Re-conceptualizing the Meaning of Landscape

Painting:

Reading Notes on Two Painting Treatises of

the Six Dynasties

Mia Yu 于于于（）

McGill University

1

Zhang Yan Yuan’s influential multi-volume Record of

Famous Paintings of Successive Dynasties (历历历历历) completed in 847

A. D. was probably the first painting treatise that

historicized Chinese painting in a progressive fashion.

Zhang’s historical narrative departed from the

mythological account on Chinese painting’s common origin

with writing. He claimed that painting came to exist at a

“moment” when painting and writing were differentiated

from a totality of graphic signs that were created by the

ancient Sages.1 This “moment” of differentiation was also

a moment of creation, which not only pinpointed the

beginning of Chinese painting history, but also marked a

“historical moment” in a grander history of Chinese

graphic signs. Before this juncture, the Sages received

auspicious diagrams and omens from Heaven; they devised

primary sign systems of the trigrams and hexagrams of the

Changes based on his observation of natural phenomena.

These graphic symbols, only meaningful to the Sage,

formed the graphic foundations of Chinese civilization. 1 “ 历历历 历历历书体…历历 历历传, 历历书.历历历历历,历历历.” Zhang Yan Yuan. “On the Origins of Painting.” In Some T’ang and Pre-T’ang Texts on Chinese Painting, translated and annonated by William R.B. Acker. 61.

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The turning point in this progression came at the

subsequent creation of writing and painting. According to

Zhang’s account, both graphic systems respectively

developed the semantic and formal aspects of the primary

signs and fulfilled the needs to transmit the Sages’

teachings to man. Hence, as genetic permutations of the

principal signs, writing and painting shared the same

cosmological root with the Sages’ creation. It is by this

underlying logic that Zhang Yan Yuan placed painting

within a larger historical narrative of the Sages’ sign-

making and, more importantly, in close proximity to the

more prestigious graphic sign systems –the Chinese script

and the Yijing hexagram.

Scholars have long been skeptical about the

truthfulness of Zhang Yan Yuan’s genealogical

historiography. Taiwanese scholar Xu Fu Guan, among

others, discredited the common genesis of writing and

painting as a myth. He argued that painting was naturally

considered as the continuation of calligraphy because

calligraphy and painting shared the similar stroke

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structure.2 During the Six Dynasties, the stylistic

kinship between calligraphy and painting began to bring

painting under a set of aesthetic criteria that was only

applied to calligraphy. In other words, it is purely by

formal likeness that painting was aligned to calligraphy,

not by a common historical origin. Zhang Yan Yuan’s

quasi-historiography seemed to be derived from his agenda

to incorporate painting, a relatively low art form, into

an emerging literati system of the Tang dynasty, along

with writing, music and ceremonial rituals.

Without taking Zhang’s account on the origin of

painting as a serious art historical claim, we might give

much-deserved attention to Zhang’s methodology, that is,

to examine painting in relation to other sign systems,

especially the Yijing hexagrams. I posit that the similar

approach underscored a series of attempts to

conceptualize the meaning of painting in the early

painting history, especially from the Six Dynasties to

the Tang period.

2 Xu Fuguan. Zhongguo Yi Shu Jing Shen. Taibei :: Si li dong hai da xue, 1966. p25.

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In this paper, I will examine two earliest extant

treatises on landscape painting written in the early 5th

century, Of Landscape Painting (历历历历) by Zong Bing (375-443)

and Discussion of Painting (历历) by Wang Wei (415-443). Despite

relatively humble status of painting at that period, both

works drew direct parallels between landscape painting

and the Yijing hexagrams. In the opening paragraph, Wang

Wei made three groundbreaking claims: (1) he

distinguished painting from being a mere technique; (2)

he explicitly stated that painting should be considered

in the same category as the Yijing hexagrams;3 (3) he

believed that painting should be discussed on par with

calligraphy. In contrast, Zong Bing never directly

mentioned the Yijing; instead, he drew a more metaphorical

analogy between the Sages’ sign-making practice and man’s

engagement with natural images. Unlike Zhang Yan Yuan’s

grand historical narrative, these two essays were

personal and poetic reflections on landscape painting.

They made their arguments on a philosophical ground

rather than giving quasi-historical accounts. This paper

3 历历历历历历, 历历历<历>历历体。Susan Bush and Hsio-yen Shih. Early Chinese Texts on Painting. Cambridge, Mass.: Published for the Harvard-Yenching Institute by Harvard University Press, 1985. p38.

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will trace some of the possible philosophical and

aesthetic connections between landscape painting and the

making of the Yijing hexagrams as seen in these two essays

and also provide interpretations in the their textual and

historical contexts. Another goal of the paper is also to

demonstrate that, by aligning landscape painting with the

Yijing hexagrams, Zong and Wang, among others, contributed

to the long fermentation of landscape painting as a

serious art genre. Recognizing Zong’s and Wang’s

differences in their social and intellectual backgrounds,

this paper will mainly focus on their shared views

between instead of scrutinizing their nuanced

differences.

Viewing painting in the system of graphic signs

Before Zhang Yan Yuan’s treatise on the history of

painting, a tradition of comparing painting with other

graphic signs has long existed. While the Yijing hexagrams

and writing scripts were considered as prestigious forms

of wen underlying Chinese civilization, painting, on the

contrary, had lingered at a rather humble place within

the hierarchy of graphic signs. According to the

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definitions of painting in the early lexicographical

works from the late Zhou to the early Han, the

understanding of painting was largely limited to mimetic

representation of appearance and often undifferentiated

from other techniques such as categorizing things, making

maps and hanging up colorful ornament.4 During the Han

Dynasty, as elaborate textual practices were increasingly

invested with cosmological significance, text became a

paralleling metaphor for the grand Han imperial order. In

such context, it is unsurprising that the metaphysical

efficacy of painting was frequently questioned and

challenged in comparison with writing in such context. In

discussing mural painting of Sages and Confucian

worthies, Han scholar Wang Chong (27-100) argued that

writing could effectively transmit sages’ teaching, but

painting could convey neither animated expression nor

action. He, later, dismissed figure painting with such

statement, “The writings bequeathed by sages of the past

4 , “Er ya says, to paint is to give from 历历; guang ya says (wei dictionary), to paint is to cause to resemble 历历; shuo wen says, the character hua is derived from the raised paths between fields/BOUNDARY 历历. The character depicts the boundary-path and the edges of foleds, and is therefore itself a drawing; Shi Ming says (Han), painting has to do with being hung upon. It means to set down the appearance of things with the use of colours 历历.” (Bush, Ming Huaji, 70)

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shine forth as recorded on bamboo and silk. Why [seek

inspiration] in vain from the paintings on walls?”5

While painting was a humble technique in general,

landscape painting was certainly viewed far from a

serious pictorial genre. Just like the Roman frescos, the

earliest Chinese landscapes were no more than settings

for the narrative of a story or the background of figure

painting. According to Michael Sullivan, during and

before the Han time, people neither had the chance to

travel in nature, nor had any interest.6 The lack of the

direct experience was not only due to the impracticality

of far-away journeys during the Han, but also due to the

lack of meaning attributed to the activity itself. While

the text of the Confucian worthies was considered as the

carrier of the teaching of the Dao, “shanshui”历历

(landscape) had not yet acquired any ontological weight.

It was not until the collapse of the Han and the

subsequent period of the Six Dynasties that the

5 Michael Sullivan. Symbols of Eternity: The Art of Landscape Painting in China. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. 6 Ibid.

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conceptual foundation for landscape painting began to re-

formulate and assert itself.7

During the Six Dynasties, landscape painting emerged

as an increasingly important subject matter of the art,

the alternative to portraiture. An important reason for

the shift was the “discovery” of the ultimate meaning

that lay beyond landscape but was nevertheless intimately

connected with landscape. According to Ronald Egan, the

shift took place in both fields of calligraphy and

painting. For each art there was a new term and concept

that emerged as the key designation of this ultimate

meaning. For calligraphy, the term was “yi” 历 (idea),

which suggested the connection between writing and the

“images” and hexagrams in the Yijing. For painting, the key

term to describe the ultimate meaning is “shen” 历

(spirit). It may have been due to the earlier dominance

of portraiture as a subject and also the assumption that

a portrait might, like a person, possess an inner spirit.8

With the new notion of calligraphic “yi” and painterly 7 Xu Fu Guan. Zhongguo Yi Shu Jing Shen. Taibei :: Si li dong hai da xue. P58.8 Ronald Egan. “Nature and Higher Ideals in Texts on Calligraphy, Music and Painting.” In Chinese Aesthetics: The Ordering of Literature, the Arts, and the Universe in the Six Dynasties. Edited by Cai, Zong-qi. (University of Hawaii Press,) 277.

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“shen” in place, writing with the brush was no longer

valued solely for the semantic content of the words;

painting was no longer appreciated primarily for its

depiction of historical or religious worthies. Infused

with “shen”, landscape painting was considered as the very

substance of the Dao itself, instead of a representation

or mediation of the Dao. The landscape experience was

further closely bound up with the sudden discovery of the

self as a creative being that burst upon artist and poet.9

As mentioned earlier, Wang Wei made an audacious

statement in the opening of his essay: “Painting should

not end as a mere craft; it should be in the same

category as the Yijing hexagram.” The statement suggested

that painting was not merely a skill; it produced a kind

of vision of the universe that was comparable to the Yijing

hexagram. Wang Wei did not give an immediate explanation

to his statement. However, we could at least trace the

context of his statement by the sub-heading of his essay,

which read, “I was honored by a letter from the Imperial

Household Grandee Yan Yan Zhi”. The sentence told us that

this essay was written in direct response to a letter 9 Ibid.

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from Yan Yan Zhi, a high-ranking official at the Liu-Song

court. An influential scholar in the Abstruse Leaning

(xuanxue, 历历), Yan Yan Zhi was significantly influenced by

Wang Bi’s commentaries on the Yijing and Laozi. It is also

Yan who assigned Wang Bi’s commentary of the Yijing as a

compulsory text for the imperial academy.

It seemed that Yan Yan Zhi and Wang Wei were engaged

in an intellectual dialogue on how to conceptualize

painting in relation to the graphic sign system. In Yan’s

letter, he used an encompassing notion of tu 历 (chart,

picture, map and diagram) to organize his understanding

of the graphic sign system. Yan wrote,

“The word tu 历 contains three concepts. The first is tu li 历历, the representation of principles, that is, the images of the hexagrams. The second is tu shi 历历 the representation of knowledge, that is, the art of writing.The third is tu xing 历历, the representation of forms, that is, painting.”10

Yan Yan Zhi’s model of tu could be at least read in

two ways. On one hand, Yan gave a rather schematic

structure of the graphic sign system based on different

functions of the signs: the ones that represent

principle, the ones that represent meaning and the ones

10 Lidai Minghua ji, I.1. See Acker, Texts, vol. 1, pp. 65-66.

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that represent form. What hypothetically lay at the

center was the Dao, the ultimate meaning and truth of the

universe. The model presented a hierarchical dispersion

of space from the center to the periphery, depending on

the signs’ efficacy in mediating the Dao. The Yijing

hexagram, as a direct and immediate revelation of the

principle of the Dao, was placed close to the center.

Painting, the representation of the formal surface of the

world, was on the periphery.

The second way to understand was to move away from

the hierarchical model. Yan Yan Zhi used the term tu to

describe a single “all-encompassing sign”, which

simultaneously signified principle, knowledge and form.

For example, the trigram kan signifies water. The

graphic sign presents the internal essence of water and

represents its external form. Moreover, it serves as the

graphic basis for the script for water, shui 历. In his

response to Yan’s model of signs, Wang Wei clearly had an

agenda to differentiate his understanding of painting

from the common bias that were usually associated with

painting. He adopted a new term for painting, tuhua 历历 by

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consolidating hua 历, picture, with tu 历, Yan’s notion of an

all-encompassing sign. Tuhua defined painting as an all-

encompassing image that could transcend the mere

representation of form. It even functioned as a presentation

that could enact the principle of the Dao through the

signifying process of painting. In other words, Wang

Wei’s tuhua suggested that painting was not a fixed sign,

but a process that oscillated between representation and

presentation. It is on this level that Wang Wei’s notion

of painting established a direct relationship with the

images of the Yijing. By aligning painting with the

prestigious sign system of the Yijing, Wang Wei

significantly elevated the status of painting within the

graphic sign system.

Landscape painting as the trace of the Dao

Wang Wei’s contemporary Zong Bing also attempted to

establish landscape as a spiritual entity. According to

Zong Bing, landscape was meaningful because landscape was

where “shen”, spirit, resided: “Spirit [shen] is

essentially limitless and resides in forms [of

landscape]. It has sympathetic response with the things

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in nature.” (历历历历,历历历历) The opening sentence of Zong

Bing’s essay drew an immediate parallel between the

Sage’s image-making practice in nature and man’s

engagement with landscape. He wrote, “embodying the Dao,

the Sage responds to the things [in nature]; clarifying

the mind, a wise man savors the images [of nature]. As of

landscape, it has material form as well as spiritual

substance.” (历历历历历历,历历历历历历. 历历历历,历历历历历) We may treat the

Sage’s “response to nature” as the Sage’s various

creations, particularly the invention of the trigrams and

hexagrams. Thus, what Zong Bing intended to do was to

present “savoring the landscape” as the very equivalence

of the Sage’s sign-making practice in the human world.

Zong Bing further established another significant

connection between man and landscape, that is, man could

retrieve the Sage’s teachings and principles from

landscape, just like from writing. By doing so, one

needed to physically submerge oneself in nature and

avidly observe and read the natural images.11 Zong Bing 11 “Although the principle and teachings of the Sages were lost in theantiquities, their meanings can still be retrieved thousands of yearslater.” 历历历历历历历历历,历历历历历历历历历历历历历历历历, 历历历历 历历历书 . 历历历历历历,历历历历. Susan Bushand Hsio-yen Shih. Early Chinese Texts on Painting. Cambridge, Mass.: Published for the Harvard-Yenching Institute by Harvard University Press, 1985. p37.

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used the term “gan”, 历, to explain his notion of

observing/reading. The mission of “gan” engaged painter’s

senses as well as painter’s “xin” 历 (heat-mind).12 Rather

than referring to simple sensorial receptions, the notion

of “gan” 历 pointed toward a series of physical and mental

“savoring” of landscape with the purpose of connecting

with the numinous in landscape. It may include traveling

in landscape, viewing landscape from far and close,

smelling landscape, contemplating upon landscape,

envisioning landscape and eventually painting landscape.

For Zong Bing, the process of “gan” or “savoring” was the

prerequisite of painting.

Landscape painting, in Zong Bing’s world, was one of

the “savoring” activities to retrieve the ultimate

meaning of the landscape, a continuous process of acting

upon landscape with the painter’s body and mind.

Potentially, it was also a practice to cultivate the

painter from an ordinary man to a wise man, and

potentially to a human sage. Such conceptual organization

on landscape painting fertilized a new conceptual ground

to understand landscape painting as a sign. In Zong 12历历历历历历历历历…历历历历历,历历历历. 历历历历,历历历历. Ibid, 38.

15

Bing’s words, landscape painting was to have “principles

of universal truth [Dao] enter into shadow [ying] and

trace [ji]”( 历历历历) and “only one who can sincerely paint

the spirit of the landscape can effectively exhaust the

ultimate meaning [of the Dao].”(历历历历,历历历历) Zong Bing’s

intriguing notion of painting as “shadow and trace”

evoked many interpretations. Chen Chuanxi, a scholar on

Chinese painting aesthetics, stated that the “shadow and

trace” should not be confused with its modern definition,

the illusionary projection of the world; rather it should

be taken as Zong Bing’s core definition of landscape

painting as a sign. According to Chen, during the Six

Dynasties period, the Yijing trigrams and hexagrams were

commonly called as yingji 历历. By lending the term to

landscape painting, Zong Bing implied that landscape

painting should be equated to the images of the Changes;

hence, landscape painting should also be practiced and

understood as the hexagrams.13 Without further research, I

hesitate to either agree or disagree with Chen Chuanxi.

However, landscape painting as the shadow and trace of

13历历历历历,历历历历历历历. See Chen Chuanxi. Zhongguo Hui Hua Mei Xue Shi. Cover Title Also in English: History of Aesthetics of Chinese Painting. Beijing :: Ren min mei shu chu ban she, 2000.p54.

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the Dao is a tantalizing idea to pursue, partly because

it put painting and the Yijing hexagram on the same

conceptual ground and allowed us to test some of the

understandings of the Yijing hexagram on the conceptual

organization of landscape painting.

The Yijing trigrams and hexagrams were called

“yixiang”, 历历. As Mark Lewis remarked, “images of the Yi

are… neither linguistic units (names) nor direct

representations (pictures).” While names and pictures

gave an account of the world through one-to-one

correspondence with their objects, the images of the Yi,

in contrast, “constitute a delimited number of

fundamental units—eight trigrams, two types of line—in a

fixed number of possible relationships—upper and lower

for the trigrams, one of the six positions for the

lines.”14 The Sage’s perception and conceptualization of

the intrinsic patterns of the world culminated in the

creation of the highly abstract “yixiang”, 历历.

Interestingly, the word “xiang”, image 历, carried an

ambiguous connotation of trace, as vividly implied in an

14 Lewis Mark Edward. Writing and Authority in Early China. Suny Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. p265.

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allegory in Han Feizi. It was said that man could rarely

see a living elephant, “xiang”, but could occasionally

see the skeleton of a dead elephant. The elephant

skeleton made the internal structure of an elephant

visible and also served as a basis to imagine the shape

of its absent flesh. By combining the skeletal image and

the conceptual vision, man could conjure up the complete

picture of an elephant. A real elephant, thus, existed

somewhere between a skeletal image and a conceptual

vision. Like a real elephant, the real essence of the

world often eluded the human senses. Through discerning

the patterns of the world, the Sages created the trigrams

and hexagrams as skeletal images of the world in order to

help us understand the infinite manifestations. The xiang

of the Changes suggested both the present form and the

hidden meaning of worldly phenomena. This ambiguous play

between the present and the absent, external form and

internal structure, defined the xiang of the Changes as

neither an arbitrary sign nor an unchanging signified

essence, but a process of signification.

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The allegory of yixiang has resonance with Derrida’s

definition of sign. A Derridian sign is not an object of

immediate presence; rather it is a process of

significations without end. Both the concepts of

signified and signifier are reducible to the articulation

of an absence of a presence, which Derrida called trace.15

The irreducible phenomena of the trace, upon which

signification and meaning rely, might be the essence of

the Sages’ sign-making practice, and might also be

applied to Zong Bing’s notion of painting as yingji 历历.

Taking painting as a trace, the non-presence of a

presence, is to detach painting from the limitation of

“life-likeness” and attach a series of paradoxes and

plays to the pictorial art form that has always

privileged the present and the visible. Hence, landscape

painting is neither a mimetic representation of

landscape, nor a sign of the immediate presence either,

but a process of seeking and signifying the non-present

trace of the ultimate meaning of landscape.

Landscape painting as an abstract space

15 Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. De La Grammatologie. English. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.

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Wang Wei and Zong Bing not only significantly

elevated the ontological status of landscape painting,

but also started to problems of vision and pictorial

abstraction in landscape painting. These issues

established parallels with the ways in which the Yijing

trigrams and hexagrams were created.

Skeptical about the scoptic vision, both Zong Bing

and Wang Wei questioned how vision had guided or

misguided the human understanding of the landscape. Zong

Bing remarked that “ Kunlun Mountain is too immense to be

all captured by the eyes’ pupils.” (历历历历历历历, 历历历历.) Wang

Wei warned that one should never rely on the eye to paint

landscape because “vision is limited and misleading.” (历历

历历 历历历历历， .) Interestingly, Zong Bing and Wang Wei treated

painting not as merely an activity of vision. Wang Wei,

in particular, conceptualized landscape painting as a

mental process. He suggested that it was painter’s xin,

the mind, that guided the painter to see and determined

what he could discern. He wrote,

“[t]he form of an object [landscape] is infused withthe spirit, after which the painter’s mind transforms it in various ways. The spirit has no form, yet that which moves and transforms the form is the spirit. If the

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spirit is not manifested in the painting, the forms will not move us at all.” (历历历历历历历.历历历历历. 历历历历, 历历历历历.)

Zong Bing’s and Wang Wei’s conceptualization of

painting as a mental activity further aligned landscape

painting with the Sage’s hexagram-making practice. In the

Yijing’s Xici Commentary 历历, xiang, 历, (image, figure and

diagram), was often the object of the verb guan 历 to

observe, and li 历 to set up. The Sage’s creation of the

trigrams and hexagrams was directly led by a series of

observations. As Xici described, the Sage Pao xi “gazing up

he observed the phenomena of the heavens, looking down he

observed the patterns on the earth. He observed how the

markings of birds and beasts were appropriate to the

earth. Close at hand he took them from his own body.”16

The Sage’s active viewing was essentially a process of

active reading in order to discern intrinsic patterns of

the natural world. The “vision” of the Sage was not

situated in a particular point of view, but operated from

an all-encompassing mind.17

16 See “Xici.” In The Classic of Changes : A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi. Translations from the Asian Classics. New York :: Columbia University Press, 1994. 17 As Mark Lewis remarked in his essay, the account for the creation of the hexagram in Xici commentary underlay the theory that the xiang of hexagram as the patterns of the natural processes would be “naturally” understood as involving conceptualization and visual

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Guide by the mind rather than vision, Wang Wei and

Zong Bing developed the budding concept of pictorial

abstraction that intended to condense the complex world

into one or a few abstract calligraphic lines. For

example, Wang Wei considered that a single brush and all

the movements behind the single brush could “simulate the

entire body of Taixu [the vast universe]” (历 历历历历历历历历一体 ),

and one stroke could “embody all spatial changes of the

horizontal could transcend the seemingly infinite

mutations and bring multitudinous manifestations back to

the conceptual unity (历历历历,历历历历). Similarly, Zong Bing’s

treatment for abstract focused on how abstract

calligraphic lines could configure vast spatial forms. He

stated that “vertical stroke of three inches can

represent a height of thousands of feet; horizontal

stretch of several feet will form a distance of a hundred

mile” (历历历历, 历历历历历 历历历历历历历历历历；，体 .)

Zong Bing’s and Wang Wei’s concepts of graphic

abstraction might have been under the influence of Wang

Bi’s theory regarding of the Sage’s sign-making model in

a section of his Yijing commentary. Wang Bi wrote,

abstraction. (Lewis 285)

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“If one examines things from point of view of totality, even though things are multitudinous, one knowsthat it is possible to deal with them by holding fast to the One, and if one views them from the point of view of the fundamental, even though the concepts involved are immense in number and scope, one knows that it is possible to cover them all with a single name.”18

Wang Bi’s model could be summarized to unity-

multiplicity-unity: the world, as a totality, existed

independent from human understanding; things appeared and

multiplied as they were recognized, differentiated and

categorized. An abstract name and an abstract image that

had properly grasped the intrinsic structure of things

could condense the seemingly infinite mutations to its

conceptual unity. Treating the Yijing hexagrams and

landscape painting as conceptual parallels, Zong Bing and

Wang Wei aptly drew a connection between abstract

patterns of the hexagrams and calligraphic patterns of

landscape painting. If the former abstracted a myriad of

natural phenomena to a condensed sign, the later reduced

the infinite landscape to a “skeletal image”. Drawing

inspirations from hexagrams, Zong Bing and Wang Wei were

18 See “Ming Tuan.” In The Classic of Changes : A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi. Translations from the Asian Classics. New York :: Columbia University Press, 1994.

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probably the first theorists who explored the aesthetics

of pictorial abstraction of Chinese landscape painting.

Painter – Sage

The conclusions of both essays presented lyrical

descriptions of the final achievement of landscape

painting. Interestingly, it was the spiritual enhancement

of the painter that marked the highest plateau of the

painting practice, instead of the painted image itself.

Wang Wei wrote,

“Gazing upon the autumn clouds, my soul flights as if on wings; bathe in the spring breeze, my thoughts flows afar as if born on a wide current…I un-scroll a picture and examine the inscription. Its effectiveness isdifferent from shanhai. I meditate upon mountains and water. It is wonderful indeed. Such a painting cannot be archived by the skillful use of fingers and hands alone, but only by the exercise of the spirit. This is the true significance of painting.” (历历历, 历历历, 历历历, 历历历…历历历历, 历历<历历>. 历历历历, 历历历历. 历历, 历历历历历历, 历历历历历历. 历历历历历.)19

In Wang Wei’s view, painting, as a practice of self-

cultivation, enabled the painter to reach a state of

spiritual enlightenment — the painter freely traveled in

landscape without physical restraint and also enjoyed

unprecedented aesthetic pleasure. For Wang Wei, the

19See Wang Wei’s “Xuhua”. In Early Chinese Texts on Painting. Susan Bush and Hsio-yen Shih. Cambridge, Mass.: Published for the Harvard-Yenching Institute by Harvard University Press. P36.

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freedom and euphoria were what ultimately differentiated

painting, tuhua 历历, from regular forms of tu 历, such as

map, city diagram and river chart. On a similar note,

Zong Bing adopted the notion of changshen 历历,rejoicing the

spirit to described such state. He wrote,

“The sages and virtuous men who have shone forth throughout the ages had a myriad charms [of nature] fusedinto their spirits and thoughts. What then should I do? Irejoice in my spirit, and that is all. What could be placed above that which rejoices the spirit?” (历历历历历历,历历历历历历.历历历历历,历历历历.)20

Both essays marked a trajectory of the notion of shen

from the ultimate meaning of nature to changshen, the

ultimate spiritual rejoicing of the artist self. If the

notion of landscape painting as the trace of the Dao

validated and strengthened the ontological meaning of

landscape painting, the notion of changshen concluded the

painting process by activating the painter’s own

ontological existence. The painter had undergone a

remarkable journey from a traveling observer to a

stationary contemplator, as Zong Bing vividly described

in his conclusion, “I live at leisure, regulating my

vital breath, brandishing the wine-cup and sounding the

20 See Zong Bing’s “Hua Shanshui Xu”. Ibid. p37.

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lute. Unrolling paintings in solitude, I sit pondering

the ends of the earth.” (历历历历历历,历历历历,历历历历,历历历历.)While the

early stage of the painting process denoted a traveling

painter who savored the landscape from the outside, the

late stage implicated a contemplative knower who has

discovered the self as a source of the Dao. Staying

totally in tuned with the world, the painter further

blended into the landscape and became a harmonious

component of the landscape. It is in this physical and

mental state-of-being that the painter finally achieved

the status of a human sage. It is also on this conceptual

plane that we might draw the ultimate parallel between

landscape painting and the hexagram-making of the Sages

of Antiquity.

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Works Cited

Bush, Susan, and Hsio-yen Shih. Early Chinese Texts on Painting. Cambridge, Mass.: Published for the Harvard-Yenching Institute by Harvard University Press, 1985.

Bush, Susan, Christian F. Murck, and Societies American Council of Learned. Theories of the Arts in China. Princeton, N.J. :: Princeton University Press, 1983.

Cai, Zong-qi. Chinese Aesthetics: The Ordering of Literature, the Arts, and the Universe in the Six Dynasties. University of Hawaii Press, 2004.

Chen, Chuanxi. Zhongguo Hui Hua Mei Xue Shi. Cover Title Also in English: History of Aesthetics of Chinese Painting. Beijing :: Ren min mei shu chu ban she, 2000.

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. De La Grammatologie. English. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.

Xu, Fuguan. Zhongguo Yi Shu Jing Shen. Taibei :: Si li dong hai da xue, 1966.

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