Page 460 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

mary of earlier Chinese inventions, both aesthetic poem, acknowledging that he cannot see himself
and representational. as others see him, asserts that spirit, not appear-
The luohan (S: arhat), attendant, and dancer ance, counts:
are defined as Indian by their slightly dark and Some people say my eyes are too small,
gray-toned skin, though the luohan's meager while others say my jaw is too narrow;
beard and intensely meditative eyes are more I myself have no way of knowing,
Chinese, and he is seated on a raised Chinese plat- nor do I know what is lacking.
form (kang). Since Cudapanthaka is the "medita-
tion" arhat, his expression is appropriate, as is the But why bother to judge appearance,
tiny figure of a bodhisattva (in Nepalese style) when one should fear only loss of morality;
meditating in a cave directly above the gold- Carefree for eighty years,
roofed, multicolored palace in the distance on I am now next door to death.
the left. The luohan wears a brilliantly colored,
multi-patterned priest's robe and holds a large In a second inscription, added somewhat later,
rosary in his left hand. Behind him is a plaited Shen suggests that beyond a certain point such
backrest, an essential for scholarly ease. His philosophical speculation matters little in
monkish attendant, also in colorful patterned comparison with the sheer fact of survival:
garb, is holding an unhusked chestnut, which he Is it like or not like, true or not true?
is about to husk and place on a tray. This tray has From bottom to top it only reflects the
a lotus base supported by a pedestal in the form exterior man.
of a Chinese dragon, which rises from a red and
yellow lacquer base. On a red lacquer footstool are Death and life are both a dream,
the luohan's shoes. Nearly centered at the lowest And heaven and earth are entirely dust.
point in the picture is a monkey. At lower left is The stream endures within my breast,
an extraordinary attendant figure, dancing on a 31O From spring it will be another year.
mat, with a flute lying half on and half off the H.R.
mat. With left arm horizontal and right arm PORTRAIT OF SHEN ZHOU
raised, the dancer echoes similar figures some dated to 1506
seven hundred years earlier, dancing in Tang Chinese
dynasty (618-907) representations of the Western hanging scroll; ink and color on silk 311
Paradise of Amitabha Buddha. Even the monkey, 28 x 20.9 (11 x 8 /4)
l
both in pose and configuration, recalls works inscription with signature of the artist Shen Zhou
attributed to or in the style of early Song (960- Palace Museum, Beijing 1427-1509
1127) "fur and feather" paintings, such as those of
Yi Yuanji (act. 1064-1067), the most famous of LOFTY MOUNT Lu
artists specializing in the genre. The patterns of The white-haired and bearded old man with angu- dated to 1467
the various textiles recall Tang and Song designs. lar face and piercing eyes appears shrunken in Chinese
The setting, a rocky but verdant outlined land- comparison with his peaked scholar's hat and hanging scroll; ink and color on paper
scape in lapis blue, turquoise green, and gold, is undecorated literati robe. This contrast functions 193.8 x 98.1 (76^4 x j8 /8)
5
also indebted to Tang; the style began in China expressively to characterize the subject as a man National Palace Museum, Taipei
in the sixth century and continued as archaistic of advanced age, just as the slightly asymmetrical
homage well into the Ming dynasty. Qiu Ying placement of the body and head present him as a
(cat. 302) made extremely sophisticated use of the man of subtle depth. The focal point of the painting is the small figure
"blue-green-gold style" at about the time this Although some stylistic features of the painting of a scholar, placed on the medial axis and further
thangka was painted. By its interweaving of are common in ancestor portraits, and some emphasized by his very isolation. Twisting forms
rocks, trees, and clouds the setting compounds aspects of the face may have been emphasized to constructed by constantly curling brush strokes
the camouflaging density of the composition. accord with general rules of physiognomy, the fill the entire format, leaving the eye no place to
What we have here is a compendium of the strong sense of a very specific personality here rest save around that calm figure, who thus serves
copy-books inherited from generation to gen- suggests that this is in fact a portrait painted from as the measure of this monumental and imposing
eration of traditional icon painters. The individual life. The identity of the artist responsible for this vision of nature. Although remarkably compli-
motifs, however, were woven into a thicket of sensitive interpretation of character and personal- cated and dynamic, the composition is yet stable
obsessive design produced for a non-Chinese ity is in some doubt; the painting has been pub- and coherently organized, just as the vibrant sur-
audience. Here the aesthetic wealth of China was lished as a self-portrait by Shen Zhou and as the face is clarified by means of texture and color.
placed at the service of the complicated theology work of an anonymous artist. Though Shen Zhou Art-historical precedents for this style can be
of Tibet. S.E.L. is not remembered as a figure painter, it may be found in the works of Xu Ben (1335^. 1379) and,
noted that the fixed, sidewise gaze of the sitter most especially, Wang Meng (1309-1385). In
here would be natural for an artist concentrating common with the styles of those fourteenth-
on his own reflected image as he painted. century masters are the extreme elaboration of
About the identity of the sitter there is no surface, the richly tactile brushwork, and the loca-
doubt, for the longest inscription is signed: lization of pictorial movement within stable units
"During the first year of the Zhengde reign-era of form. The artist's student, Wen Zhengming
[i.e., 1506] the old man of the Stone Field [Shen (1470-1559), who became a major master in his
Zhou] inscribed this [portrait of] himself." Shen's own right, would later note that his teacher's

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