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. 

 

 

 

Comments

[M.W.Nolden]

I concur 100% with your calligraphy teacher!

[Bill Haines]

Peony, I read this and your Winter posts in reverse order. They are inspiriting, much.

So is Huizong's calligraphy, which looks to me like Qi Baishi's shrimp, perhaps just because my knowledge of Chinese painting is limited.

[Peony]

Thanks Bill-- that's nice to hear, especially coming from you. And, reading backwards is almost as highly recommended as reading upside-down.

Regarding Qi baishi's shrimp-- do you mean the shrimp and not the calligraphy? If so, then I will need to think about that (upside down of course).

Last night, I couldn't really concentrate so decided to re-read something... It is really just a manual for history students, and yet there are so many interesting and in-spiriting things in this slim volume -- do you have it?

[Bill Haines]

I meant Huizong's calligraphy looks to me like Qi Baishi's shrimp. But on further thought I think what I really mean is simply that Huizong's calligraphy looks to me like shrimp.

I have the book, and I've picked it up a couple of times in the last year or two and then put it down again, but I forget whether that was just because it seemed too elementary or for some other reason.

[Peony]

A shrimp? I can see that (but then again, I'm hungry!) i just uploaded my dream about Bell-- I rarely dream of contemporary people (usually just dreaming about Huizong)... any interpretations?

About Mote's book-- I'm sure its too elemantary for you (sorry)... Re-reading his early treatment of 儒 versus 士 I learned a lot-- this concept of 儒 in particular is interesting (In Japan, Confucianism being called 儒教-- I assume it's the same in China?)

I also appreciate Mote's approach, by the way. He is one of my favorite american china historians in fact. Particularly loved his Imperial China...

[Arsen]

An absolutely stunning post! In your case long waits are overwhelmingly rewarded. It becomes obvious to me why you find such resonance to a novel like My Name is Red. It was inspired by the same region of heaven whence your emperor received his baraka (if a shift in culture is permitted for using that word).