Toward a Structural Analysis of Chinese Landscape Painting
Author(s): Wen C. Fong
Source: Art Journal, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Summer, 1969), pp. 388-397
Published by: College Art Association
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Wen C. Fong
Toward a Structural Analysis of Chinese Landscape Painting
A critical and historical study of Chinese painting
has long suffered from the lack of an acceptable method
for dating paintings by style. Mr. Li Lin-ts'an of the National Central Museum in Taiwan has published a series
of three articles dealing with this problem.' In "Rules for
Dating Chinese Painting," Mr. Li lists the study of material, technique, period style, personal style, signature and
colophon, and catalogue description as "six methods for
dating."2 In "The Dating of Ink-bamboo Painting," he
samples eighty-eight bamboo paintings attributed to famous masters, from the tenth through the eighteenth centuries, and attempts diagrams illustrating the technical
development of the bamboo stalks and leaves. These diagrams show, for instance, "ring joint technique," "plain
joint technique," "dotted joint technique," "natural
leaves," "star-shaped leaves," "feathered-shaped leaves,"
etc.3
Mr. Li's classification of motifs and techniques continues in the tradition of the "Mustard Seed Garden
Painter's Manual" of the seventeenth century. By arranging his motifs chronologically, he hopes to establish certain criteria for dating. His demonstration suffers, however, from two serious difficulties: firstly, he is faced with
the problem of circularity: that of having to date a style
by means of examples which themselves need to be
dated; secondly, motifs are easily imitated and perpetuated in the copies. Even if we assume that all of Mr.
Li's samples are correctly dated and authentic, his diagrams of motifs merely illustrate, as in the "Mustard
Seed Garden Painter's Manual," the technical traditions
of the various masters' manners. They provide no clue
for the actual dating of a painting, or a copy, in the manner of a given master.
at the base of the finger nail. Mr. Chang's demonstration
is methodologically meaningful in at least two respects:
firstly, since his wall-painting examples are archaeologically discovered and dated, he does not have to concern
himself with the problem of later copying and imitation;5 secondly, by describing not only the shape of the
finger nail but also how it is grown on the finger-tip, he
is observing a morphological detail, which, if verified by
all archaeologically dated examples, may constitute a period characteristic that governs all figure paintings of
that period. There is, from the point of view of descriptive method, a significant difference between Li's "starshaped leaves" and Chang's "nails that recede into the finger-tip"; the former merely identifies a two-dimensional
I
SLi Lin-ts'an, "Chung-kuo-hua tuan-tai-yen-chiu-li [Rules
An interesting appendix to Li's "Rules for Dating
Chinese Painting" shows seven illustrations by the famous contemporary Chinese painter Chang Ta-chien (or
Chang Dai-chien), demonstrating the development of the
drawing of the hand as seen in Buddhist wall-paintings
at Tun-huang.4 Mr. Chang notes, for instance: in the
Northern Wei period, the drawing of fingers shows neither joints nor nails; during the reign of K'ai-yiian, (713742), the hand is plump and soft and has "nails that recede into the finger-tips": during the middle T'ang, the
nails "grow over the finger-tip, tapering to a rounded
point"; in early Sung hands, there is a short straight line
for Dating Chinese Painting], "in" Studies Presented to
Tung Tso-pin on His Sixty-first Birthday," The Bulletin
of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica,
extra volume no. 4, 1961, pp. 551-582; "Chung-kuo-huashih ti ch'ung-chien [the Reconstruction of Chinese Painting History]." Ta-lu tsa-chih, XXXI, no. 5, 1965, pp. 1-5;
"Chung-kuo mo-chu-hua-fa ti tuan-tai-yen-chiu [Study on
the Dating of Chinese Ink-bamboo Painting]," The National Palace Museum Quarterly, Vol. I, no. 4, 1967, pp.
25-79.
Mr. Fong teaches Chinese art at Princeton. This paper is
a statement he wrote some time ago in preparation for a
book on Chinese landscape painting.
M
' There is, of course, the problem of repair and repainting
in wall-painting, which often complicates the task of stylistic analysis.
4,:t : I
Fig. i. Detail of Mirror, early 8th century, Sh6s6in Treasury, Nara, Japan.
'Op. cit., pp. 554ff.
' Op. cit., betweenpp. 78-79.
SOp.cit., figures14-17.
XXVIII4
ARTJOURNAL
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Fig. 2. Landscape with Riders on an Elephant, 8th century, Sh6s6in Treasury, Nara,
Japan.
motif without indicating its structural relationship with
other parts of the painting, while the latter, by showing
concern for the relationship between two motifs, the nail
and the finger-tip, begins to describe a structural configuration. Mr. Chang, however, did not carry his sensitive
389
Fong: Toward a Structural Analysis of Chinese Landscape Painting
Fig. 3. Scenes Illustrating the Life of Buddha, 9th century, silk banner from Tunhuang. British Museum.
painter's observations far enough to describe the changing structural configurations of the hands of the various
periods. For the early-T'ang period, he merely noted that
"the brushwork is gentle and supple; it is capable of describing some of very difficult hand gestures."
When we try to identify and describe an individual
manner, we usually note its special form elements, motifs and techniques on the one hand, and its unique
expressive qualities on the other. When we try to classify
a style, however, we interpret the stylistic peculiarities of
an individual work as specific solutions to generic structural problems.6 While neither motif nor quality gives
adequate evidence for fixed positions in time, morphological analysis dealing with successive visual structures in
history provides a key for dating a painting. From the
structural point of view, before a painting of whatever
form elements, motifs or techniques can express a certain
philosophy or mental outlook, it resents first a solution
to the problem of delineation, modelling and composition. Form relationships seem to change without direct
relationship to meaning.' An obvious example is that despite the Chinese painter's avowed lack of interest in
"form-likeness," they nevertheless successfully mastered
illusion in painting.
Every Chinese painting is at once representation,
decoration and abstraction; it is the arranging of form
elements to create a semblance of nature that exists in its
own right. From the representational point of view,
Chang's illustrations show the development of the drawing of the hand from a two-dimensional silhouetted
shape to a three-dimensional and fully articulated, grasping organ: each stage is characterized by certain structural problems and solutions. The Northern Wei hand
was neither joints nor nails, because it is conceived as a
silhouetted form without organically differentiated comSIn his well-known article on "Style" (in Anthropology
Today, edited by A. L. Kroeber, Chicago 1953, pp. 287312), Meyer Schapiro notes that the word "style" is generally used to describe three different aspects of a work of
art: 1) form elements or motifs, 2) form relationships, 3)
qualities (including an over-all quality which we may
call "expression"). Following this definition, we might
say that the Chinese critics have traditionally emphasized
form elements and qualities, but neglected form relationships, in their stylistic descriptions. See my article, "Chinese Painting: A Statement of Method," Oriental Art,
new series, vol. IX, no. 2, summer 1963, pp. 73-78; also
my article, "The Problem of Ch'ien Hsiian," The Art
Bulletin, XLII, September 1960, p. 188.
'In The Shape of Time (Yale University Press, 1962),
Professor George Kubler writes: "the structural forms
can be sensed independently of meaning. We know from
linguistics in particular that the structural elements undergo more or less regular evolutions in time without
relation
to meaning.
. . . Similar regularities
probably
govern the formal infrastructure of every art" (pp. viiviii).
Fig. 4. Autumn, Eastern Mausoleum at Ch'ing-ling,
Eastern Mongolia,
ca. 1030.
ponents. The early T'ang emphasis on complex hand-gestures reflects an interest in conquering the technical difficulties in representing a hand. Both the short nails "that
recede into" the finger-tip and long ones "that grow
over" the tip show the middle-T'ang concern for organic
details. Finally, the "short straight line at the base of the
finger-nail" seen in the early-Sung paintings represents an
increasing interest not only in modelling but in decorative stylization as well; both tendencies are typical of the
representational art of the tenth century.
II
The modern notion of a "period style" is based on
Wolfflin's famous assumption that "every artist finds certain visual possibilities to which he is bound. Not everything is possible at all times."8 As an abstract concept
which deals with the structural principles rather than
specifically identifiable motifs and qualities of a work of
art, however, a "period style" exists only as an idea.
' Heinrich
Wilfflin, Principles of Art History, 1915, translated by M. D. Hottinger, Dover paperback edition, New
York, p. 11. Italics added. George Kubler points out that
the limits of the existing state of knowledge "confine originality at any moment so that no invention overreaches
the potential of its epoch." (op. cit., p. 65).
ART JOURNALXXVIII 4
390
While it is a natural process of the mind to comprehend
facts through generalization, the historian is caught forever in a seemingly absurd circle of having to understand
individual facts in terms of a general theory although the
latter can be formulated only on the basis of individual
facts.9 Faced with a paucity of established stylistic facts in
Chinese art history, earlier Western art-historians tended
to lean too heavily on metaphors and Western analogies in
their characterizations of Chinese stylistic developments.
Professor Ludwig Bachhofer, for instance, saw Chinese art
as going through the familiar Wdlfflinian cycles of graphic,
plastic and ornate-or, archaic, classic and baroque
stages.1' However useful it was as a pedagogical device,
Bachhofer's dating of individual objects, on the basis of a
Stilgeschichte on the W6fflinian model, appeared dogmatic; in one reviewer's words: "There is firstof all an a
priori framework into which works of art in evolutionary
progression are made to fit .... [Bachhofer is] an art-historian who regards style as the be-all and end-all of art
history: style is a kind of sinister autonomous force
' Erwin Panofsky describes this circulus methodicus as an
"organic situation." See Meaning in the Visual Arts,
Doubleday Anchor Books, New York 1955, pp. 8-10, and
35, n. 3. E. H. Gombrich discusses the problem as follows:
"The paradox of the historian's position seems to me precisely that the cherished particular can only be approached
on a spiralling path through the labyrinth of general
theories, and that these theories can only be mapped out
by those who have reached the particular. Think of the
exciting adventure of deciphering an ancient script which
is not far from everybody's mind today. The individual
inscription is studied for what we can learn of the secrets
of the script, and the script in its turn for what it will tell
us of individual inscriptions. To divorce the one from the
other would not only be foolish, it would be impossible."
'"Ludwig Bachhofer, A Short History of Chinese Art,
Pantheon Books Inc. New York, 1946. According to Professor Bachhofer, the development of Shang bronzes "took
its natural course, from the simple to the complicated,"
moving from the "graphic" to the "plastic" and finally
to the "ornate"; the Chou begins with "a new cycle started
on a new basis with very simple tectonic forms and ended
with complex atectonic forms." Similarly, "it was impossible . . . to keep sculpture from completing
its cycle [of
archaic, classic and baroque]." In painting, the major
cycle, according to Bachhofer, ends with the "baroque"
phase of Southern Sung. With Chao Meng Fu (1254-1322)
there began a "neo-Classicism in which many artists saw
salvation from the utter destruction of form wrought by
a baroque style ... [by turning] deliberately to the linear
art of the great T'ang masters." "Mannerism" and "eclecticism" dominated the remaining centuries, with apparently only brief interruptions such as when neo-classicism was fully re-instated by one of the great painters of
the sixteenth century, Ch'iu Ying.
391
Fong: Toward a Structural Analysis of Chinese Landscape Painting
which in all ages and in all climes inexorably induces artists to produce works of art in a certain preordained
fashion."
It is of course distressing to those who value the individuality of a work of art to have that individuality ignored by generalizations and classifications. To most
scholars, documents, literary evidence, and above all, the
individual qualities of the artist and his work remain the
central important concerns of art history. Professor Max
Loehr has suggested that perhaps the dating of copies is
not important; "As long as we have no means of ascertaining the authenticity of individual works and attributions [by documentary and historical means], the historian is constrained to concern himself with the question
of the authenticity, not of discrete works but of their
styles."12 He makes a careful distinction between "authenticity" and "importance"; copies and imitations of
famous masters' works can be very important, while
archaeological evidence may be authentic but unimportant.13 "The importance of a work," he writes, "depends largely on [the historian's] insight into its onetime stylistic newness." A new style is a new idea .... The
historian is interested in the inceptions of styles, not in
their perpetuation.14 In his quest to understand an "important" stylistic "idea," he prefers the evidence of later
copies to that of the archaeologically recovered works of
the period, trusting himself to the "importance" of the
"idea" in the copies. He lines up all the copies and attributions in a distinct manner, meticulously studies and
tabulates their motifs, then makes an intuitive leap to an
"insight into its one-time stylistic newness."'5
" Review
of Bachhofer's book by Benjamin Rowland, Jr.,
in The Art Bulletin, XXIX, 1949, pp. 139-141.
2
Max Loehr, "Some Fundamental Issues in the History of
Chinese Painting," The Journal of Asian Studies, XXIII,
no. 2, p. 187.
" Loehr writes: "It is conceivable that we
might arrive
at a fairly accurate idea of the history of Chinese painting
on the basis of copies and imitations, if these are understood in their stylistic sequence, and it is equally conceivable that a body of undubitable original works (if there
is a way of establishing their genuineness) may not yield
an historically intelligible sequence." (Ibid.)
14Ibid., p. 188.
" In his recent book, Chinese Landscape Woodcuts from
an Imperial Commentary to the Tenth-century Printed
Edition of the Buddhist Canon (Cambridge, The Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, 1968), Professor Loehr
makes a "catalogue of [sixteen] motifs typical of the four
woodcuts and of various paintings [attributed to the T'ang
and Sung periods] in which the same motifs occur" (p.
42). He then summarizes the qualities which these motifs
share in common: "They are bold, even drastic motifs....
There is an element of exaggeration in them, not controlled by rational restraint nor leavened by the experi-
Fig. 5. Fragment from Khara-khoto, Inner Mongolia, ca. 1160-12, ink on silk.
Fig. 6. Wall-painting at Tomb of Feng Tao-chen in Ta-t'ang, Shansi, ca. 1265.
But a true historical synopsis must embrace both
conceptual discipline and individual facts. How can we
formulate an historical development of Chinese painting
which, in short, combines the idea of periodic change in
pictorial structure (or form-relationships) in painting,
with the knowledge of continuous individual manners
characterized by individual motifs (including form elements and techniques) and expressive qualities?
We must study the archaeologically recovered early
works for the only remaining evidence of fixed visual positions during the early periods. It has frequently been
pointed out that archaeological data (including firmly
datable works such as those in the Sh6s6in Treasury in
Nara, Japan) are of only limited value, because they represent the work of anonymous craftsmen rather than of
ranking artists and, as such, tell us little of the great creative moments of the time. The significance of such data,
however, lies in their indubitable authenticity. Archaeological materials showing early Chinese landscape painting through the late-thirteenth century are found from
Japan to innermost Asia, and these offer a clearly definable stylistic development. That widely scattered works
should appear in a linked sequence of change is important. Even though these works' may not mark the stylistic
frontiers of their times, they indicate a set of visual positions that must be taken into account whenever the dating of an attributed work is in question.
ence of consciously explored visual reality" (p. 52). See
review by Richard M. Barnhart to appear in Artibus
Asiae.
III
The development of landscape painting shown by
archaeological evidence from the pre-T'ang (before 7th
ART JOURNALXXVIII 4
392
century) to the early Yiian period (late 13th century) is
one ranging from ideographic motifs to the creation of illusionistic space. The principal elements in Chinese landscape painting are mountains (or rocks) and trees. Archaic representations of mountains and tress closely resembled their ideographic forms: t
(shan) showing
three mountain peaks, a "host" flanked by two "guest"
peaks, * (mu) describing both forking branches above
and anchoring roots below. The first important compositional discovery was that overlapping triangular mountain motifs suggest recession (fig. 1). By the seventh and
eighth centuries, fixed compositional schemas developed.
All the three principal schemas, later described by Kuo
Hsi (active ca. 1060-1075) as the "high-distance" (kaoyiian), "flat-distance" (p'ing-yiian) and "deep-distance"
(sheng-yiian) views, can be seen among eighth-century
paintings in the Sh6s6in, Nara, Japan (fig. 2), and ninthcentury ones from Tun-huang
(fig.
3).16
These three com-
positional schemas have been basic to Chinese landscape
paintins ever since; the picture-plane dominated by vertical elements, the picture-plane filled by a series of horizontal elements, and the picture-plane divided vertically
between these two alternatives. In the T'ang and earlySung examples, space is compartmentalized, a picture is
entered in stages, each with a suggested receding plane
tilted at a different angle towards the viewer. As seen in
the wall-paintings at Ch'ing-ling in East Mongolia, dated
around 1030 (fig. 4), which represents a panoramic "flatdistance" view, individual motifs are organized on an additive principle; they are seen part by part, and motif by
motif.
In the silk fragments of landscape sketches from the
Central Asian site of Khara-khoto, dated archaeologically
before the early-thirteenth century as (fig. 5), and the recently discovered wall-painting at Ta-t'ung in northern
China, dated 1265 (fig. 6), spatial continuity developed.
This was done first through the fragmentation of mountain masses (fig. 5). Disconnected silhouettes of dissolved
forms, ranging continuously through space, are united by
the mist or void around them. Finally, physical integration of landscape elements is achieved through the establishment of a consistent, receding ground-plane. In the
wall-painting of 1265 (fig. 6), mountains and trees are organic masses. Brushstrokes are fused and blurred; they
suggest forms seen through atmosphere.
16
Four paintings on biwas in the Shas6in, all dated before
756, show the three principal schemas: "Sitting under a
Mountain" represents the "high-distance," "Hawks and
Ducks" represents the "flat-distance." "Tiger Hunt" and
"Musicians on an Elephant" (fig. 2) represents the "deepdistances." In the 9th century Buddhist silk banner from
Tun-huang (fig. 3), the top scene is a "deep-distance," the
middle is a "high-distance," and the bottom one is a "flatdistance."
393
Fong: Toward a Structural Analysis of Chinese Landscape Painting
Fig. 7. Fan K'uan (ca. 990-1030),
tional Palace Museum, Taiwan.
Travellers among Streams and Mountains, Na.
Each mode of representation corresponds to a way
of seeing. Archaic graphic conventions (cf. fig. 1) reduced,
transposed and re-created nature; the words of the late
fourth-century landscapist Tsung Ping explain this approach: "A vertical stroke of three inches may equal a
height of several thousand feet; a horizontal passage of
ink of a few feet may represent a distance of a hundred
miles.""1 During the late-T'ang and early -Sung period
'TP'ei-wen-chai shu-hua-p'u, chilan v/2a. Translated by
Alexander C. Soper, "Early Chinese Landscape Painting,"
The Art Bulletin, xxiii/2, June 1941, p. 164.
loom,
..
.. z
--oXX::
..........
.
M"M
'10
$Iwo,
wWo
4JN
SM
MOM
RM
............
.
---------Fig. 8. Hsia Kuei (ca. 1190-1230),
crets of the yin and yang of creation. ...
Whatever can
be comprehended through the figures of the diagrams [of
the Book of Changes] may be represented with physical
form.1s The Southern Sung treatment of simplified landscape forms in mist, archaeologically exemplified by the
Karaikhetsfragment (fig. 5), is described in a text by Han
Cho (12th century).'9 In Sailboat in Rain attributed to,
and acceptable as by, Hsia Kuei (ca. 1190-1230) at Boston
(fig. 8), there is no ground-plane that actually links or
holds the objects, but the space depicted is unified and
continuous. Frontal silhouettes of mountains and trees
are made to float and fade into a void, representing a
mist which ties the elements in a sequential fashion,
motif by motif.
The illusionistic technique shown by the wall-painting of 1265 (fig. 6) is explained in a text by Huang
Kung-wang (1269-1354), which in turn perfectly describes
the drawing and brush technique seen in the famous
............
won
ATwocam
.......
.......
represented no mere retinal impressions of nature, but
images of the macrocosm. In Chang Huati's (twelfth century) words: "Painting distinguished the 'black' of
heaven from the 'yellow' of the earth; it disclosed the se-
"'-Mow-
Sailboat in Rain, Boston Museum of Art.
----------
...............................
i
W.:
Fig. 9. Chao Mang-fu (1254-1322),
=M**?:?!!iiiiiii
iii
Autumn Colors in the Ch'iao and Hua Mountains, dated 1296, National Palace Museum, Taiwan.
(cf. fig. 2, 3 and 4), philosopher-landscapists systematically translated natural phenomena into different sets of
interdependent yin-yang relationships. As motifs, there
were for instance "earthen mountains" (t'u-shan) and
"rocky mountains" (shih-shan), densely foliaged trees and
bare branches. In technique, there were brushed lines
and inked dots or washes. The "principles" (li), so often
discussed by early-Sung theorists, referred to both the
principles of nature and the principles of pictorial structure. What was observed in nature must be articulated in
theoretical principles as well as pictorial forms. The
part-by-part compositions of the Northern Sung, here
seen in the magnificent hanging scroll in the Palace
Museum in Taiwan, attributed to, and commonly accepted as by, Fan K'uan (ca. 990-1030) (fig. 7) by revealing different views of landscape in a controlled sequence,
handscroll by Huang, Dwelling in the Fu-ch'un Mountain of 1350 (fig. 10). The most important work for the
study of early Yiian painting is the short handscroll Autumn Colors in the Ch'iao and Hua Mountains, dated
1296, by Chao Meng-fu (1254-1322) (fig. 9)..20 As a work
that exemplifies the Yiian scholar-painting aesthetics, the
painting is well known for its use of archaic motifs and
calligraphic brushstrokes. Yet in spite of their differences
in form elements and brush idioms, there are great structural similarities between this handscroll and the ar" P'ei-wen-chai, chiian b/7a.
"See Osvald Sirdn, The Chinese on the Art of Painting.
Peiping 1936, pp. 81-87.
" See Chu-sing Li, Autumn Colors on the Ch'iao and Hua
Mountains, Ascona, 1965.
ART JOURNALXXVIII 4
394
Fig. 10. HuangKung-wang(1269-1354), Dwelling in the Fu-ch'anMountains,dated 1350, National Palace Museum,Taiwan.
chaeologically discovered wall-painting of 1265 (fig. 6).
Both paintings show an illusionistic technique of creating forms with fused brushstrokes of mixed ink tones,
and an integrated spatial organization with a physically
described ground-plane. The similarities indicate that, in
the second half of the thirteenth century, an anonymous
professional wall-painter in the North and a great scholar-painter from the South, despite their differences in
expressive intent and artistic reputation, were at approximately the same level in solving the structural problems
of landscape representation.
It was precisely at the moment when illusion was
mastered that leading Yiuan painters sought increasingly
for the extra-representational qualities in painting. Ni
Tsan (1301-1374) expressed the Yiian interest in "ideawriting" (hsieh-i), when he wrote: "I do not seek for
form-likeness, merely using painting to amuse myself."21
Likeness, a matter of eliciting recognition, or the lack of
it, can be understood of course only within the context of
the visual structure of the time. Although the Yiian painters applied calligraphic techniques to painting, they did
not paint calligraphic abstractions. In the accepted works
by Chao Meng-fu, Huang Kung-wang and Ni Tsan, individual brush-strokesare subordinate to representation, always describing and modelling form. After the Yiian,
brushwork increasingly assumed an independent expressive quality, and eventually dominated the representational form (figs. 11 and 12). Structurally, while the Yiian
"
P'ei-wen-chai, chiian villb.
395
Fong: Toward a Structural Analysis of Chinese Landscape Painting
painters were concerned with the problems of creating
depth and recession and the treatment of forms in space,
the Ming painters turned, more and more, to problems
of surface organization and decorative values in painting.
The very complex details resulting from the "conquest of
illusion" in painting demanded new organization
through pattern and stylization (fig. 11). Calligraphic
mannerisms and archaizing motifs were explored, in the
Ming period, for decorative purposes, and at the very end
of Ming and in early Ch'ing, as abstract forms in space
(fig. 12).
IV
Visual structure alone, of course, does not fully explain style; an artist's style changes not because of evolutionary law, but because of conscious stylistic choice.22In
the second half of the thirteenth century, for instance,
Chao Meng-fu (fig. 9) chose to paint in a calligraphic
idiom, while the Ta-t'ung wall-painter (fig. 6) used a
more conservative ink-wash idiom. Art-historically, this
" Max Loehr has formulated this problem well: "Tentatively I would conclude ... that changes of style are not
caused by immanent forces; that 'immanence' is a construct derived from an apparent logicality in sequences
of style; that this logicality stems from the rational and
conscious act of innovation achieved by an individual
artist; and that without the creative individual's mind
there would be no change, no sequence, no logicality, and
no inevitability to speculate upon." ("Some Fundamental
Issues ..
," p. 189).
Landscape in the Manner of Wang Meng,"
Fig. 11. Wen Cheng-ming (1470-1559),
dated 1535, National Palace Museum, Taiwan.
difference is more important than the fact that they both
worked within an illusionistic structure. Similarly, it
means little to say that Ming painting is "decorative"
and
Ch'ing landscape is "abstract," unless we can relate
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the Ming surface decoration and the Ch'ing abstract
space to the scholar-painters's expressed interest in calligraphy and the aesthetics of hsieh-i, or "idea-writing."
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The aim of structural analysis is to reconstruct the
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formal problem to which stylistic changes must correspond as linked and purposeful solutions. In this reconstruction, historical and literary records, artistic treatises,
as well as attributed works which constitute the bulk and
essence of the available visual material must necessarily
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play an even more important role than the archaeological evidence. Literary records usually ignore the common
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unique; annals of art record the great moments of creative invention in much the same way as dynastic histories emphasize the heroic exploits of the great
leaders. The stylistic development deduced from the ariiiiiiiiiil'i:il'rijiiii
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chaeological evidence, on the other hand, represents a
history of style without knowledge of individual contriii~ii~iiiiiii!•iii~i
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butions. With the help of literary records, individual
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contexts and critical purposes can be reconstructed.
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Attributed works must be studied in the light of not
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only archaeological and literary evidence, but also all
,
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other attributed works. I suggest that the following coniii
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aiiisiderations may eventually bring order to the complexiof Chinese painting history: First of all, we assume
ties
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ble structural alterations in each century at the hands of
their admiring imitators. When a painter paints in the
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manner of an ancient master, he borrows first the ob:ii~iiil~iliririiii
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vious identifying brush idioms, form elements and compositional motifs. If he hopes to produce a close likeness
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of his model he also tries to capture its expressive qualities. In expanding the original solution and giving it
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fresh understanding, however, the copyist deviates from
the original and makes subtle structural changes, thus
bringing his work to a new visual position. The copyist,
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in short, shows in his work not the real ancient master,
but a transmitted and transformed image of him. While
qualitative differences are difficult to argue about, structural changes can be more easily detected and
described.23
Secondly, since the visual material in the Chinese
painting field abounds in copies and imitations, it lends
itself to Professor George Kubler's idea of "formal se-
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" An exact
tracing copy may preserve much of the original
structure, but it suffers from a lack of spontaneity in execution. For various methods of forgery, see my article,
"The Problem of Forgeries in Chinese Painting," Artibus
Asiae, Vol. XXV, 2/3, 1962, pp. 95-119.
ART JOURNALXXVIII 4
396
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Landscape in the Manner of Huang Kung-wang, Cleveland Museum of Art.
quences" and "linked solutions."24 Copies and derivations of a single composition, done in various periods,
form one kind of sequence. Imitations and forgeries of
works of a given master, done in various periods, form a
second kind of sequence. Signed works of well-known
painters of different periods that are deliberately couched
in the distinct manners of some earlier masters, say,
"Huang Kung-wang," "Wu Chen," "Ni Tsan" or "Wang
Meng," form yet a third group of sequences. Properly
studied, all the works in different sequences should appear in series of linked solutions, beginning with the
original work, or its closest copy, and passing through
successive stages of replication and transformation. Since
these sequences, or continuous traditions, form parallel
stylistic movements, they will corroborate, enrich and
modify each other, eventually filling out a general stylistic development through the different periods.
Thirdly, to prove the authenticity of an individual
work, we must go beyond structure. To prove that one of
two attributed works in a stylistic sequence is an original
and the other a later imitation; or forgery, we must give
in order the following evidence: firstly, that the "correct"
painting is structurally, a work of the period to which it
is attributed; secondly, that together with literary and
other attributed material, the painting not only contributes to the understanding of the personal style of the
master, but also explains the transmitted image of the
master's manner in later periods; and finally, that the
"wrong" painting can be explained and placed in a later
period, within the attributed master's stylistic sequence,
or tradition. When the best of the attributed works are
established as original masterpieces, or their close copies,
they will reveal the great moments of creative progress.
El Greco
These saints do not believe
That God can forgive. Not
All the Prophets's reassurances
Can shake their prideful intelligence.
4 Op. cit., pp. 33ff. By characterizing stylistic development
in terms of "sequences" and "linked solutions," Professor
Kubler avoids the difficulties of both the biographical approach, which limits stylistic description to an individual
life span, and a Stilgeschichte on the Wdl;flinian model,
which implies a necessary sequence of styles. (See ibid.,
p. 36).
397
Fong: Toward a Structural Analysis of Chinese Landscape Painting
No, not even love, given fully
Or received, makes any difference.
-Thomas B. Brumbaugh