, it was never conceived that Huizong would ever ascend the throne. His early years were therefore full of much freedom which allowed him to pursue his many interests-- chief among those the practice and collecting of art.

While his older brothers closer in line to the throne were educated and disciplined in statecraft, Confucian political philosophy and the Classics, Huizong was pretty much left alone to dabble in his hobbies. And, by the time he was in his late teens, his literary fame was already known outside the walls of glorious capital. 

A series of mishaps and our man in Kaifeng-- against the odds-- ascended the throne in 1100. 

How, you wonder, did he begin his reign?  

Well, with a grand building project to construct a magical garden which would reproduce all the famous mountains and rivers of the domain; thereby creating a miniature cosmos which he could then preside over. Rocks and rare plants were transported from thousands of kilometers away. In fact, it was probably this enterprise more than any of his others that really ruined the country-- for his passion for rock-collecting was dangerously expensive. In one of my favorite art history books, there is an 18th century print of rocks being transported by boat. In each of the several boat pictured, there are half a dozen crew members all devoting themselves to the task of safely delivering the one fine specimen in their care. Even in the black and white print, one can see how "fantastical" the rocks must have been.

It wasn't just rocks either.

Priceless antiquities and works of art, as well as precious stores of incense and medicines, musical instruments and books filled up the galleries, which had individual names such as, “Steeped in Antiquities,” “Appreciating Antiquities,” “Studying Antiquities” and “Abiding in Antiquities.” Here the Emperor would examine his art works, alone or in the company of a favored official; compose poetry or work on his calligraphy, perhaps even partaking in a bowl of tea “whipped until a milky foam filled the surface” and served up in a porcelain teabowl with fresh lichi fruits and oranges imported from the south. 

In Japan, of course, not only is the Song style of tea preparation preserved within tea ceremony, but this concentrated focus on connoisseurship-- as collector, scholar and practioner-- has also been preserved right down to today as well (see Utz Part 2 for more on "the embodied" commitment to art).

Wen C. Fong in his book about Chinese painting, Beyond Representation, writes that Huizong’s most important contribution to the history of art was the completion of two catalogs, the Xuanhe Era Catalog of the Imperial Painting Collection and the Xuanhe Era Catalog of the Imperial Calligraphy Collection. Dated around 1120, both were edited and many parts probably penned by Huizong himself, and they are important both for the high level of scholarship, as well as for their early date which places them as being one of the earliest studies of the Collection in Chinese history.

Looking first at the catalog devoted to calligraphy, we find some 1,240 works by 197 calligraphers, including 213 by the “god of calligraphy,” Wang Xizhi. Both ancient as well as contemporary works were collected, studied and categorized by script type (standard, cursive and semi-cursive) which is the manner in which calligraphy continues to be studied today. In addition to short biographical information on the calligraphers, works were appraised and critical comments made. One entry, for example, is devoted to Tang dynasty calligrapher Huaisu’s (ca.735-ca.799) famous work, Autobiographical Essay. A Buddhist monk, it was claimed that Huaisu created all his best works drunk. And the catalog (according to my Japanese sources) had this to say regarding his wild cursive script:

Intoxicated with wine, he wrote with such drunken passion and emotion that its hard to believe this is the work of a mere mortal 
 
This work, documented in Huizong’s collection and one of several, is still a part of the Palace Collection in Taipei today-- over 800 years later.

Turning next to the painting catalog, we discover some 6,396 paintings by 231 artists, including 126 works by Tang dynasty’s most esteemed painter and poet, Wang Wei (699?-761?). The paintings were divided and studied in the following ten subject categories: religious (Taoist and Buddhist); figure; architectural; barbarian tribes; dragons and fish; landscapes, animals; flowers and birds; ink bamboo; and fruits and vegetables. Wen C. Fong points out that these highly specific categories shows just how specialized scroll painting had become under Huizong’s patronage, and that the high number of flower and bird paintings (with 2,786 representations) reflects the growing interest in the natural world which occurred during the Song dynasty.

This was also the genre Huizong himself preferred to paint in.

Characterizing the entire period, a Confucian-style “Return to Antiquity” (復古) was the catch phrase of the day, and scholars and thinkers engaged themselves trying to re-define the meaning of the great classical texts and works of art of the Shang, Zhou and Han dynasties; seeking to both reconstruct that which had been obscured by time, at the same time delving further than ever before into their spiritual implications.

This was especially so during Huizong’s reign. With the empire at more risk from invaders than ever before, it may seem odd that Huizong would occupy himself almost exclusively with such cultural and intellectual pursuits, but it has to be remembered that these activities gave his regime great prestige and stood in as his mandate to rule.  A friend once said it was as if he thought, "if only I could get the bronzes right, all the other stuff would work itself out."

Indeed, ancient bronzes were given particularly special study as the entire imperial collecion was re-catalogued. These studies culminated in two catalogs, both published along with very fine woodblock-printed pictures of the treasures. Great archaeological and art historical research-- respected even today-- was undertaken to both interpret the inscriptions found on the bronzes as well as to properly reconstruct the rituals in which they were used so that, in James Watt's words, “[k]nowledge that was barely retained in the Han period, and was all but lost since the third century, was recovered almost in an instant.”

And, like the great emperors before him, Huizong sought to bolster his new reign by re-casting a set of nine bronze tripods as magnificent symbols of his power. (See my post on the legendary nine bronze tripods).

*************

The Palace Collection today is sometimes referred to as “Qianlong’s Collection.” This is because the collection as it now exists took much of its form during his reign. However, it can be argued that the collection is as much under Huizong’ imperial debt as Qianlong’s. For under Huizong’s reign, art and imperial patronage were given a political importance like never before, and his artistic tastes and collecting styles can still be felt strongly in the great Chinese art galleries and auction houses of the world.

Indeed, even today, anything once believed to have been part of Huizong’s vast collection carries a prestige and is valued almost beyond compare (here in Japan, as well). In the end, though, what can be said of the man whose personal artistic impact was so great?

In East Asia, it is said that a man’s character can be read in his handwriting. Our emperor is known above all for just that: his magnificent calligraphy-- and humbly disagreeing with the eminent Professor Fong, it is here that I see Huizong’s greatest contribution to art history.

Surprisingly conservative, the long history of Chinese calligraphy is characterized by how very few new styles emerged after the sixth century. However, Huizong, while still just an imperial prince had already created his own style of writing-- “the slender gold” (瘦金體)-- which is described by its admirers as being like “floating orchid leaves,” or “bamboo moving in the wind” or even more aptly, like “the legs of dancing cranes.”

His detractors however complain that the “skinny legs” are “too scrawny” to hold up the body, or “too bony”, like “a starving student in misfitting clothing.” Whether one is partial to his characters or not, the fact remains that, like any distinct style that appeals, the “slender gold” is not going to go away.

Trying to read the man by his handwriting, then, let’s take a look at the characters themselves. 

The first impression that strikes us is that despite the sense of speed and pleasing movement that these “dancing crane legs” convey, there is also a precision and something almost methodical about the writing, especially in the endings and connections between strokes. Like jade, there is a hardness, coolness and resonance as well. His writing appears every bit the ideally elegant and refined handwriting that every scholar-official throughout Chinese history strove for. It is about as elegant a man's writing gets, I think.

And “reading” his writing carefully, one almost senses-- at least when it came to the arts-- a perfectionist side to his character, as well, calling to mind a self-portrait created by the Emperor, called 聴琴図, now in the Palace Museum in Beijing. In this painting, we find the Emperor giving an impromptu performance on the scholar-gentlemen’s instrument of instruments, the Qin (an instrument I may just take up myself one of these days).

Seated in his garden under a tree and facing some flowering branches in a vase placed delicately on a stand made out of one of his beloved collector’s rocks, he appears in his scholar’s robes from head to toe every bit the image of the true gentleman-scholar. And it was this aspect of his character which people have found appealing enough to forgive the fact that he was to lose his country to foreign invaders.

Instead of blaming their “Aesthete Emperor,” the problem has instead historically been laid at the feet of Huizong’s “evil last minister,” Cai Jing-- here dressed in red robes and seated at the Emperor’s left. The evil minister was himself a calligrapher of the highest rank and was once included in the list of Song dynasty’s Four Great Calligraphers.

His blackened name however was removed by later scholars and replaced with that of Cai Xiang, to be included with the other three Greats: Su Shi, Mi Fu, and Huang Tingjian. For in the Confucian world-view, a work of art must be viewed through the lens of the artist’s moral strivings. Therefore, when Cai Jing’s name became blackened, so too did his calligraphy.

More of the Emperor’s “slender gold” appears at the top of the painting. Can anything else be discerned in the characters? After the immediate impression of precision wears off, perhaps the strongest impression that one is left with is a sense of fancifulness; and a willingness to ignore conventions for the sake of beauty. Indeed, Huizong consciously broke the rules of writing characters in order to achieve his unique new style. We can see this, for example, in his poem here (詩帖巻、徽宗) where downward strokes rebelliously snap back upward instead of obediently stopping, and the character for “north” (use magnifying lens: 14th row from right) is not written according to the conventional rules.

Perhaps it was this same part of his character that would explain how this emperor who had special tunnels dug under the palace in order to visit his favorite courtesan’s house or walk the streets of Kaifeng un-detected could continue obliviously writing his poetry and lavishly spending on the arts as his country teetered on the edge of disaster. For it was only a matter of time before he would see his glorious capital plundered and he, along with two hundred years of Song dynasty imperial collecting would be carted off as war-booty to Manchuria where they would be scattered, and many lost forever.

For our Emperor was to end his days alone in a cold Manchurian prison not far from present-day Harbin.

There remains one lonely poem supposedly written by the Emperor not long before he died so far away from his beloved Palace Collection that reads: 

 Swallow Mountain Pavilion
 I tell of the sorrow of partings upon partings
 To a pair of swallows
 Who refuse to understand

 The heavens are so faraway; the earth so faraway
 Separated by countless rivers and countless mountains
 Oh, where is that old Palace?

 How can I ever forget that old Palace?
 Sometimes I visit in dreams
 And yet all alone
Sometimes I am even unable to dream

It is a poem I think of constantly. In fact, I don't even know if my Emperor really wrote it. Just now, trying to locate the source for my translation, I wondered, maybe it is not a translation at all but maybe some poem I made up years ago while dreaming of my favorite emperor...

I am reading Calvino's Invisible Cities. In the book, Marco Polo and the Great Khan have the most exquisite conversations-- and sometimes they even speak without words, as one imagines what the other wants to say, the other imagines answering. In the same way, I cannot help but wonder where does Huizong's lonely dream end and my own feelings begin? Someday, I would like to travel to that northern place where he supposedly ended his days. There is, I read, a beautiful icy-cold river there. 

**

If anyone knows the source of the poem, I'd very much like to see the Chinese or English versions. I will keep looking for the Japanese. It's got to be in the library here somewhere. (I'll ask Señor Borges if he knows).