Page 14 - Sotheby's Arcadian beauty Song Pottery Oct. 3, 2018

ARCADIAN BEAUTY

REGINA KRAHL

In the Song dynasty (960-1279), probably more than in any like Fan Chengda (1126-1193), who in many poems revelled in
other period of China’s history, culture and education were the joys of the country-dweller, for example in Late Spring (in
considered the most important prerequisites of the elite the rhymed translation of Gerald Bullett, ibid., p. 387):
and valued higher than office and rank. Advancement in
Few come this way, and if a stranger should,
society was certainly desired and sought, but at the same
See how the birds dart off, into the wood!
time spurned, and the state’s most outspoken critics were
Shadows of dove-grey dusk the hills obscure,
often celebrated as sages. Even if the post of a high official
And gathering reach my fagot-builded door.
in the service of the Emperor was considered the ultimate
In a boat light as a leaf, still visible,
achievement, a modest and humble existence far away from
My lad-of-all-work plies his single scull.
it all, in harmony with nature, was at the same time one of
Alone, I weave my fence, of lithe bamboo,
society’s fundamental ideals.
And ducks go primly homewards, two by two.
Even if the post of a high official
In China, this glorification of
in the service of the Emperor
simplicity, austerity and naturalness
was considered the ultimate
went further; it encompassed the
achievement, a modest and
arts as well as the crafts.
humble existence far away from
it all, in harmony with nature, was If the bureaucrat may still have been able to live this dream at
at the same time one of society’s least at some point in his life, this was certainly impossible for
the Emperor; and yet, the same ideals prevailed even at the
fundamental ideals… the same imperial palace. The handscroll Awakening under a Thatched
Awning, attributed to Emperor Gaozong (1107-1187, r. 1127-
ideals prevailed even at the 1162), the first emperor of the Southern Song in Hangzhou, for
imperial palace. example, depicts a calm morning on a deserted lake, where
a lonely fisherman is seen stretching his limbs after a night
spent on his narrow, reed-covered boat, moored at a deserted
The cow herd with his water buffalo, the fisherman in his boat, rocky outcrop with nothing but shrubs and a willow tree
the brush wood gatherer under gnarled pine trees are idyllic nearby and a distant skyline of hills seen across the misty lake
scenes endlessly repeated in paintings and evoked in poetry (Qianxi nian Songdai wenwu dazhan/China at the Inception of
and prose. In the First Prose Poem on the Red Cliff Su Dongpo the Second Millennium: Art and Culture of the Sung Dynasty,
(Su Shi, 1037-1101), for example, writes, referring to himself 960-1279, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2000, pl. IV-8; fig.
and his friends (in the translation of A.C. Graham, in Cyril 1).
Birch, ed., Anthology of Chinese Literature, New York, 1965,
p. 382):
In the Song, the celebration of
Fishermen and woodcutters on the river’s isles, with fish
and shrimps and deer for mates, riding a boat as shallow artlessness was more than a flight
as a leaf, pouring each other drinks from bottlegourds; of fancy or a matter of taste, it was
mayflies visiting between heaven and earth, infinitesimal
grains in the vast sea, mourning the passing of our instant a reflection of an overarching world
of life, envying the long river which never ends! Let me
cling to a flying immortal and roam far off, and live for ever view.
with the full moon in my arms! But knowing that this art is
not easily learned, I commit the fading echoes to the sad
wind.” Such blissful, picturesque scenes of life in tune with nature
Yet not only the recluse, who lived indeed as a farmer in forced have a strong and universal attraction, and similar ideas
exile, as Su Dongpo did at the time he wrote these lines, flourished in the West since antiquity. The pastoral verses
expressed such thoughts. We hear similar eulogies of the of the Roman poet Virgil (70-19 BC), the Eclogues, inspired
secluded realm uncorrupted by civilization from the scholar- by earlier (3rd century BC) bucolic poems by the Greek poet
official, who held a high government post at the Song court, Theocritus, depict idyllic paradisiacal tableaux of Arcadia (or