Page 111 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

conceived of the mountain in strictly Taoist terms, bracketed cast
and west by the green dragon and the white tiger, its central peak
ringed with clouds and surmounted by the strutting phoenix,
symbol of the south. We do not know whether he ever painted this
picture or not, though he probably did. Only three paintings as-
sociated with his name have survived. One, of which there are
Sung versions in the Freer Gallery and the Palace Museum, Pe-
king, illustrates the closing moments in the fit of "The Fairy of the
Lo River," by Ts'ao Chih. Both these copies preserve the archaic
style of his time, particularly in the primitive treatment of the
landscape, which provides the setting for the scene where the fairy
bids farewell to the young scholar who had fallen in love with her,
and sails away in her magic boat.
The Lo-shen scroll makes use of the technique of continuous
narration, in which the same characters appear several times,
whenever the story requires. This device seems to have come from
India with the introduction of Buddhism, for there is no evidence
of it in Han art. Probably the Han scrolls most often used the con-
vention employed in the two other surviving works connected
with Ku K'ai-chih, the Lieh-nti t'u, illustrating four groups of fa-
mous women of antiquity, with their parents, 4 and The Admoni-
tions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies, in which the text alternates
with the illustrations. The Admonitions scroll, illustrating a poem
by Chang Hua, is not included among recorded works of Ku in
T'ang texts and was first attributed to him in the collection of the
Sung emperor Hui-tsung; there are, indeed, details of the land-
scape that suggest it may be a copy of the ninth or tenth century.
Yet it clearly derives from a painting by a very early master. The
scene in Fig. I iX shows the emperor gazing doubtfully at a con-
cubine seated in her bed-couch. The couplet (not visible) to the
right runs: "If the words that you utter arc good, all men for a
thousand leagues around will make response to you. But if you