Vessely, Zoschenko, Tretiakev, Sobole, Kolosov, Formanov, and Figner. We have
omitted to mention, of course, the "great Russians" of prerevolutionary days, like
Pushkin, Tchekov, Tolstoy and Turgeniev, who had before this time been familiar to
the reading public. Tchekov's complete works have been translated; Tolstoy is known
through twenty of his works, including the long War and Peace (translated in part
only), Anna Karmina and The Resurrection; Dostoievsky is a great favourite (seven of
his works, including Crime and Punishment}; Turgeniev had long been known
(twenty-one of his works translated). Gorky, bridging across the two periods, is, of
course, popular. Eroshenko, Andreyev and Artzybashev are also popular, due to Lusin's influence. As a sign of the feverish demand for things Russian may be
mentioned the curious fact that twenty-three out of the barely over hundred
post-revolutionary works had double translations published by rival companies at
about the same time, including four which appeared in three simultaneous
translations* Among the more popular works may be mentioned Madame Kollontay's
Red Love (two translations), Gladhov's Cment (three translations], Ognyov's Diary of
a Communist Schoolboy (three translations), Artzybashev's Sanine (three translations),
the various works of Serafimovitch and Pilniak, the plays of Shishkov, Ivanov and the
critical works of Lunacharsky.
Chapter Eight
THE ARTISTIC LIFE
I. THE ARTIST
I THINK of all phases of the Chinese civilization, Chinese art alone will make any
lasting contribution to the culture of the world. This point, I think, will not be
seriously contested. Chinese science, in any case, does not make any pretensions,
although the Chinese empirical medicine provides a rich field for medical research
and discoveries. Chinese philosophy will never make any lasting impression on the
West, because Chinese philosophy, with its moderation, restraint and pacifism, which
are all physically conditioned by the decrease of bodily energy, can never suit the
Western temperament, with its aggressive exuberance and vitality.
For the same reason, the Chinese social organization will never fit the West.
Confucianism is too matter of fact, Taoism too nonchalant, and Buddhism too
negative to suit the Western positive outlook on life. No people that are daily sending
meix to explore the North Pole or conquer the air or break speed records cart become
good Buddhists. I have seen a few examples of European Buddhist monks, who talk
altogether too loudly and too vehemently to conceal the tumultuous passions in their
souls. In particular, I have seen one who, in his energetic denunciation of the West, is
willing to call down fire and brimstone from heaven to burn up all Europe. When
Europeans put on Buddhist gowns and try to look calm and passive, they merely look
ridiculous.
Moreover, it would be unfair to judge the Chinese as a nation without an
understanding of their art. There are certain hidden innermost recesses of the Chinese
soul that can be known only through its reflection in Chinese art, for, like Cyrano de
Beigerac, the extreme sensitiveness and fine feeling of the Chinese soul are hidden
behind a somewhat unprepossessing exterior. Behind the Chinese flat, unemotional face is concealed a deep emotionalism, and behind his sullen, decorous appearance
resides a carefree, vagabond soul. Those rough yellow fingers mould and fashion
objects of pleasing design and harmony, and from the almond eyes behind the high
cheekbones shines a tender light that dwells fondly on forms of exquisite beauty.
From the Temple of Heaven to the scholar's letter-paper and other products of artcraft,
Chinese art shows a taste and finesse and understanding of tone and harmony that
distinguish the best products of the human spirit.
Calm and harmony distinguish Chinese art, and calm and harmony come from the
soul of the Chinese artist* The Chinese artist is a man who is at peace with nature,
who is free from the shackles of society and from the temptations of gold, and whose
spirit is deeply immersed in mountains and rivers and other manifestations of nature.
Above all, his breast must brood no ill passions, for a good artist, we strongly believe,
must be a good man. He must first of all "chasten his heart" or "broaden his spirit,'*
chie0y by travel and by contemplation. This is the severe training we impose on the
Chinese painter. It would be only too easy to give testimonies from Chinese painters
to illustrate this point. Thus Wen Chenming said: "If one's moral character is not high,
his art will also lack style." A Chinese artist must absorb in himself the best of human
culture and nature's spirit. Tung Ch' ich'ang (1555-1636), one of the greatest of China's
calligraphists and painters, once said of another painter: "How can one be the father of
painting without reading ten thousand books and travelling ten thousand fi?" The
Chinese artist does not learn painting by going into a room and stripping a woman
naked in order to study her anatomy, nor does he make copies of plaster figures of
ancient Greece and Rome, as some backward art schools in the West still do. The
Chinese artist travels and visits the famous mountains like Huaagshan in Anhui or the
Omei mountains in Szechuen*
This escape to the mountains is important for several reasons. First of all, the artist
must absorb impressions from the myriad forms of nature, its insects and trees and
clouds and waterfalls.
In order to paint them, he must love them, and his spirit must commune with them. He
must know and be familiar with their ways, and he must know how the same tree
changes its shade and colour between morning and night or between a clear day and a
misty morning, and he must see with his own eyes how the mountain clouds "entwine
the rocks and encircle the trees." But more important than cold, objective observations
is the spiritual baptism in nature. So did Li Jihhua (1565-1635) describe die spiritual
baptism of a great painter:
Huang Tzuchiu often sits the whole day in the company of bamboos, trees,
brushwood and piles of rocks in the wild mountains, and seems to have lost himself in
his surroundings, in a manner puzzling to others. Sometimes he goes to the place
where the river joins the sea to look at the currents and the waves, and he remains
there, oblivious of wind and rain and the howling water-spirits. This is the work of the Great Absent-Minded [name of the painter], and that is why it is surcharged with
moods and feelings, ever-changing and wonderful like nature itself.
Secondly, Chinese paintings are always painted from mountain tops and specialize in
those awesome grand aspects of mountain peaks or rocks, which only those who have
seen them can believe. The retreat to the mountains is a search for grandeur in nature.
A Chinese artist in America would first of all take for his subject the Grand Canyon or
the mountains around Banff. And having come to such a grand surrounding, it is
inevitable that he should obtain an elevation of the spirit as well as a physical
elevation. It is strange that spiritual elevation always goes with physical elevation on
this planet, and life always looks different from an altitude of five thousand feet.
People fond of horseback-riding always say that the moment one goes up on
horseback one obtains a different view of the world, which I imagine must be true.
The retreat to the mountains means, therefore, also a search for moral elevation,
which is the last and most important reason for travel. Thus from his god-like height
the artist surveys the world with a calm expansion of the spirit, and this spirit goes
into his painting. Then, chastened in spirit, he comes back to city life and tries to
communicate it to those who are less fortunate. His subjects may alter, but his spirit of
mountain calm remains, and when he feels he has lost or exhausted this spirit, he
travels again and rebaptizes himself in the mountain air.
It is this spirit of calm and harmony, this flavour of the mountain air (shanlin cKi]
always tinged a little with the recluse's passion for leisure and solitude, which
characterizes all forms of Chinese art. Consequently, its characteristic is not
supremacy over nature, but harmony with nature.
II. CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY
All problems of art are problems of rhythm. Hence, in trying to understand
Chinese art, we must begin with Chinese rhythm and the source of artistic inspiration.
Allowing that rhythm is universal and that the Chinese do not own a monopoly of
nature's rhythms, it is still possible to trace a difference of emphasis. It has already
been pointed out, in the discussion on the ideal of womanhood in China, that the
Western artist invariably goes to the feminine form as inspiration for the highest ideal
of perfect rhythm, while the Chinese artist and art-lover usually rest supremely happy
in contemplating a dragon- fly, a frog, a grasshopper or a piece of jagged rock. From
my observation, it seems therefore that the spirit of Western art is more sensual, more
passionate, more full of the artist's own ego, while the spirit of Chinese art is more
chastened, more restrained, and more in harmony with nature. We may express this
difference by using the Nietzschean language aad saying that Chinese art is
Apollonian art, while Western art is Dionysian art This enormous difference is
possible only through a different understanding and appreciation of rhythm as such.
While it is true that all problems of art arc problems of rhythm in whatever country, it is also true that until recently ia the West, rhythm has not played the dominant rok
which it has always enjoyed in Chinese paintings. Curiously enough, this cult of
rhythm in the abstract arose from the development of Chinese calligraphy as an art.
The strange pleasure derived from contemplating a picture of barren rocks done in a
few strokes and hung on the wall to be looked at day in and day out 梩 his strange
pleasure will become understandable to the West when the West has understood the
artistic principles of Chinese calligraphy. So fundamental is the place of calligraphy in
Chinese art as a study of form and rhythm in the abstract that we may say it has
provided the Chinese people with a basic aesthetics, and it is through calligraphy that
the Chinese have learned their basic notions of line and form. It is therefore
impossible to talk about Chinese art without understanding Chinese calligraphy and
its artistic inspiration. There is, for instance, not one type of Chinese architecture,
whether it be thepailou, the pavilion or the temple, whose sense of harmony and form
is not directly derived from certain types of Chinese calligraphy.
The position of Chinese calligraphy in the history of the world's art is thus truly
unique. Owing to the use in writing of the brush, which is more subtle and more
responsive than the pen, calligraphy has been elevated to the true level of an art on a
par with Chinese painting. The Chinese are fully aware of this when they regard
painting and calligraphy as sister arts, shu-kua, "calligraphy and painting," forming
almost an individual concept and always being mentioned in the same breath. Should
there be a question as to which has a wider appeal, the answer would undoubtedly be
in favour of calligraphy. It has thus become an art cultivated with the same passion
and devotion, dignified by as worthy a tradition, and held in as high esteem as
painting itself. Its standards are just as exacting, and its masters have reached heights
as unattainable by the common run of men as the masters in other lines. The great
Chinese painters, like Tung Ch' ich'ang and Chao Mengfu, are usually great
calligraphists also. Chao Mengfu (1254-1322), one of the best known of Chinese
painters, said of his own painting: "Rocks are like thefoipo style of writing [with
hollow lines in the strokes], and the trees are like the chuan style of writing [with
relatively even and twisted strokes]. The method of painting lies yet in the 'eight
fundamental strokes* of writing. If there is one who can understand this, he will
realise that the secret of calligraphy is really the same."
It seems to me that calligraphy, as representing the purest principles of rhythm and
composition, stands in relation to painting as pure mathematics stands in relation to
engineering or astronomy. In appreciating Chinese calligraphy, the meaning is entirely
forgotten, and the lines and forms are appreciated in and for themselves. In this
cultivation and appreciation of pure witchery of line and beauty of composition,
therefore, the Chinese have an absolute freedom and entire devotion to pure form as
such, as apart from content. A painting has to convey an object, but a well-written
character conveys only its own beauty of line and structure. In this absolutely free
field, every variety of rhythm has been experimented upon and every type of structure
