7-12Gu Kaizhi,Lady Feng and the Bear,detail ofAdmonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies,Period of Disunity, late fourth century.
Handscroll, ink and colors on silk, entire scroll 9 43 – 11 41 – 2 . British Museum, London.
Lady Feng’s act of heroism to save the life of her emperor was a perfect model of Confucian behavior. In this early Chinese representation of the
episode, the painter set the figures against a blank background.
C
hina has a long and rich history of scholarship on painting, pre-
served today in copies of texts from as far back as the fourth
century and in citations to even earlier sources. Few of the first texts
on painting survive, but later authors often quoted them, preserving
the texts for posterity. Thus, educated Chinese painters and their clients
could steep themselves in a rich art historical tradition. Perhaps the
most famous subject of later commentary is a set of six “canons,” or
“laws,” of painting that Xie He formulated in the early sixth century.
The canons, as translated by James Cahill,* are as follows:
- Engender a sense of movement through spirit consonance.
- Use the brush with the bone method.
- Responding to things, depict their forms.
- According to kind, describe appearances [with color].
5 Dividing and planning, positioning and arranging.
- Transmitting and conveying earlier models through copying and
transcribing.
Several variant translations have also been proposed, and schol-
ars actively debate the precise meaning of these succinct (Xie He em-
ployed only four characters for each) and cryptic laws. Interpreting
the canons in connection with existing paintings is often difficult
but nonetheless offers valuable insights into what the Chinese val-
ued in painting.
The simplest canons to understand are the third, fourth, and
fifth, because they show Chinese painters’ concern for accuracy in ren-
dering forms and colors and for care in composition, concerns com-
mon in many cultures. However, separating form and color into dif-
ferent laws gives written expression to a distinctive feature of early
Chinese painting. Painters such as Gu Kaizhi (FIG. 7-12) and Yan Liben
(FIG. 7-17) used an outline-and-color technique. Their brushed-ink
outline drawings employ flat applications of color. To suggest vol-
ume, they used ink shading along edges, such as drapery folds.
Also noteworthy is the order of the laws, suggesting Chinese
painters’ primary concern: to convey the vital spirit of their subjects
and their own sensitivity to that spirit. Next in importance was the
handling of the brush and the careful placement of strokes, espe-
cially of ink. The sixth canon also speaks to a standard Chinese paint-
ing practice: copying. Chinese painters, like painters in other cultures
throughout history, trained by copying the works of their teachers
and other painters. In addition, artists often copied famous paintings
as sources of forms and ideas for their own works and to preserve
great works created using fragile materials. In China, as elsewhere,
change and individual development occurred in constant reference
to the past, the artists always preserving some elements of it.Xie He’s Six Canons
ARTISTS ON ART*James Cahill, “The Six Laws and How to Read Them,”Ars Orientalis 4 (1961),
372–381.China 1911 in.