Page 412 - Chinese Art, Vol II By Stephen W. Bushell

144 CHINESE ART.

making ready to accompany a pair of graceful dancing ladies, who are
trying their steps beyond the pillar on the right, but have been un-
fortunately cut out by the photographer, as they lend animation to
the scene. The picture, as a whole, is that of a walled palace with
pavilions. Mosques, and gardens with flowering trees, and the long
scroll as it is unrolled exhibits a succession of picturesque groups
of court ladies in brocaded robes with flowers in their hair, gather-
ing or watering flowers, reading, painting, plajdng chess and other
games, or otherwise occupied. The empress appears at last, seated,
with a eimuch attendant holding up a long-handled banner fan
over her head and a host of waiting damsels behind, having her
portrait taken by an artist who is putting his last touch of vermilion
to the lips. Finally comes a solitary, pensive figure standing on the
verandah, looking at a lake the banks of which are fringed with
willows clad in their spring garb of bright green. The signature
reads " Shih-Fu Ch'iu Ying chih." " Ch'iu Ying (styled) Shih-Fu
fecit," and the artist's nom de plume Shih-Chou is inscribed in a
little gourd-shaped frame underneath. The Chinese critic in his
certificate, written on the scroll in 1852, says that he has carefully
compared the signature with other examples and that it is certainly
genuine.
Fig. 132 is an example of a Buddhist religious picture, a concep-
tion of Bodhidharma, the 28th Indian and first Chinese patriarch,
on his journey from Canton to Loj^ang in 520, as he is miraculously
crossing the great Yang'.sze river standing upon a reed plucked
from the bank. It is in the Anderson collection, and is of late Ming
date, the first half of the seventeenth century, being attributed to
Mu-an, a Chinese monk who lived at a Buddhist temple in Japan.
The general decadence of art which set in towards the close of
the Ming dynasty is declared to have become itn fait accompli under
the Manchu line, and there is no room here to search for any ex-
ceptions to the rule ; nor is there yet any renaissance in sight. One
of the subjects, apart from art, which is of some interest out-