Page 232 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

255 Ch'en Hung-shou (1599-165*).
Portrait oftht Poet Po CTui-i, in the
manner of Li Lung-mien. Detail of a
tundscroU dated equivalent to 1649. Ink
and colour on paper. Ch'ing Dynasty.

the doctrine is important as a symptom of the predicament of the
late Ming literati—a predicament that is also reflected in their own
painting.
The court by now was hopelessly corrupt and no longer the fo-
cus of loyalty and enlightened patronage. Intellectuals withdrew
in despair, a few courageous spirits forming semi-secret protest
groups such as the Tung-lin Society, with which Tung Ch'i-
ch'ang was loosely connected. Yet the decay of the dynasty pro-
duced no real closing of the ranks, and the literati were often di-
vided and isolated. Soochow, Sung-chiang, and Nanking were
only the chief among many centres of artistic activity, and it has
been said that there were now as many schools as there were
painters.
But, to compensate, the breakdown also loosened traditional
restraints upon originality. While many artists still followed in the
footsteps of Shen Chou and Wen Cheng-ming, others broke free,
even if their new direction was only into a highly individualistic,
if not willfully perverse, reinterpretation of some aspect of the
tradition itself. In Soochow, for example, Shao Mi and Chao Tso
turned back to the Northern Sung for inspiration, Ch'en Hung-
shou gave an ironic twist to the ancient figure-painting style that
derived from Ku K'ai-chih, Wu Pin produced fantastic distortions
of the classic styles of Li Ch'eng and Fan K'uan whose realism and
chiaroscuro effects were for a time influenced by European en-
gravings brought by the first Jesuit missionaries. Some artists de-
fended the Ma-Hsia School, and one even went so far as to deni-
grate the immaculate Ni Tsan. In such a chaotic and crumbling
world, in which a painter's search for a style, an attitude, a place in
256 WuPin(c. 1568-1626), Fanlaslu the tradition was at the same time a search for his own identity, it
Lmisitft. Hanging scroll dated is easy to see how a dominating personality such as Tung Ch'i-
equivalent to 1616. Ink and colour on
piper Ming Dynasty. ch'ang could take command of all but the most independent paint-
ers and sweep them along behind him down the path to a new
orthodoxy.
SCULPTURE To many people "Ming" means not painting—for it is only re-
cently that Ming painting has come to be appreciated outside
China—but the decorative arts. Before we discuss them, how-
ever, we should say a word about sculpture. As, during the Sung
212