Page 443 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

poet, and painter Jin Zong (1449-1501), some- Han's tense posture and concentrated expression masters as Li Gonglin (c. 1049-1106) of the Song
one—whose name was subsequently erased, suggest that he is composing his own poem as we and Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322) and Zhang Wu
presumably to avoid embarrassment when that watch, his upraised hand beating out the metric (act. c. 1336-c. 1366) of the Yuan dynasty. Du
person disposed of the scroll —commissioned Jin rhythms of his lines. came to be regarded by some critics as the finest
to write out twelve famous poems by the greatest In the screen painting at which Han Yu gazes, Ming practitioner of the bai miao style. Zhan
of Tang and Song dynasty poets. Jin continued: the fisherman, in straw coat and hat, has moored Jingfeng (1520-1602) was one such admirer, and
his boat and walks with oar on shoulder toward his comments on Du's paintings are most
I then took these and requested Du Chengju the cave from which the spring emerges and perceptive:
(Du Jin) to do illustrations of them. Chengju which, in Tao's original story, gave access to the
didn't mind that my calligraphy was presump- hidden valley. Quickly and spontaneously drawn His drawing of both large and small figures is
tuously placed in the position of honor. When strokes structure the amorphous washes in the the best of this dynasty. The brushwork of his
the pure traces [of his brush] are present, and trees and rocks too is exceptionally dynamic,
his paintings are finished, there will certainly painting-within-a-painting, much as they do the unusually crisp and free, but in composition he
strangely shaped rocks in the garden within which
be those who will say that the pearls and jade both screen and poet stand. Du's landscape style sometimes sinks to histrionics, an everlasting
are to the side and will regard my imitations as injury to the painting. Throughout his whole
corrupt. But how can I excuse myself? thus appears quite up-to-date and "modern" in life he concentrated his mind on painting the
comparison with the more conservative style
occasional tree or rock
Despite those polite words of Jin Zong, the ab- found in Enjoying Antiquities. But given Du's figures, whereas for the and was careless
he didn't pay attention
sence of Du's signature and seals on his paintings knowledge of earlier motifs and styles, as well as
suggests that in fact he was the less important the subtlety with which he used them, it is also Some viewers today may well agree with Zhan,
member of the artistic partnership. possible that the screen painting at which Han Yu while others, responding more to formal than to
Second among the nine extant sections of the gazes embodies to some extent Du's conception of descriptive criteria, will appreciate the sponta-
original twelve, Du's On Viewing a Painting of Tang landscape styles, especially that termed po neity and expressiveness of those "careless" pas-
the Peach-Blossom Spring illustrates a poem by mo, "splashed or broken ink/' which is known to sages. It redounds to Du's credit and reputation
Han Yu (768-824) describing his reaction to a have flourished during the ninth century and that he was able to present complex iconography
painting received from a friend; that painting within the lifetime of Han Yu. in such richly varied pictorial terms that his
illustrated the Peach-Blossom Spring, a prose tale Du's stylistic range in figure painting, broader paintings are as fresh and captivating now as they
composed by Tao Qian (365-427). Du's painting even than that in his landscapes, extends from the were then. H.R.
thus portrays the Tang poet Han Yu as he is led tautly controlled line-and-color approach of
by the thoughtful gift first to muse on the orig- Enjoying Antiquities to the freer, more relaxed
inal story, in which a fisherman discovers a para- rhythms found in this bai miao monochromatic
disiacal village lost to the outer world since the linear style. This too has Tang dynasty precedents,
third century B.C. , and then to consider the in the work of Wu Daozi (d. 792), for example,
epochal political and social changes since then. but Du's more direct models were such literati
442 CIRCA 1492