y. 1...,...‘..

q»

 

”find.

.
v

 

 

RABIES

WWWW

\\

mess l\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

1'???)

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

INDIVIDUALISM AND TRADITION IN THE
LANDSCAPE ART OF CH 'EN HUNG-SHOU

presented by

WEN-MEI K'ANG

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

MASTER’S . HISTORY OF ART
degree in

 

 

   
   

’ 4"-

’4

       

M jor professor

 

Date_# ”1 [flag-

0-7639 MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

 

 

 

LIBRARY
Michigan State
University

 

 

 

PLACE ll RETURN BOX to remove thte checkout from your record.
TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due.

DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INDIVIDUALISM AND TRADITION IN THE
LANDSCAPE ART OF CH’EN HUNG-SHOU

By

Wen-Mei K’ang

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Art

1995

ABSTRACT

INDIVIDUALISM AND TRADITION IN THE
LANDSCAPE ART OF CH’EN HUNG-SHOU

By

Wen-Mei K’ang

Numerous studies have been conducted on the eccentric figure painting
of the late Ming painter Ch’en Hung-shou (1598-1652). Aspects of his
landscape painting seem to have been overlooked by art historians. By
examining selected works of Ch’en Hung-shou's landscapes, this thesis
seeks to confirm his achievement as a landscapist. This study focuses on
interpreting Ch’en's landscape painting styles in the light of the late Ming-
early Ch’ing socio-historical and intellectual trends, with particular
attention to the influences from his own life experiences. This study
reveals that Ch’en Hung-shou's landscapes that display erematic themes
reflect alternatively Ch’en's idealistic and autobiographical versions of
retirement. The eccentric painting style, which is well known in his figure
painting and also appeared in his expressionistic, autobiographical
landscapes, is created by Ch’en as a response to the burden of a great

painting tradition as well as to contemporary artistic trends of his times.

Copyright by
Wen-Mei K’ang
1995

This thesis is dedicated to my family
who have always been supportive.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It has been a four-year process in pursuing this degree, which would have
become impossible without the helps of many people. To all of them, I
would like to express my sincere appreciation.

Ms. Agnes Shueh-mei Young is my first teacher who taught me how to
appreciate art. At the time when I decided to change my major, she was the
only person stood by me and has been encouraging me constantly. I am
always very grateful to her.

I also thank the Department of Art that had given me a chance to prove
myself. I especially want to thank the following people: Dr. Janice
Simpson, Dr. Eldon N. Van Liere, and Dr. Sadayoshi Omoto. Dr. Simpson
has been caring and has provided a great deal of emotional support at my
times of frustration. Dr. Van Liere, who has served as the chairperson of
my committee, recommended Dr. Linda Cook Johnson as my thesis director
and guided me through the whole process. Dr. Omoto has served on my
committee and provided constructive criticism for my thesis.

I greatly appreciate Dr. Linda Cooke Johnson, who has accepted the
responsibility of leading me to the door of Chinese painting. As my thesis
director, Dr. Johnson has instructed me in the development of my topic.
provided valuable opinion for this thesis, and patiently corrected my

writing.

I feel grateful that I have the understanding and full support of my
parents and two sisters in pursuing my interest. I specifically thank my
second sister Jennifer Wen-shin K'ang, who has collected valuable
information from Taiwan in aiding the production of this work. I also wish
to remember my deceased grandmother whose own life experiences made

me realize what perseverance is.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures

Introduction

Chapter I. The Life of Ch’en Hung-shou

1. The Early Years

2. Battered Confucianist in a Turbulent World

3. Life after 1644

Chapter II. The Late Ming Artistic Trends

1. Archaistic Revivalism and Self-expressionism in Ming

2. Tung Ch’i-ch’ang and the Formation of an Orthodox Tradition
3. Ch’en Hung-shou's Artistic Attitude

Chapter III. The Landscape Art of Ch’en Hung-Shoo:
The Birth of an Eccentric

Chapter IV. The Landscape Art of Ch’en Hung-Shoo:
Entreating to Be a Painting-master in the World

Conclusion

Figures

Bibliography

vii

viii

“\1-5

21
32
36

4O

57

77

83

107

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Ch’en Hung-shou (1598-1652). Autumn Landscape. 6-1/2 x 22-
1/4 in. Ching Yuan Chai Collection. [p. 83].

Figure 2. Ch’en Hung-shou, The Mountain of the Five Cataracts (Wu-hsieh
shan). 46-9/16 x 20-15/16 in. (118.3 x 53.2 cm.). Cleveland Museum of
Art: Purchase. John L. Severance Fund. [p. 84].

Figure 3. Wen Cheng-ming (1470-1559). Landscape in the Manner of
Wang Meng. Dated 1535. 133.9 x 35.7 cm. National Palace Museum,
Taipei. [p. 85]. Source: James Cahill, Parting at the Shore, pl. 115.

Figure 4. Wen Cheng-ming. A Thousand Cliffs Contended in Splendor.
Dated 1548-50. 132.6 x 34 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei. [p. 86].
Source: James Cahill, Parting at the Shore: Chinese Painting of the Early
and Middle Ming Dynasty, 1368-1580, pl. 116.

Figure 5. Ch’en Hung-shou. Meeting of Su Wu and Li Ling. 127 x 48.2 cm.
Ching Yuan Chai Collection. [p. 87]. Source: James Cahill, The Distant
Mountains: Chinese Painting of the Late Ming Dynasty, 1570-1644, pl.
139.

Figure 6. Ch’en Hung-shou. Scholar under a Pine Tree. Dated 1633. 92-
4/5 x 30-1/2 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Gift of Mr. and Mrs.
Earl Morse, 1972. [p. 88].

Figure 7. Ch’en Hung-shou. A Tall Pine and Taoist Immortal (The Artist
and His Nephew in a Landscape). Dated 1635. 202.1 x 97.8 cm. National
Palace Museum, Taipei. [p. 89]. Source: Richard Vinograd, Boundaries of
the Self: Chinese Portraits, 1600-1900, pl. 8.

viii

Figure 8. Ch’en Hung-shou. Willow Colors by a River Pavilion ( “Hsi-t’ing
Liu-se”), leaf (a) from the Album of Miscellaneous Paintings. 5-4/5 x 5 in.
National Palace Museum, Taipei. [p.90].

Figure 9. Ch’en Hung-shou. Peach Blossom Spring, leaf (c) from the
Album of Miscellaneous Paintings. 5-4/5 x 5 in. National Palace Museum,
Taipei. [p. 91].

Figure 10. Ch’en Hung-shou. “Wen-shih”, leaf (t) from the Album of
Miscellaneous Paintings. 5-4/5 x 5 in. National Palace Museum, Taipei. [p.
92].

Figure 11. Ch’en Hung-shou. Leaf (a) from the Album of Paintings after
Ancient Masters. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. [p. 93].

Figure 12. Anonymous. Noble Scholar under a Willow. 25-3/4 x 15-3/4 in.
National Palace Museum, Taipei. [p. 94]. Source: James Cahill, Chinese
Painting, p.63.

Figure 13. Tai Chin (1388-1462). The Hermit Hsu Yu Resting by a Stream.
138 x 75.5 cm. Cleveland Museum of Art. [p. 95]. Source: James Cahill,
Parting at the Shore: Chinese Painting of the Early and Middle Ming
Dynasty, 1368-1508, New York, 1978, pl. 12.

Figure 14. Ch’en Hung-shou. Leaf (b) from the Album of Paintings after
Ancient Masters. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. [p. 96].

Figure 15. Ch’en Hung-shou. Leaf (c) from the Album of Paintings after
Ancient Masters. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. [p. 97].

Figure 16. Ch’en Hung-shou. Lady Hsuan-wen Expounding the Classics.
Dated 1638. 137.3 x 55.6 cm. Cleveland Museum of Art. [p. 98]. Source:
James Cahill, The Distant Mountains: Chinese Painting of the Late Ming
Dynasty, 1570-1644, pl. 132.

Figure 17. Ch’en Hung-shou. Detail from Figure 16. [p. 99]. Source:
James Cahill, The Distant Mountains: Chinese Painting of the Late Ming
Dynasty, 1570-1644, pl. 133. '

Figure 18. Ch’en Hung-shou. Leaf (g) from the Album of Paintings after
Ancient Masters. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. [p. 100].

ix

Figure 19. Wen Cheng-ming. Spring Trees After Rain. Dated 1507. 94.3 x
33.3 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei. [p. 101]. Source: James Cahill,
Parting at the Shore: Chinese Painting of the Early and Middle Ming
Dynasty, 1368-1580, pl. 111.

Figure 20. Ch’en Hung-shou. Leaf (h) from the Album of Paintings after
Ancient Masters. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. [p. 102].

Figure 21. Ch’en Hung-shou. Leaf (j) from the Album of Sixteen Views of a
Hermit's Life. Dated 1651. 21.4 x 29.8 cm. National Palace Museum,
Taipei. [p. 103].

Figure 22.: Ch’en Hung-shou. Portrait of Chung-ch’ing in a Landscape,
leaf (h) from the Album of Painting after Ancient Masters. H. 9-5/8 in.
Cleveland Museum of Art. [p. 104].

Figure 23. Ch’en Hung-shou. Mr. Five Willows, leaf (1) from the Album of
Paintings after Ancient Masters. H. 9-5/8 in. Cleveland Museum of Art. [p.
105].

Figure 24. Ch’en Hung-shou. Taoist and Crane in Autumn Landscape, leaf
(g) from the Album of Paintings after Ancient Masters. H. 9-5/8 in.
Cleveland Museum of Art. [p. 106].

INTRODUCTION

For the scholars of Chinese art history, the name of the Ming painter
Ch’en Hung-shou (1598-1652) invokes images of his eccentric behavior as
well as his bizarre figure painting. Ch’en’s landscape painting, compared
to his famous, widely studied figure painting, seems to be overlooked.
Although Dr. James Cahill has examined some aspects of Ch’en's landscape
painting briefly, a full investigation on Ch’en's oeuvre is pending.l This
thesis is therefore aimed at the study of Ch’en Hung-shou's landscape art,

which hopefully will provide a clearer understanding on this subject.

A recent direction in studying Chinese art history is to examine the art
works with respect for their cultural background as an addition to the more
traditional methodology of stylistic analysis. Therefore, in this study, I will
attempt to relate the possible influences derived from the contemporary

socio-historical and intellectual background to the analysis of Ch’en’s

 

' Sec James Cahill, “Chapter Six. A Diversity of Currents: Some Professional Masters. Part 3.
Ch'en Hung-shou as Landscapist,” in The Distant Mountains: Chinese Painting of the Late Ming
Dynasty, 1570-1644. (New York: Weathcrhill, 1982): 203-210 for a discussion of Ch’en Hung-
shou's landscape paintings.

I

2

landscapes. I will also based my conclusions on the painter's responses and

his personal emotions to his own life experiences in interpreting his works.

My discussion will be divided into four major chapters followed by a
brief conclusion. The first chapter will provide information about the
artist’s life based on extant versions of his biography and his own writings,
set in the context of the history of the fall of Ming and the conquest of
Ch’ing. Special attention will be paid on Ch’en’s poetry concerning his
feelings as he lived through such a tumultous period. This understanding of
Ch’en's own emotional state in late Ming-early Ch’ing China may enhance
the understanding of his landscape painting. The second chapter will
discuss the contemporary intellectual atmosphere, including trends in the
philosophical, literary, and artistic fields whose influences can be seen in
Ch’en Hung-shou's individualistic painting style. In addition, by examing
his own writings, Ch’en's response as an artist to these contemporary trends
will also be studied. The third chapter will focus on Ch’en Hung-shou's
early landscapes, with the following four works as examples: the fan
painting “Autumn landscape” from the Ching Yuan Chai collection, “The
Mountain of Five Cataracts” in the Cleveland Museum of Art, “Scholar
under a Pine Tree” from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and
“A Tall Pine and Taoist Immortal” in the National Palace Museum in
Taipei. The final chapter will discuss Ch’en Hung-shou's post-1644
landscapes, with examples drawn from three sets of album leaves each in
the following collections: the National Palace Museum in Taipei, the Freer

Gallery in Washington D.C., and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Through these examples I mean to examine the landscape art of Ch’en
Hung-shou, with particular attention to those aspects of his landscapes that
share the same eccentricity as his well known figure painting. In examing
these works in the light of Ch’en Hung-shou's own life experiences and his
awareness of the contemporary intellectual trends, I will attempt to
investigate the formation of his eccentric painting style. I will also conduct
my analysis in chronological order to show Ch’en's stylistic development as

a landscapist over time.

My study will conclude with the notion that Ch’en Hung-shou's
landscapes that display erematic themes reflect alternatively Ch’en's
idealistic and autobiographical versions of retirement. The eccentric
painting style that mostly appeared in his expressionistic, autobiographical
landscapes, was created as a response to contemporary artistic trends
characterized by archaistic revival and by the idea of transformation as a
means of self-expression. Like many post-Renaissance Mannerists in the
western art world, facing the burden of a great tradition, Ch’en Hung-shou
tried to establish himself through a shocking, bizarre, individualistic
painting style. On the whole, this study seeks to confirm Ch’en Hung-
shou's achievement in landscape painting that had long been overshadowed

by his fame as a figure painter.

CHAPTER I

THE LIFE OF CH’EN HUNG-SHOU

1. The Early Years

Born in the small town of Feng-ch’iao in Chu-chi county in Chekiang
province in 1598, Ch’en Hung-shou was destined to become one of the
most remarkable painters of the late Ming period. His biographer Meng
Yuan related a legend regarding Ch’en's birth, in which a white-haired
Taoist in a feathered cloak appeared to Ch’en’s father and gave him a lotus
seed. Upon doing so, he said: “Eat this and you will have a lovely child
like this lotus.” Therefore, upon the birth of Ch’en Hung-shou, he was
named Lien-tzu (lotus seed), and adopted the sobriquet Lao-lien (old lotus)
in adulthood.‘

His grandfather Ch’en Hsing-hsueh, who attained a chin-shih (“doctor of

letters”) degree in 1577, was an eminent governmental official.2 As a

 

‘ For the translation of “Ch’en Hung-shou chuan” written by Meng Yuan, see Anne Burkus,
“The Artefacts of Biography in Ch’en Hung-shou’s Pao-lung-t'ang chi ” ( Ph. D. dissertation:
University of California, Berkeley, 1987), 444-459.

2 In the Ming dynasty, to attain the membership in the civil service bureaucracy, one had to pass
competitive examinations based on Confucian classics, first at the provincial level (to attain the
status of chu-jen) and then at the capital (to attain the status of chin-shih); see Charles 0.
Hucker, “The Tung-lin Movement of the Late Ming Period,” in Chinese Thought and
Institutions, ed., John K. Fairbank, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 136.

4

5

traditional Chinese scholar-official, he was fond of writing and associated
with groups of contemporary writers known as the Kung-an school who
promoted self-expressionism in poetic theories. The aspect of self-
expression, which is a characteristic of the mature Ch’en Hung-shou’s
poetry and painting, may well have had its roots in his grandfather's early
influences.3

His father, Ch’en Yu-ch’ao, had passed the prefectural examination and
became a hsiu-tsai degree holder, but he twice failed the provincial
examination that would qualify him for a government office. Ch’en Yu-
ch’ao sought refugee in Buddhism.4 He was associated with the famous
literatus Ch’en Chi-ju (1558-1639), who was in turn a close friend of the
most powerful late Ming art theorist and painter Tung Ch’i-ch’ang (1555-
1636). After the death of Ch’en Hung-shou’s father, Ch’en Chi-ju
remained as an elder friend to his son.’ Ch’en Hung-shou's profound
interest in Buddhism and his individualistic painting style may well have
been influenced by Ch’en Yu-ch’ao and his circle of friends.

Ch’en Hung-shou revealed his artistic talent early. At the age of four, he
painted a portrait of the brave Marquis Kuan of the Shu kingdom (A.D. 3rd
century) that astonished Lai Ssu-hsing, who later became his father-in-
law.6 The ability to surprise others with his talents continued from then on
as his biographier Meng Yuan noted:

When he was ten, he wet his brush to paint. The painters Sun Ti and
Lan Ying (1585 to after 1660) looked and were surprised at his work,

 

3 Burkus, “Artefacts of Biography,” 103-104.

‘ According to Huang Yung-ch’uan, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien-pu (Peking: Jen-min mei-shu chu-
pan-she, 1960), Chen Yu-ch’ao did not succeed in the provincial examinations dated 1600 and
1603. See also Style Transformed: A Special Exhibition of Five Late Ming Artists. Exhibition
Catalogue. (Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1977), 40.

5 Burkus, “Artefacts of Biography,” 83.

6 Chu I-tsun, “Ch’en Hung-shou chuan,” cited by Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pa, 6.

6

saying: “Let this person succeed in painting, [Wu] Tao-tzu and [Chao
Meng-fu] Tzu-ang will both have to ‘face the North’ [in submission].
Will painters like us dare to pick up a brush?”

Ch’en Hung-shou had learned coloring and drawing from nature by
studying with Lan Ying, who was a well-known professional painter in the
late Ming period. Lan was an accomplished painter, working in the refined
Southern Sung academic painting style in his youth, but later, became an
imitator of the literati painting style, especially that of the Four Yuan
Masters. It was said that both Tung Ch’i-ch’ang and Ch’en Chi-ju were
impressed by Lan's painting.8 Judging from Ch’en Hung-shou's poems to
Lan Ying, Ch’en seems to have enjoyed a friendly relationship with the
older painter.°

According to his collector friend, Chou Liang-lcung (1612-1672), Ch’en
Hung-shou once copied after the engraving of the “Seventy-two Disciples
of Confucius” attributed to the T’ang painter Li Kung-lin (1049-1105\6).
Dissatisfied by a merely formal likeness, he transformed Li's style by
“changing the round with the square, and the whole with the parts” so that
people could not identify the original sources in his works.'0 This story
emphatically foretells Ch’en's penchant for self-expression in painting and
anticipates his future painting style.

Ch’en Hung-shou’s father, Ch’en Yu-ch’ao, died when Hung-shou was
only nine. Seven years later, the grandfather Ch’en Hsing-hsueh, who had

established the family's wealth and reputation through his prominent official

 

7 Meng Yuan, “Ch’en Hung-shou chuan,” cited by Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu, 8-9;
translated by the author.

8 Yen Chuan-ying, Lan Ying yu fang-kn hui-hua (Lan Ying and the Archaistic Painting) (Taipei:
National Palace Museum, 1980), 5-7.

9 Ch’en Hung-shou, Pao-lun-t’ang chi, cited by Huang, Ch ’en Hung-short nien pa, 9.

'0 For the original text of Chou Liang-kung's biography on Ch’en Hung-shou, see Hongnam Kim,
“Chou Liang-kung and His Tu-hua-lu (Lives of Painters): Patronic-critic and Painters in
Seventeenth Century China,” (Ph. D. dissertation: Yale University, 1985), vol. 11. 206-207.

career, also died.” In 1614, Ch’en Hung-shou married the daughter of Lai
Ssu-hsing who was also a government official.‘2 The Lai family lived in
Hsiao-shan, not very far away from Feng-ch’iao. Ch’en Hung-shou's father
had been closely associated with Lai Ssu-hsing's brother, Tsung-tao, thus
making this marital arrangement between these two gentry families quite
natural.'3

After his mother died in 1615, Ch’en Hung-shou probably felt his
responsibility as a filial son fulfilled, freeing him to leave his home and
move to the city of Shao-hsing to study with the scholar Liu Tsung-chou
who taught Neo-Confucianism." For the traditional Confucian student, the
ultimate goal was to serve in the government. Brought up in one scholar-
official family and married into another, Ch’en was also expected to
become a governmental official who would revive the family name and
wealth." Therefore, he prepared himself early for the civil service

examinations in expectation of entering government service.
2. Battered Confucianist in a Turbulent World
In 1618, Ch’en Hung-shou passed the prefectural examination and

obtained the “hsiu-ts’ai” degree.l6 However, this was only the beginning,

for it was essential to succeed in the higher level provincial examinations to

 

“ Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pa, 8, 14.

'2 Ibid., 14-15. Lai Ssu-hsing had passed the civil service examinations and became a chin-shih
in 1607. For the information about Lai Ssu-hsing, see also Wang Li-ling, Ch ’en Hung-shou jen-
wu-hua te yi-shu-hsing-hsiang chih yen chiu (Study of the Artistic Images of the Portraiture. by
Ch’en Hung-shou), ( M. A. thesis, Taipei: Wen-hua University, 1988), 56.

'3 Huang Yung-ch’uan, “Ch’en Hung-shou,” in Li tar" hua chia p’ing chuan (The Critical
Biographies of Painters of the Past Dynasties), ed., Yu Chien-hua (Hong Kong: Chung-hua shu
chu, 1986), 4.

‘4 Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu, 15.

‘5 Wang Li-ling, Ch ’en Hung-shoujen-wu-hua, 56

'6 Huang, “Ch’en Hung-shou,” 10.

become a governmental official. The pressure Ch’en felt in his attempt to
succeed the examinations and the resultant frustration was revealed through
a poem he wrote four years later:

[It has been] twenty-five years without my name established.
[Let me] compose poems on the last evening of the year [but] not
feel sorrow.

How many real men are there in the world?

[Our] white hairs all start to grow from tonight on.17

In 1623, Chen Hung-shou's wife died, leaving a daughter behind. After
her death, he left for another city. This time it was to Peking, where he
hoped to further his career. However, he fell ill and failed to obtain a job
there, so that he was obliged to return home in the following year.18 During
this period, he became acquainted with Chou Lian-kung whose father was
an official at Chu-chi. Together, they made several excursions to the Wu-
hsieh mountain, which later became the subject of one of Ch’en Hung-
shou's important paintings.” Still intent on a government career, he stayed
at Hang-Chou, studying for the civil service examinations with friends
including Chang Tai.20 It was at this period that he married again, this time
to the daughter of a Hang-Chou official.2|

It may well have been financial exigencies that encouraged Ch’en Hung-
shou to make illustrations for the popular novel Shui-hu chuan--a story
about the bandits gathered in the Liang-shan marshes. Although his

paintings were very popular, he was unwilling to be regarded as a

 

'7 Ch’en Hung-shou, Pao-lun-t’ang chi, cited by Huang, Ch 'en Hung-shou nien pu, 22;
translated by the author.

‘8 Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu, 22-24.

'9 The painting entitled “The Wu-hsieh Mountains” is now in the Cleveland Museum collection.
For the further discussion on this painting, see Chapter III.

2° Chang Tai, who had surprised Ch’en Chi-ju with his literary talent in his youth, was famous
for his essays. His works including T'ao-an meng yi,....

2' Huang, Ch 'en Hung-short nien pu, 25-27.

professional painter, since in traditional Chinese society, the social status
of a professional painter was as low as that of a theatrical actor or a
prostitute.22 In addition, his mind was still set on becoming a government
official. In one of his poems, Ch’en Hung-shou expressed: “...My
achievement falls behind those of my ancestors’....I am ashamed of having
my painting and calligraphy transmitted ..... ”23 He also wrote: “...I feel
ashamed of being thirty [yet] without my writing accomplished. I am
somewhat skilled in the taste of wine. [However, in terms of obtaining]
fame and fortune, [I am] without strategy?“ Unfortunately, he failed
consecutively in the higher level examinations.” Frustrated, he lamented :

Drowning in the incidents of a former lifetime,

I enjoy poetry and painting in this life.

If [one] speaks of encountering a reknown position,
it is neither easy nor difficult. 2°

My way [Tao] is without sorrow [or] happiness,

[since] I have forced myself to balance my inner feelings.

Just like those illiterate, why should I [bother to] think about fortune
and fame (kung-ming)!27

Ch’en Hung-shou lived at the time when the Ming dynasty was rapidly
deteriorating. From the sixteenth century on, the Ming empire had suffered
from a series of foreign invasions: Japanese pirates attacked the eastern
coast, Mongolians invaded the north, and worse, the expansion of the

Manchus' power at the northeast, Liaotung. Despite these various kinds of

 

22 James Cahill, The Compelling Images: Nature and Style in Seventeenth-Century Chinese
Painting, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), 107.

23 Ch’en Hung-shou, Pao-lun-t’ang chi, cited by Huang, Ch 'en Hung-shou nien pu, 32;
translated by the author.

2‘ See Huang, ibid., 36: translated by the author.

25 According to Huang, Ch 'en Hung-shou nien pu, Ch’en Hung-shou had failed in the provincial
examinations in 1627 and 1630.

26 Ch’en Hung-shou, Pao-lun-t'ang chi, cited by Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu, 41; this
translation is referred to that of Burkus, “Artefacts of Biography,” 14S.

27 For the Chinese text, see Huang, ibid.; this stanza is translated by the author.

10

threats, the Ming emperors neglected their duties, allowing their eunuchs to
intervene in the policy-making process, resulting in corruption that spread
wildly throughout the court.28 After the death of the minister Chang Chu-
cheng in 1582, the Wan-1i emperor (reign 1573-1620) became an
irresponsible ruler. He ignored the government and refused to have daily
audiences with his ministers, allowing many vacant government offices to
remain unfilled. Under such a circumstance, the eunuchs who were close to
the emperor attained influence as messangers between the emperor and the
government ministers. In the reign of Hsi-tsung (1621-1627), the eunuch
Wei Chung-hsien, manipulated the weakness of the young emperor, to
become so powerful that he was able to purge the loyal government
officials who opposed him, specifically those associated with the so called
Tung-lin movement. Wei was later put to death on the order of emperor
Ssu-tsung (reign 1627-1644), and those surviving Tung-lin officials
including Liu Tsung-chou (1578-1645) and Huang Tao-Chou (1585-1646)
were summoned back to the court.29 However, in spite of Ssu-tsung's effort
in ridding the partisan squabbles, dissensions continued. Facing the foreign
invasions and domestic disturbances, the Ming court was paralysed and
eventually collapsed.

To support the heavy expense of the army that was necessary to defend
the state, the national treasury had been drained and the farm tax had been
raised as early in the Chia-ching era (1522-1567). The long-term struggle

with the Manchus required the farm tax to be again raised at the end of the

 

28 Albert Chan, The Glory and Fall of the Ming Dynasty, (Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1982), 322.

2" Ming Shih cited by Nelson 1. Wu in “Tung Ch’i-ch’ang, The Man, His Time, and His
Landscape Painting," ( Ph. D. dissertation: Yale University, 1954), 86; Charles 0. Hucker, “The
Tung-lin Movement of the Late Ming Period,” 133-135, 152-156; Heinrich Busch, “The Tung-
lin Academy and Its Political and Philosophical Significance," Monumenta Serica: Journal of
Oriental Studies, vol. 14(1949-1955), 67.

ll

Wan-1i period (1573-1620); and still again during the T’ien-ch’i period
(1621-1627); salt taxes and domestic-customs taxes were also raised.30 In
exacerbating the burden on the people, recurrent famines ensued. In the
Shensi area, where long and cold winters and barren land made agriculture
difficult, the ordinary people suffered from high taxation as well from
natural disasters and were left destitute. Some formed groups of bandits,
which were joined by deserting soldiers. These rebels contributed
significantly to the fall of the Ming dynasty.3|

In his inscription on a self-portrait dated 1627, Ch’en Hung-shou
addressed his concerns regarding the invasion of the Manchus in Liaotung
during the 16208 and his sense of insecurity in such a turbulent world:

Again [we have] lost several thousand miles of land.

Will our words still again touch upon this subject?

Be careful! Lucky to have some plowable, barren fields,

I am worried that the red turbans and the white clubs who have risen
up in Wu and Yueh (Kiangsu and Chekiang) will come to steal my
grain...32

In 1629, the Manchus invaded China and threatened the capital Peking.
The loyal Liaotung general, Yuan Ch’ung-huan, leading his troops in
defending the capital, was slandered and put to death by the suspicious
Ch’ung-chen emperor (Ssu-tsung) in the next year. Disillusioned by this
incident, many of the Liaotung soldiers lost their faith in the Ming
government and converted to the. Manchu side. Ultimately, the rebellious
bandits and the Manchu army caused the downfall of the Ming dynasty in
1644.

 

3" Li Wen-Chih, Wan Ming min pien (The People's Riots of the Late Ming Period), (Hong Kong:
Yuan-Tung Book Inc., 1966), 20-24.

3' Ibid., 7-20.

32 For the reproduction of this painting, see Cahill, The Compelling Image, Fig. 4.1. This
translation is referred to that of Burkus, “Artefacts of Biography,” 144.

12

In those years of strife, Ch’en Hung-shou faced his own personal crisis.
After failing in the civil service examinations, he gave up the dream of
becoming a scholar-official and ended by returning to Feng-ch’iao. During
the 16305 he lived like a recluse, amusing himself with wine, painting,
calligraphy, and practicing Buddhism. He also associated with literati
friends such as Ch’i Piao-chia and Ch’i Ji-chia and Chang Tai, exchanging
poetry and painting. A poem, probably written at around 1637, gives
insight into his life at this time:

My reputation is, I am ashamed, listed at small wine shops.

I lost my name urging others to drink for the past forty springs.

In opposition to things, displaying eccentricity, I have already spent
half my life.

There was no one who admonished me with profound words.

I have purified my mind by sketching mountains: paintings transmit
their essence.

I have claimed my spirit by watching flowers: writing possesses
divinity.

Although I do not imitate the Confucians, I have imitated the
Buddhist.

A branch of the parents is withered and lost: my drunken body.33

It was in this period that Ch’en Hung-shou's production of paintings
increased. These paintings included portraits, trees and rocks, birthday
paintings for relatives or friends, Buddhist images, figure paintings, and
landscapes. He also made illustrations for the novel Hsi-hsiang chi--a love
story of a talented Confucian student and the daughter of a prestigious
family." Psychologically, he seemed to have accepted and even embraced
his role as a painter after freeing himself from the obsession of pursuing of
an official career. He expressed: “...As for Old Lotus' calligraphy and

painting, one cannot yet say that they are ‘capable.’ People submit to the

 

33 Burkus, “Artefacts of Biography,” 251-252.
3‘ Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu, 48-59.

l3

eminent Wang [Wei] yu cheng. Although this is an empty fame, I may well
honestly receive it--Take out a model sketch to draw entangled branches of
wisteria.””

In the spring of 1641, Ch’en Hung-shou was in Peking again. In
explaining this incident, Anne Burkus has suggested that due to a
widespread famine, Ch’en Hung-shou was forced to leave for the capital in
seeking means for supporting his family.36 This was reflected in his poem:
"Starvation has compelled me to the capital. Do not say the raving man is
not missing his family..."37 In the same year, he met Chou Liang-kung
again. This time, Chou, who had just attained his chin-shih degree, was
waiting for a palace interview to receive a government appointment. Chou
had recalled in his Tu hua lu:

When my Father was an official in Chi-yang [at Chu-ji, Chekiang], I
was able to be associated with Chang-hou [Ch’en Hung-shou].
Together, we made several trips to the Wu-hsieh mountain. I was
just thirteen at that time that we became friends through brush and
ink. In the Hsin-ssu year [1641] when I was waiting for the palace
interview, I met him again at the capital. Together with gentlemen as
Chin Tao-yin and Wu T’ieh-shan, we formed a poetry society. Chang-
ho liked my poetry; thus we became good friends...38

As the biographer Chu I-tsun noted, Ch’en Hung-shou had purchased a
Studentship in the National Academy in the next year.39 In all probability,
this move was taken so that it would result in a government appointment

with its assurance of security.

 

3’ The famous T'ang poet Wang Wei had been an eminent official. Here, “yu ch’cng” was
referred to his official title as the “Right Minister." This translation is referred to that of Burkus,
“Artefacts of Biography,” 287.

36 Ibid., 393.

37 Ch’en Hung-shou, Pao-lun-t’ang chi, cited by Huang in Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu, 61;
translated by the author.

38 The Chinese text has been included in Kim, “Chou Liang-kung and his Tu-hua-lu,” vol. II,
206. In addition, this translation is partly referred to that of Kim--see ibid., 43-44.

39 For the annotated translation of Chu l-tsun's “Ch’en Hung-shou chuan,” see the Appendix 1 of
Burkus, “Artefacts of Biography,” 423.

14

In Peking, Ch’en associated with some outspoken court officials
including his teachers Liu tsung-chou and Huang Tao-Chou. Early in 1638,
Huang submitted memorials against several officials, an act which resulted
in his demotion to Kiangsi. Two years later, he was recommended to the
court at Peking by the Kiangsi minister Hsieh Hsueh-lung who was
impressed by his talent. However, the emperor Ssu-tsung suspected both
Huang and Hsieh of being conspirators, and they were arrested, beaten, and
imprisoned. One of the students at the National Academy named T’u
Ch’ung-chi, who had sent a memorial denouncing the injustice, was also
beaten and imprisoned.40 Deeply moved by T’u's act, Ch’en wrote to Liu
Tsung-chou, lamenting the deterioration of the Ming court which he saw to
be dominated by groups of "hsiao-jen" (mean people)“ In 1642, when
speaking for some imprisoned officials, Liu Tsung-chou was wrongfully
dismissed from the court.“2 Witnessing this kind of political wrangling and
overt corruption at the Ming court, Ch’en became disillusioned. In a letter
to a friend, he sighed:

My Tao remains unknown for more than forty years; and the wish of
[serving] the emperor and [being filial to] my father became in

vain.

In the Wei-yang palace, when the bells ring, thousands of officials
arrive.

[Yet, I do] not know who [of them] can submit the memorials.‘3

During this period, the emperor was aware of Ch’en Hung-shou's artistic
talent and gave him a commission to copy the portraits of ancient emperors

in the Imperial collection. Thus his fame as an artist grew in the capital and

 

‘0 Jong Chao-tzu, Ming tai ssu hsiang shih (The History of Ming Thought), (Taipei: Taiwan Kai-
nring shu-tien, 1970), 315-316.

‘1 Ch’en Hung-shou, Pao-lun-t'ang chi, cited by Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu, 69-70.

‘2 Jong, Ming tai ssu hsiang shih, 326.

‘3 For the Chinese text, see Huang, Ch 'en Hung-shou nien pu, 71; translated by the author.

15

people compared him with the northern painter Ts’ui Tzu-chung, calling
them “an Ch’en pei Ts’ui” (Chen of the south and Ts’ui of the north). The
emperor subsequently appointed him Painter-in-Attendance. These
incidents seemed to have reawaken Ch'en Hung-shou's inner conflict
between being a painting-master and being a scholar who strove to become
a government official. Unwilling to be regarded merely as a painter, this
man, who had sought the security of official position again and again,

refused the position offered him and left Peking.“4

3. Life after 1644

From the year of 1641 onward, the rebellious army of Li Tzu-ch’eng
gradually won Honan province. By 1643, Li had the whole of Honan under
his control, and he moved toward Shansi early in the next year.“5 At the
beginning of April in 1644, Li's forces had laid seige to the capital Peking. .
The emperor Ssu-tsung summoned his military leaders to come to the
defense of the capital. However, some did not receive the orders; while
others, out of cowardice, led their troops contrarily toward the south . On
April 25 in 1644, the rebel army of Li Tzu-ch’eng entered the Forbidden
City and the emperor Ssu-tsung, abandoned by his officials, committed
suicide.“ Previously, when the Ming military commander Wu San-kuei
received the emperor's order, he had moved his army toward the Capital.
However, upon arriving the Shan-hai Pass, when he heard the news of the

fall of Peking and the death of the emperor, he decided to proceed no

 

‘4 Huang, “Ch’en Hung-shou,” 15-16.

‘5 Chan, Glory and Fall ofMing, 357.

‘6 Lynn A. Struve, The Southern Ming: 1644-1662, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984),
15-16.

16

further. Out of personal grudges against Li Tzu-ch’eng, Wu San-kuei
allied with the Manchus, promising them of the land from the Yellow River
northward, in hopes of destroying Li's power. Without further
consideration, he opened the gate of the Shan-hai Pass, allowing the
Manchu army to enter the Chinese territory, thus profoundly changing
history.“7 After smashing Li Tzu-ch’eng's troops, the ambitious Manchus
made Peking the seat of their government and set their eyes on the southern
China.

Once the news of Ssu-tsung's death reached Nanking in May of 1644, the
Ming officials in the south immediately constituted a new court. The
Prince of Fu assumed the titled of Regent (chien-kuo), and was promptly
enthroned as the Hung-kuang emperor. Incompetent and indulging himself
in luxury and beautiful women, he was manipulated by the powerful grand
secretary Ma Shih-ying, who opposed the righteous men in the court.
Among these upright officials who had joined the Southern Ming court
were Ch’en Hung-shou's teacher Liu Tsung-chou, and his freind Ch’i Piao-
chia. Just as in Peking, the Nanking court was plagued with factional
struggles that left it without resolve and vulnerable. In 1645 it, too was
overthrown by the Manchus.“8

Meanwhile, Ch’en Hung-shou stayed in Shao-hsing at “Ch’ing-t’eng shu
wu” (the green-ivy study) originally owned by the painter Hsu Wei (1521-
93) during the years of 1644 and 1645. According to the biographer Meng
Yuan's acount, Ch’en was deeply affected by the fall of Peking and the

 

‘7 Li Kuang-t’ao, “Dorgon ju kuan shih mo” (The Episode of Dorgon's Entrance into the Shan-
hai Pass), in Ming Ching tang-an tun-wen chi (Collection of Treatises on the Ming and Ch’ing
Official Files), (Taipei: Lien-Ching Chu-pan shih-yeh kung-ssu, 1986), 695-697.

‘8 Struve, The Southern Ming: 1644-1662, 15-74.

17

death of Ssu-tsung in 1644 and as this preyed on him, he became quite
eccentric. Meng described:

When the calamity in the chia-shen year (1644) evolved, he stayed
around Yu (Shao-hsing). Sometimes, he would swallow his cries and
weep. Sometimes, he would indulge himself in wine and shout madly.
Sometimes, he would kill cows and bury dogs with some vagabound
knights and young men. Those who saw him would all point him as a
mad scholar."9

A poem also told Ch’en's feelings of bitterness at this event:

[As] a worthless Confucian scholar, [I ] have no means in revenge
for the emperor[Ssu-tsung].

Pinning [a stem of] herb on my head cloth, I am drunk in the late
autumn.

Living my life here is not as to die.

I still rrriss the excursion to look at the flowers in the Imperial
neighborhood.50

When Nanking fell to the hands of the Manchus, the Southern Ming
court fled to Shao-hsing where the Prince of Lu was established in 1645 as
Regent. At the same time, the the Prince of T’ang was enthroned as the
Lung-wu emperor of the Ming dynasty at Fu-chou." Meng Yuan had
indicated that both men, on hearing of Ch’en Hung-shou's reputation,
intended to offer Ch’en a position as a goverrnent official, but both were
rejected. Many of the Ming loyalists such as Liu Tsung-chou and Ch’i
Piao-chia, now in witnessing the fall of the dynasty, chose to take their own
lives, while others such as Huang Tao-Chou sacrificed their lives in the fight
against the Manchus.52 However, Ch’en Hung-shou did not follow the
footsteps of his friends and teachers--he remained alive. To attribute

Ch’en's choice of life to cowardice seems unfair. Kohara Hironobu has

 

‘9 Meng Yuan, “Ch’en Hung-shou chuan," cited by Huang in Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu, 81.
This translation is partly referred to that of Burkus, “Artefacts of Biography," 448.

5° For the Chinese text, see Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu, 80; translated by the author.

5' Chan, Glory and Fall ofthe Ming, 369.

’2 Huang, Ch ’en Hung-short nien pu, 81-82.

18

explained that out of family responsibility--Ch’en at that time had a large
family which relied on him--and discouraged by the corruption of the Ming
court, Ch’en did not choose the more radical solution for a traditional
Confucianist in facing the ruin of his own country. This response also
seems to conform with his eccentric nature.53 However, his guilty
ambivalence about his choice often trouble him, as he wrote:

In my youth, when reading the history, I was touched by those
survived governmental officials (“ku-ch’en”).

I did not know that this time it would happen to me in my old age.
Whenever thinking about enduring shame and death,

the later people can never compare to the previous generations.
Therefore, I feel that if one doesn't have the sense of loyality and
righteousness, he would not need to study the books by the ancients.
Raising my eyes on the mountains and rivers, I am not without feeling.
However, I become carefree in facing poems and wine..."

The biographer Mao Ch’i-ling indicated that during the chaotic period in
1646, Ch’en Hung-shou was once seized by the Ch’ing army. In refusing
to paint for them, he almost lost his life?5 To avoid the disturbances, Ch’en
became a monk at the Yun-men monastery, adopting the sobriquets of
“Hui-ch’ih” (regretted [and] late), “Hui-seng” (regretted monk), and “Yun-
men seng” (monk of the Cloudy Gate). Although early in life he had been
interested in Buddhism, he admitted his identity as a monk to be merely a
means of survival.56 He soon retumed to his family and retired to the
mountainous area Po-wu nearing Shao-hsing. Pressured by poverty and

family responsibility, he worked as a professional painter. His past

 

’3 Kohara Hironobu, “An Introductory Study of Ch’en Hongshou. Part I,” trans. Anne Burkus.
Oriental Art, n.s. 32, no. 4 (1986-87), 401.

5‘ For the Chinese text, see Wang Yao-t’ing, “Ch’en Hung-shou pi hsia te Yuan-Ming yi chih,"
Ku kung wen wu yueh k'an (The National Palace Museum Monthly of Chinese Art), vol. 8, no. 11
(1991), 98; translation by the author.

5’ Burkus, “Artefacts of Biography," 426.

56 Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu, 90.

l9

ambivalence between being a Confucian scholar and social elite, and being
a “painting master” of low social status was now resolved. Living under the
foreign rule as an “i-rnin” (left over people, i.e., people left over from a
previous rule), he might well indulge in painting without feeling ashamed.
In the next year, seeking a more profitable market for his paintings, he
moved his family back to the city of Shao-hsingf7

Ch’en Hung-shou spent most of his last years at the shore of the
celebrated West Lake at Hung-Chou, and was very productive artistically.
In 1650, he met Chou Liang-kung again.58 By this time Chou had
surrendered to the Manchus and had become a Ch’ing official. Two years
later, they met again when Ch’en Hung-shou executed forty-two works for
Chou, as Chou recalled:

Within approximately eleven days, he painted large and small
handscrolls and hanging scrolls, altogether forty-two pieces. Others
present and I myself could not understand why he had to paint for me
in such a hurry. Was it because he at that time had a premonition of
his death after I returned to Min (Fukien)? I was deeply moved by
his intention and although I had so many of his paintings, I dared not
to give away even a single wor ...5"

For his own life, Ch’en Hung-shou had left the following epigram:

As for myself, Old Regretful, most of the poignant experiences of

my life have been in the mountains and by the rivers...Whenever I
found a satisfactory place, I have always thought of bringing my wife
and children along, settling my life and family there. My soul thus
would be born and destroyed with the shadows of clouds, the sound
of water, the brightness of mountains, and the colors of flowers--this
will suffice for what I desire. Things are not as I desire them to be
because, although I have ambition, it is not my fate. I long for

fortune and fame, but I am passionately attached to music and women.
For thirty odd years, I have been played with by Creation (tsao-hua).

 

’7 Ibid., 93, 97.
58 Ibid., 106-128.
’9 This translation is referred to that of Kim, Chou Liang-kung and His Tu-hua-lu, 94.

20

Until the overthrown of the heaven and earth, the will of aging and
dying among the mountains and waters then becomes persistent. 6°

He died in 1652 at the age of fifty-four.“

 

6° For the Chinese text, see Wang Yao-t’ing, “Ch’en Hung-shou pi hsia te Yuan-Ming yi chih,”
98-99; translated by the author.
6' Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu, 129.

CHAPTER II

THE LATE MING ARTISTIC TRENDS

To explain Ch’en Hung-shou's landscape painting, one must examine
them in the context of the contemporary cultural environment. Therefore,
an investigation on the late Ming intellectual trends that might have
influences on Ch’en's art is significant. This chapter will thus be devoted to
three major discussions, concerning, first, the atmosphere of archaistic
revival and self-expressionism prevelent in the philosophical, literary, and
the artistic fields. These trends cuhninated in the topic of the second part
discussion, Tung Ch’i-ch’ang's painting theory. This discussion is then
followed by an examination of Ch’en Hung-shou's response as a painter to

these contemporary trends.

1. Archaistic Revival and Self-expressionism in Ming

In 1369, when Chu Yuan-Chang drove the Mongols out of Chinese
territory, reunited the whole China, and became the first emperor of the
Ming dynasty, an atmosphere of reviving Chinese traditions seemed to have
prevailed within the newly established regime. In selecting his ministers,

Chu, as the first emperor Hung-wu (r. 1368-1398), revised the old civil
21

22

service examination system basing the examinations on the Confucian Four
Books and Five Classics. Due to the official advocation, the ideas of Sung
Neo-Confuciansim prevailed, anticipating the future division and
flourishing of two distinctive schools of thought in the Ming period.1 These
two major schools were the “School of the Principle (li)” and the “School
of the Mind (hsin)”. The “School of the Principle” followed the theories of
the Sung scholars Ch’eng Yi (ca. 1033-1108) and Chu Hsi (1130-1200).
The idea of t’ien-li--an natural principle that resided and governed all the
things in the universe--was first addressed by the Ch’eng brothers in the
eleventh century.2 Recognizing the existence of li and in agreement with
Mencius' thought that human nature is basically good, Ch’eng Yi suggested
to cultivate one's good nature, one must be serious and extend one's
knowledge by investigating the universal principle of all things.3
Succeeding Ch’eng Yi's notion of the investigation of the principle of things
as a means of self-cultivation, Chu Hsi emphasized the broad leaming of
Confucian Classics. To elucidate their meanings, he had written
commentaries on the Four Books, making them the basis of his teaching.4
The origination of the idea of the “School of the Mind” could be traced
back to the thought of Ch’eng Hao (ca. 1032-1085).5 Another Sung scholar

 

' Jong, Ming tai ssu hsiang shih, 14.

2 Ibid., 4.

3 William T. de Bary, Sources of Chinese Tradition, (New York: Columbia University Press,
1960), 1: 472-477, 479. See also Ch’en Yu-fu, “Nei-sheng-wai-wang chih hsueh to in hsing--
hsin ju hsueh te fa chan”(The Revival of the Learning that Both Sound in Theory and Practice--
The Development of Neo-Confucianism), in Chung kuo wen hua hsin lun--Hsueh shu pien--Hao
han te hsueh hai (The New Treatises on Chinese Culture--The Section of Learning--The Vast
Sea of Learning), ed. Lin Chin-Chang, 6th ed. (Taipei: Lien-Ching chit-pan shih-yeh kung-ssu,
1991), 242-245.

‘ De Bary, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 479-480; and Ch’en Yu-fu, “Nei-sheng-wai-wang,”
247-250.

5 Chia Feng-cheng, Chung-kuo li-hsueh-shih (The History of Neo-Confucianism in China), 2nd
ed. (Shanghai: Shang wu yin shu kuan, 1937), 168.

_
H/ i

23

Lu Chiu-yuan (1140-1192) ventured further to declare that the human mind
is identical with a righteous principle, which “is in fact endowed by
Heaven; thus it can not be destroyed...”6 Because one possesses the innate
knowledge of good, in cultivating oneself, one does not need to investigate
the principles of things but must turn inward to rediscover the truth.7 Lu's
emphasis on the practice of the righteous principle in the real life
distinguished his thought from the study-oriented theory of Chu Hsi.8
Trying to bridge the gap between knowledge and the mind, the twelfth
century philosophic principles were revived in the Ming dynasty. Ch’en
Hsien—chang (ca. 1427-1500) indicated: “The reason why one learns is to
attain enlightenment (Tao). If one cannot obtain it from books, one can
search it from one's own mind.”9 He also said: “In learning, one should
primarily seek in one's mind the attainment of the so called open-
rrrindedness, enlightenment, tranquility, and unity. In addition to the study
of the important writings by the ancients, one must pursue the unity
[between knowledge and the mind]....This is the way of the learning of the
mind.”10 The thought of the “chool of the Mind” cuhninated in the theory
of Wang Yang-ming (1472-1528). Wang followed Lu Chiu-yuan's
unification of mind and principle. He called real knowledge “conscience,”
regarding it as an innate quality residing in one's mind, akin to the natural
principle, and represented by sincerity. He also emphasized putting one's
knowledge into practice since real knowledge was embodied by action.

Wang emphasized extending one's conscience--the natural principle--to

 

6 Ibid., 202.

7 De Bary, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 509-510.
8 Ibid., 513-514.

9 Chia, Chung-kuo li-hsueh-shih, 221.

1° Ch’en Yu-fu, “Nei-sheng-wai-wang,” 260.

24

things, in hopes of achieving an unity between human beings and the
myriad things in the universe.11 The “School of Mind” was also known as
the Lu-Wang school because of the contributions of its two founders.

The earlier Ch’eng-Chu school of the Sung dynasty was officially
adapted by the Ming government, but the new Lu-Wang school attracted
increasing numbers of followers. The resultant struggle between these two
trends of thought remains a crucial issue of the Ming philosophy. In the
late Ming period, some followers of the Lu-Wang school gradually evolved
as individualists. Wang Ken (1483?-1540), the creator of the Tai-Chou
school, advocated the importance of individuals as he said: “Knowing to
cultivate oneself is the basis of the whole country; which is because that all
the myriads of things in the world rely on oneself but not that one relies on

’12 The followers of Wang Ken

the myriads of things in the world.’
emphasized the taking of actions according to individuality while Li Chih
(1527-1602) became a free-willed eccentric who encouraged individualism,
questioning the traditional Confucian values and attacking some
contemporary Confucians as hypocrites.l3 Li was close to the leading
figures-~the Yuan brothers--of the Kung-an school in the literary field.14
The way that he promoted individualism was echoed by the literary theory
of the Kung-an school could not be merely a coincidence.

During the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries, parallel to the struggle

between the two schools of Neo-Confucianism was the conflict between the

 

” Ibid., 261-263; and Chia, Chung-kuo li-hsueh-shih, 222-229. See also Jong, Ming tai ssu
hsiang shih, 71-109, esp., 101.

‘2 Jong, Ming tai ssu hsiang shih, 155.

'3 Ch’en Yu-fu, “Nei-sheng-wai-wang,” 265; Jong, Ming tai ssu hsiang shih, 231-239, 246-248;
William de Bary, Self and Society in Ming Thought, (New York: Columbia University Press,
1970), 188-193, 199-200.

‘4 Ibid., 234. Li Chih exchanged poems with the brothers Yuan Hung-tao and Yuan Chung-tao.

25

archaist revivalism led by Wang Shih-chen and the “Former and Latter
Seven Talents,” and the self-expressionism upheld by the three Yuan

‘5 The archaists

brothers of the Kung-an school in the field of literature.
believed in the emulation of a much earlier tradition in literature,
represented by the prose of the Ch’in (221-207 BC.) and the Han (206
B.C.-A.D. 220) dynasties, as well as the poetry of the High T’ang. Only
after one had throughly assimulated all the correct models would he attain
enlightenment.16 Although it is difficult to determine to what degree the
influence of the contemporary Neo-Confucianism had on the Ming literary
theory, Richard J. Lynn regarded these archaists as a group who accepted
the "great burdem of culture", and whose commitment to the assimulation
of an orthodox tradition of poetry was in accord with the traditional
Ch’eng-Chu school’s commitment to intensive learning of the Classics.17
Opposing this view was the movement of the Kung-an school led by the
three Yuan brothers from Kung-an county in the Hupei province.18
Influenced by the contemporary philosophy of Mind and individualism, as

well as by certain dramatists who exalted individualism and true emotion in

one's works, and by some poets advocating individuality and expressionism,

 

‘5 The “Former Seven Talents" consisted of Li Meng-yang, Ho Ching-ming, Hsu Chen-ch’ing,
Pien Kung, Wang T’ing-hsiang, K’ang Hai, and Wang Chin-ssu; the “Latter Seven Talents”
included Li P’an-lung, Wang Shih-chen, Hsieh Chen, Tsung Ch'en, Liang Yu-yu, Hsu Chung-
hsing, and Wu Kuo-lun; see Ho Lo-chih, “Hsu Wai,” in Li tai hua chia p'ing chuan (The Critical
Biographies of Painters of the Past Dynasties), ed., Yu Chien-hua (Hong Kong: Chung-hua shu
chu, 1986), 17.

'6 Richard John Lynn, “Alternate Routes to Self-Realization in Ming Theories of Poetry,” in
Theories of the Arts in China, ed., Susan Bush and Christian Murck, (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1983), 317; Sewall Jerome Oertling II, Ting Yun-peng: A Chinese Artist of the
Late Ming Dynasty, (Ph. D. dissertation: University of Michigan, 1980), 123-124.

‘7 Richard John Lynn, “Orthodoxy and Enlightrnent: Wang Shih-chen's Theory of Poetry and Its
Antecedents,” in The Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism, ed., William T. dc Bary, (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1975), 231.

‘8 The three Yuan brothers were Yuan Tsung-tao (1500-1600), Yuan Hung-tao (1568-1610), and
Yuan Chung-tao (1607-1624); see Jonathan Chaves, “The Panoply of Images: A Reconsideration
of the Literary Theory of the Kong-an School,” in Theories of the Arts in China, 341.

26

the Yuan brothers celebrated self-expressionism in literature.19 Li Chih had
stressed that the prequisite of good writings to be the retaining of the innate
“childlike mind,” which he explained as the “true-mind.” In his essay on
the “Childlike Mind,” Li expressed that the childlike mind would be lost if
one allows the principles received through senses--hearing and seeing--to
dominate his mind. He wrote: “....Once the childlike mind is
obstructed,...then in writing prose and phrases, the prose and phrases will
not be able to convey [one's ideas.]....”20 He explicitly indicated that all the
best writings in the world come from the childlike mind.21 The dramatist
T’ang Hsien-Tzu praised the uniqueness in writing by saying: “The writings
in the world that retain liveliness are all those by the unique scholars. If a
scholar is unique, then his mind will be clever. If one's mind is clever, then
it will be capable of soaring.”22 Both the emphasis on the retaining of a
childlike mind by Li Chih and the admiration of a person's unique quality
by T’ang Hsien-tzu were in accord with the sincere expression of emotions
and the individualistic value acclaimed by the Kung-an school scholars. In
the art field, some individualistic painters such as Ch’en Hung-shou also
sought to capture the child-like mind in their works.

Against merely formal imitation of the works by certain recognized
ancient masters, the Kung-an school literati greatly valued the creative
writings of different time periods that revealed the true emotions of the
poets, as Yuan Hung-tao claimed in his basic principles:

Imitation destroys the life of literature and makes writers lost their

 

'9 For examples, T’ang Hsien-tzu (1550-1616) and Hsu Wei (1521-1593) were two of the most
famous expressionistic dramatists of the Ming period; Lynn, “Self-Realization in Ming
Theories,” 332-336.

2° Jong, Ming tai ssu hsiang shih, 240.

2' Wang Li-ling, Ch ’en Hung-shoujen-wu-hua, 15-16 and no. 45, 25-26.

22 Ibid., 16.

27

own individual character of expression. One should therefore
concern himself with the expression of “natural disposition and
intelligence’ and should not be bound by the rules and conventions of
accepted literary forms. Individuality and the direct expression of
felt emotion are the most important things in poetry. If a writer

imitates other writers, either past or contemporary, he subverts all
this.23

The Kung-an school literati did not really object the concept of fu-ku
(archaic revival). Being guided by some “orthodox” models was necessary;
what they disagreed on was the prevailence of plagiarism. To them, a
successful writer must emulate the spirit of the ancients in conveying the
concrete reality creatively.24 The following words reflected Yuan's view on
the universal principle applicable to painting as well as to philosophy and
the art of literature:

....For the good painter learns from things, not from other painters.
The good philosopher learns from his mind, not from some doctrine.
The good poet learns from the myriads of phenomena in the universe
(sen-lo wan-hsiang), not from writers of the past. When one models
oneself on the [poet of the] T’ang dynasty, it is not a question of
modeling one's technique, lines and words on theirs. One models
oneself on the spirit of their not being like the Han [poets], or the
Wei [poets], or the Six Dynasties [poets]. This is the true
modeling.25

The notions of the emulation of the ancient models combined with personal
creativity not only reflect the influence from the school of the Mind but also
conformed to the late Ming aesthetic theories influenced by the art critic
Tung Ch’i-ch’ang (1555-1636).

 

23 Lynn. Wang Shih-chen's Theory of Poetry," 237.

2‘ Chaves, “Literary Theory of the Kung-an School," 342-343, 347-352.

25 Ibid., 352. For the Chinese text, see Yuan Hung-tao, “P’ing-hua-chai Inn-hua” (The
Discussion on Painting in the Vase-flower Study), in Chung-kuo hua-lun lei-pien, ed., Yu Kun,
(The Categorized Compilation of Chinese Painting Theory), (Taipei: Hua—cheng shu chu, 1977),
129.

28

The art theorist, collector, and painter Tung Ch’i-ch’ang dominated the
field of the late Ming painting. He established an orthodoxy tradition for
the literati-painters to follow. Tung's ideas about archaistic revival (fie-ku)
and transformation (pien) made him the most eminent figure. Before
discussing Tung's contribution, one must understand the evolution of the
archaistic revivalism and its relationship to transformation in Chinese art
prior to the time of Tung Ch’i-ch’ang.

The notion of fu-ku in Chinese art originated early. In the period of the
Six Dynasties, the art theorist Hsieh Ho (active ca. 500-535?) first
articulated “chuan-yi-mo-hsieh” (transmitting and conveying [earlier
models, through] copying and transcribing) as one of his Six Laws

26 The T’ang art critic Chang Yen-yuan (ca. 847)

[Elements] of Painting.
discussed the lineation of painters to the T’ang dynasty by schools, and
said: “If one does not know the schools and their transmission, then he
cannot discuss painting.”27 Both men's words revealed painters' practice of
modeling one's styles after those of the previous generations. As the
landscape art reached its maturity by the Northern Sung Dynasty, the
famous landscapist Kuo Hsi (after 1000-ca. 1090) addressed his concerns
on the modeling after the ancient styles in his Lin-ch’uan kuo-chih (The
Lofty Message of Forests and Streams): “The way that people learn to paint
is no different from learning calligraphy. If one chooses the calligraphers
as Chung Yu [151-230], Wang Hsi-chih [309-ca. 365], Yu Shih-nan [558-
638], and Liu Kung-ch’uan [778-865] as his models, after long study, one

would achieve certain similarity. ‘As for the great masters and eminent

scholars, they will not limit themselves to one school, but will select from

 

2‘ James F. Cahill, “The Six Laws and How to Read Them,” Ars Orientalis, 4 (1961): 378.
27 Yu, Chung-kuo hua-lun lei-pien, 33-34; translation by the author.

29

many for viewing simutaneously, and discussing widely to investigate on a
broad basis in order to form their own styles. Then it is called an
achievement...”28 Another Sung art critic Han Cho (active ca. 1095-1125)
also stressed the importance of learning from the ancient models by saying:
“If one wants to transmit the sediment of the ancients' and to achieve the
essence of the learning of the virtuous in the past, one will not have the
innate capibility without learning.”29

In the Yuan dynasty, Chao Meng-fu (1254-1322) was the one of the most
eminent artists to advocate the archaistic revival in painting. Borrowing
idioms from the T’ang dynasty paintings six hundred years earlier, as well
as from the Sung dynasty artists, Chao had imbued his paintings with self-
expressionism originating from the ideal of the Northern Sung literati-
painter Su Shih (1037-1101). He also emphasized the application of
calligraphic strokes in painting.30 He indicated: “The spirit of antiquity (ku-
yi) is what is valued in painting. If there is no spirit of antiquity, then,
though there may be skill, it is of no avail....My paintings seem to be
simple, but connoisseurs know that they are close to the ancient and thus

”3‘ The other Yuan artist known to have

might consider them superior....
worked in the archaistic styles was Ch’ien Hsuan (ca. 1235-ca. 1300). In
his painting “Wang Hsi-chih Watching Geese,” the heavy blue and green
colors conveyed an antique flavor; while the schematic patterns of the

leafage of the trees and mountains and the seemingly unrealistic relative

 

28 Ibid., 633. This translation is referred to that in the Early Chinese Texts on Painting, ed.,
Susan Bush and Hsio-yen Shih, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), 160. '

29 Yu, Chung-kuo hua-lun lei-pien, 678.

3° For the analysis on Chao Meng-fu's painting styles, see Chu-tsing Li, The Autumn Colors on
the Chiao and Hua Mountains: A Landscape Art by Chao Meng-Fa, Artibus Asiae
Supplementum 21 , (Ascona, Switzerland: Artibus Asiae Publishers, 1964).

3' Yu, Chung-kuo hua-Ian lei-pien, 92. See also Bush and Shih, Early Chinese Texts on
Painting, 254.

30

size and perspective among the pavilion, the human figures, and the
landscape background gave a sense of deliberate awkwardness that spoke of
self-expressionism.32 This notion of self-expressionism anticipated Tung
Ch’i-ch’ang's idea of transformation (pien) and Ch’en Hung-shou's
distorted, archaistic painting style. Wen Fong has regarded the recurrence
of the “schematic archaism” in painting as related to the dynastic transition
in Chinese history.33 Fong sees the Yuan dynasty archaistic revivalism led
by Chao Meng-fu as a deliberate, conscious reaction. These Yuan painters
transmitted their complicated emotions of surviving under the barbaric
Yuan rule into expressive pictorial language by using archaic elements to
make a political statement.

The beginning of the Ming dynasty marked a new epoch in which the
Chinese reclaimed their political authority. Both in the fields of philosophy
and literature, the movement of fii-ku paralleled Ming Chinese concerns
about reassuring the legitimacy of the new regime. This attitude was also
reflected in the restoration of the Painting Academy in the early Ming and
the encouragement of the Southern Sung academic painting styles including
the blue-and-green manner and the ink wash style. The early Ming
academic painters Tai Chin and Wu Wai (1459-1508), both from the Che-
jiang province, had brought into the poetic Southern Sung styles a sense of
strength and boldness, thus pushing the fame of the Che School to its peak.
In the middle Ming period, the Wu School painters became dominant. Its
founder Shen Chou (1427-1509) had revived the literati painting styles and

 

32 James Cahill, Hills Beyond a River: Chinese Painting of the Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368, (New
York: Weatherhill, 1976), 35, and the color plate I (section of handscroll). For the reproduction
of the whole handscroll, see Sherman E. Lee and Wai-Ram Ho, Chinese Art under the Mongols:
The Yuan Dynasty ( 1279-1368), (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1968.), P1. 185.

33 Wen C. Fong, “Archaism as a Primitive Style,” in Artists and Traditions, ed., Christian F.
Murck, (Princeton University Press, 1976), 108.

31

examplified in his paintings the self-expressionistic ideal of “hsieh-yi”
(depicting the ideas) that the imitation after the works by the Sung literati-
painters as Mi Fu and the Four Yuan Masters turned to be essential for a
scholar-painter's training.34

In terms of pien, the Wu School painter Wen Cheng-ming was probably
the first one to adopt the notion of of transformation in works such as the
“Landscape in the Manner of Wang Meng” (1535), and “A Thousand Cliffs
Contend in Splendor” (1548-1550). Both paintings seemed to depart from
the reality of nature, thus initiating the transformation in Ming art.35

In the late Ming period, Tung Ch’i-ch’ang (1555-1636) became the most
prominent figure in art. Since Tung and his friend Ch’en Chi-ju knew the
literary leader Wang Shi-chen, Tung could not have been unaware of the
archaistic revivalism in literature.36 In addition, Tung was closely
associated with the Kung-an poet Yuan Hung-tao and interested in Ch’an
Buddhism that resulted in his friendship with Li Chih.37 Their enthusiasm
for individuality and self-expressionism might have certain effect on the

formation of Tung's painting theory.

 

3‘ The Four Yuan Masters included Huang Kung-wang (1269-1354), Wu Chen (1280-1354), Ni
Tsan (1301-1374), and Wang Meng (c. 1308-1385).

35 Style Transformed, 4. For the reproductions of these two paintings, see James Cahill, Parting
at the Shore: Chinese Painting of the Early and Middle Ming Dynasty, [368-1580, (New York:
Weatherhill, 1978), Pls. 115-116.

3” Wu, Tung Ch 'i-ch’ang The Man. His Time, and His Landscape Painting, 155.

37 Nelson 1. Wu. “Tung-Ch’i-ch’ang (1555-1636): Apathy in Government and Fervor in Art,” in
Confucian Personalities, ed., Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett, (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1962), 280-281.

32

2. Tung Ch’i-ch’ang and the Formation of an Orthodox Tradition

Ho Liang-chun, who was a friend of Wen Cheng-ming, and acquainted
with Mo Shih-lung who was in turn a close friend of Tung Ch’i-ch’ang, set
the mood for Tung's theory.38 Ho believed that landscapists should have a
lofty character and must learn from the ancients. He expressed that in
landscape paintings, painters should follow the correct models of the Five
Dynasties and Sung masters whose works contained both brush-strength
and spiritual harmony (shen-yun). Although recognizing the achievement
of the Southern Sung masters, Ho seemed to deny their style by saying: “As
for Ma Yuan and Hsia Kuei, they are masters, too,...but their manners
merely belonged to the academic styles...”39 In addition, Ho classified the
Ming painters by their social status, regarding the professional painters led
by Tai Chin as inferior to the amateur scholar-painters as Wen Cheng-
rrring.40 On painting, the scholar Wang Shih-chen had openly denounced
the rigid refinement in the works by the T’ang painters Li Ssu-hsun and Li
Chao-tao but praised the works of Kung T’ung, Tung Yuan, and Chu Jan.41
Another figure who classified painters according to their professional or
amateur painting styles was the painter and art collector Chan Ching-feng.
He called the professional painters as “fabricators,” and the amateur

scholar-painters “liberated masters.” For those who excelled both in the

 

’3 James Cahill, The Distant Mountains: Chinese Painting of the Late Ming Dynasty, 1570-1644,
(New York: Weatherhill, 1982), ll.

39 Ho Liang-chun, “Ssu-yu-chai hua-lun” (The Painting Theory of the Four Friends’ Study), in
Yu, Chung-kuo hua-lun lei-pein, 110-111.

4° Yen, Lan Ying yu fang-lat hui hua, 30; Bush, The Chinese Literati on Painting, 166.

" Yen, Lan Ying yufang-lu hui hua, 3o.

33

styles of the professional painters and the amateur ones, Chan had set them
into a distinct category. He wrote in 1594:

In landscape painting there are two lineages. One is [made up of]
the liberated masters, the other of the fabricators. These can also be
called the professionals and the amateurs. The liberated masters
began with Wang Wei...and later included Ching Hao, Kuan T’ung,
Tung Yuan, and Chu J an...Mi Fu and Mi Yu-jen belonged to this
‘blood line,’ but after them it was cut off for nearly two hundred
years, after which the Four Masters of the Yuan, Huang Kung-wang,
Wang Meng, Ni Tsan, and Wu Chen, distantly took up this current
and continued it. In our dynasty, Shen Chou and Wen Cheng-ming
followed this tradition in their paintings.

The fabricators began with Li Ssu-hsun and Li Chou-tao and
continued with ...Li Ch’eng and Hsu Tao-ning. After them, Chao Po-
chu and Chao Pao-su...all belonged properly in this lineage. In the
Southern Sung, Ma Yuan, Hsia Kuei, Liu Sung-nien, and Li T’ang
belonged to this ‘bloodline.’ In our dynasty Tai Chin and Chou
Ch’en continued it.

Of those who combined the excellences of the liberated masters and
the fabricators, Fan K’uan, Kuo Hsi, and Li Kung-lin were the
founding fathers; Wang Shen,... Chao Kan,... and, in the Southern
Sung, Ma Ho-chih were all of this lineage.42

So far, art theorists had drawn the line between the camps of the
professional painters and the amateur scholar-painters. It was not until Mo
Shih-lung (ca. 1550—ca. 1585) and his friend Tung Ch’i-ch’ang who tried to
rescue the late Ming painting from decline by extolling the superiority of
the amateur scholar painters that an orthodox tradition was established.
The new orthodoxy exerted enormous influence on his contemporaries as
well as on the generations to come.43

The followers of the Wen Cheng-nring in the late Ming period practiced

a decorative, overly-refined style, so that their works lost not only the sense

 

‘2 Cahill, The Distant Mountains, 12.

‘3 Roderick Whitfield, In Pursuit of Antiquity: Chinese Paintings of the Ming and Ch 'irlu
Dynasties from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Earl Morse, (The Art Museum, Princeton
University, 1969), 35.

34

of life, but also, the compositional logic. Seeing this decadence, Mo Shih-
lung once complained: “Nowadays people build up small bits to make a

994 .
4 Fan Yun-lrn, who

large mountain; this is one of the worst mistakes.
attained the chin-shih degree in 1595 also criticized his contemporaries:
“Among them are some who choose to imitate some famous master, but the
only one they know is Wen Cheng-ming. They manage a slight
resemblance. But with all their copying, they only capture the ‘skin’ of his
external form, without getting anything of his spirit and principle?”

The writing Hua-shuo attributed to M0 Shih-lung first suggested that as
in Buddhist theology, there were the divisions in landscape painting
analogous to the Northern and Southern schools of Ch’an Buddhism, with
each represented by the T’ang painters Li Ssu-hsun (The Northern School)
and Wang Wei (the Southern School) respectively. By connecting the
literati painters who achieved perfection through intuition to the Southern
school, and the academic painters to the Northern school, Mo Shih-lung
stressed on the superiority of the Southern school.46 Sharing similar notions
with Mo Shih-lung, Tung implied that in attaining maturity in painting
styles, the Southern School painters had undergone “sudden enlightenment”
(tun-wu), which was a spontaneous reaction, and thus was superior to the
“gradual enlightenmnet” (chien-wu) of the Northern School painters who
had endured painstaking learning. He followed by extending the two

lineages to apply to Ming painters, and advised scholar-painters to imitate

the “correct” models--styles of the Southern School painters. He wrote:

 

44 .

Ibrd..
‘5 Mae Anna Quan Pang, “Late Ming Painting Theory,” in The Restless Landscape: Chinese
Painting of the Late Ming Period, ed., James Cahill, (Berkeley: University Art Museum, 1971 ).
22.
‘6 Bush, The Chinese Literati on Painting, 167.

35

The painting of the literati began with Wang Wei. Later, Tung
Yuan, Chu Jan, Li Cheng, and Fan K’uan were his ‘proper issue’....
From there [the succession] goes straight on to the Four Masters of
Yuan.... They all belonged to the correct [orthodox] line of
transmission. In our dynasty Wen Cheng-ming and Shen Chou have
also distantly succeeded to [them]... As for Ma Yuan, Hsia Kuei, Li
T’ang, and Liu Sung-nien, they belonged to the lineage of Li Ssu-
hsun; they are nothing that we officials ought to study.47

After defining the “correct” tradition for one to follow, the next question
would be the way of imitation. According to Tung, the direct copying of
the old masters' works is easy; what is difficult is to transmit their spirit.48
To attain the spiritual harmony (chi-yun), Tung advised a method of self-
cultivation as he said:

Study ten thousand volumes, travel ten thousand miles, and eliminate
the worldly cares from one's bosom. Naturally, the hills and valleys
would form in one's mind....As one draws spontaneously, there will
always be spirit-transmitting landscapes.49

In addition, he stressed the importance of transformation (pien) as
indispensable for imitation. Tung said: “When a common painter copies,
what he turns out is identical with his model. How can he, working in this
way, expect to have any influence on others?” He further explained:

Those who study the works of the masters of the past and can not
transform them are as if they were fenced or walled in. They are far
removed from the old masters because they imitate them too closely
[i. e., imitate their external appearance] .50

In imitating the same old master's works, different followers would be
expected to create various painting styles; thus Tung's archaistic revivalism
would go beyond the superficiality of formal likeness, growing with the

transformation that derived from individual creativity.

 

‘7 Cahill, The Distant Mountains, 1314.

‘8 Yen, Lan Ying yu fang ku hui hua, 33-34.

‘9 Yu, Chung-kuo hua-lun lei-pien, 726; translation by the author.
5° Pang, “Late Ming Painting Theory,” 23.

36

To Tung Ch’i-ch’ang, creative study of the correct ancient models was
not enough. He said: “A painter who models after the ancient masters is on
the right track. But to advance himself, he must model after the heaven and
earth.” Wai-kam Ho tries to relate Tung's thought with influences from the
individualism advocated by Li Chih and the philosophical thought of the
school of Mind, explaining that by “model after the heaven and earth,”
Tung meant to return to one's own mind, rather than the objective nature,
for truth. Ho writes:

According to this school of Neo-Confucianism, the universe exists
only in one's mind, and since there is no reality outside the mind, to
learn from the nature means to learn from one's own mind. Similarly,
all truth in the classics exists only in one's mind, and since there is no
law or method outside the mind, to return to the past is to return to
one's own mind...51

Hence, following Ho's interpretation, originality, the product of
individualism, was of equal importance in facing the nature and the
orthodox painting tradition that a good painter would project his unique

perception towards them--the “mind image”--in his works.

3. Ch’en Hung-shou's Artistic Attitude

Due to Tung Ch’i-ch’ang's effort, the field of late Ming painting was
dominated by painters who practiced the self-expressionistic, literati
painting styles, especially those of the Four Yuan Masters. However, this
practice had resulted in some negative effects. In 1600, Hsieh Chao-chih
(1567-1624) wrote: “Painters today often [paint] in the name of pose-

grasping. By piling up ink and using the axe-cleavage strokes, they only

5‘ Wai-kam Ho, “Tung Ch’i-ch’ang's New Orthodoxy and the Southern School Theory,” in
Artists and Traditions, 122.

37

captured the outline. To call this ‘playing with ink’ is all right. But if one
wants to attain the perfection, one cannot do without following the
ancients.”52 Hsieh also criticized the lack of learning and the abuse of self-
expressionism by some painters.53 Living in such a period, Ch’en Hung-
shou does not seem to have been influenced by the abusive practice of
hsieh-yi. To him, learning from the past and technical competence were
equally as important as self-expression.

Ch’en Hung-shou's father Ch’en Yu-ch’ao was a good friend of Ch’en
Chi-ju, who was closely associated with Tung Ch’i-ch’ang. Thus, Ch’en
Hung-shou might well have been aware of Tung's art theory. but unlike
Tung, who upheld the status of painters of the Southern school and
preferred paintings of the Yuan dynasty over those of the Sung, Ch’en
Hung-shou had a more open attitude. He did not seem to agree with certain
aspects of Tung Ch’i-ch’ang's ideas, as shown in comments written shortly
before his death:

There are people today who do not learn from the ancients. They
believe in their examination-knowledge or in their ‘petty fame’ that
they swing the brush and paint. They have no time for perfecting
their brush strokes and ink tones, nor do they attain the formal
likeness comparable to the subjects. How sad! Hoping to be
honored by their petty fame, they laugh at those honest painters,
which is what I object to most. Yet, as to the contemporary
professional painters, those who follow the Sung style are dominated
by the artisan's attitude. Why? Because they [do not know the Sung
style derived from T’ang painting so they] do not use the T’ ang
painting method. Those who follow Yuan are drive by a coarse
impetus, since they do not trace the origin of Yuan painting back to
the Sung works. If a painter uses the manner of T’ang in easing the
stiffness of Sung; and applies the principles of Sung to the way of
Yuan, then he will become an accomplished master... The methods

 

’2 Oertling, TingYun-Peng, 143.
’3 Ibid., 146; Wang Li-ling, Ch ’en Hung-shou jen-wu-hua, 69.

38

created by these old [Sung] masters were carefully conceived; even
as the brush strokes by Ni Tsan were governed by their principles.
Painters as the two Li (i.e., Li Ssu-hsun and Li Chao-tao), Li Cheng,
Chao Po-chu, might have painted numerious buildings and
landscapes, yet each had their own rhythm and resonance. It is
because people do not observe and learn after them keenly that they
say the Sung painting is inferior to the Yuan painting....54

Ch’en Hung-shou's respect for technical proficiency was further
demonstrated in one of his poems:

....In the morning I rise and suck my brush,

One line in contrary to the 'ancient' spirit,

and shame suffuses my contenance.

Meals are pushed aside, the refreshing stroll postponed.
Though bred in trouble and sorrow,

in every painting I strive for originality.

I do not manifest myself casually,

believing that people are easily to be cheated.

To fool the public for money is a life of theft and disgrace.
My paintings are not done swiftly,

but worked on for hours and days.55

Though holding a different view towards the Sung and the Yuan
painting, on the issue of originality, Ch’en Hung-shou seemed otherwise to
be in accordance with Tung Ch’i-ch’ang. Ch’en's grandfather had been
associated with some of the Kung-an school writers, and Ch’en’s own
interest in self-expression and originality, or transformation reflected in his
paintings might have been influenced by such a family background. His
emphasis on originality, which is suggested in the poem above, was
supported by another account written by his friend Chou Liang-kung. Chou
wrote:

When he [Ch’en Hung-shou] studied painting in his youth, he did not
strive for the resemblance of objects. When he crossed the river
[Ch’ien-T’ang river], he made rubbings of Lung-mien's [Li Kung-lin]

 

5‘ Wang Li-ling, Ch ’en Hung-shou jen-wu-hua, 7o; translation by the author.
5’ Tseng, “A Report on Ch’en Hung-shou,” 80.

39

‘Seventy-two Disciples of Confucius’ which was engraved on a stone
in the Hung-Chou Prefectural School. Then be shut himself up in a
room for ten days and concertrated his mind on copying them in order
to master the subject. When he came out with his copies and asked
people about them, they told him that his copies were close to the
originals. Then he was pleased. He again copied them for another
ten days and came out to show them to people. This time they told
him that the copies did not resemble the original at all. Then he was
even more pleased. With each new copy he introduced
transformation in which he changed the round to squre and the whole
into parts. People simply could not recognize the original in his
copies.56

Thus Ch’en Hung-shou seemed to have realized the importance of
originality early in his painting career.

In his landscapes, Ch’en exhibited broad respect for the past and self-
conscious striving for originality. His transformed landscape styles
reflected the “mind-image” of an weary-wom literary man suffering from
doubts, family burdens, social traditions, as well as from the late Ming-
early Ch’ing political turbulence. He longed for an other-worldly Peach

Blossom Spring utopia, as discussed in Chapter Three.

 

56 Kim, Chou Liang-hung and His "Tu-hua-lu, " vol. II, 45.

CHAPTER III

THE LANDSCAPE ART OF CH’EN HUNG-SHOU:

The Birth of an Eccentric

Various elements contribute to the formation of an artist, among which
are his artistic training, his social and economic status, his awareness of
contemporary artistic trends, and his self-consciousness of his identity as an
artist. Influence of particular friends and patrons can also be a factor. The
late Ming painter Ch’en Hung-shou, who is mainly known as an eccentric
figure-painter skilled at depicting distorted human-figures with extremely
fluent iron-wire lines, was also an excellent landscapist. His landscape
paintings, display an eccentric quality similar to that of his figure paintings.
Not only do they provide evidence of his diversified talent related to his
early training and his interest in contemporary artistic trends, and
individualistic expression, they reveal still more the erratic personality and
psychological background behind his bizarre painting styles. In this
chapter, works selected from Ch’en Hung-shou's early landscapes will be
discussed to illustrate the chronoloy within which the artist's eccentric

landscape style emerged. By relating his art to his biographical factors, I

40

41

will also attempt to seek answers for the formation of his unusual painting
style.

Born to a gentry family and showing his artistic talent early, Ch’en
Hung-shou, like other painters with an elite family background, must have
received his lessons in painting since childhood. These lessons included
studying, and careful copying of old works, including those in the literati
ink mode and those in the refined colorful Sung academic styles that
belonged to the Chekiang tradition. According to his biographer Mao Ch’i-
ling, Ch’en had first learned the academic painting styles and had studied
methods of coloring under the instruction of painter Lan Ying (1585-
1644?). Evidence of this early training can be discerned in his later works.‘

His teacher, Lan Ying, came from the Ch’ien-t’ang county of the Hung-
chou prefecture in Chekiang province. As the capital of the Southern Sung,
Hung-chou retained the tradition of the Southem-Sung academic painting
styles, which influenced the development of the Che School in the early and
middle Ming. Based on a local record, Lan Ying had worked in the
Southem-Sung academic manner; his fine line architectural drawing and the
drapery lines of his figure painting were so vivid as to surpass the
achievement of some Southern-Sung academic painters.2 In the
biographical source on artists from the early Ch’ing period--T'u-hui pao-

chien hsu-tsuan, Lan was described as having:

....attained in painting enlightenment through study of Huang Kung-
wang. Of all the styles of the Chin, T’ang, and Sung dynasties, there
was none that he did not master excellently. His copies and A
imitations of the Yuan masters could be confused with the
originals....As for pictures of palace ladies, these were the diversions

 

‘ Burkus, “Artefacts of Biography,” 426.
2 Yen, Lan Ying yufang-kn hui-hua, 5.

 

42

of his youth....3

From some of Lan Ying's inscriptions on paintings, one knows that Lari
was interested in studying the style of the scholar-painter Huang Kung-
wang at the age about twenty.‘ At that time, Tung Ch’i-ch’ang's theory of
the orthodoxy Southern School tradition, which was formed during 15908,
had an enormous impact on the late Ming painters including professional
ones such as Lan Ying.S The Southern Sung academic styles were regarded
as degenerate; studying the literati ink styles became a trend. In addition to
imitating the “correct” painting mode represented by the Four Yuan
Masters, Lan actively associated with contemporary collectors and
scholars. He had copied the Sung painter Chao Ling-jang's painting “Ho-
hsiang ch’ing-hsia” (Pure Summer in Cottages by Lily Ponds) in Tung Ch’i-
ch’ang's collecting and his works had won the recognition of both Tung
and Ch’en Chi-ju.6

Judging from the biographers Meng Yuan's and Mao Ch’i-ling's words,
Ch’en Hung-shou was in his teens when he became the student of Lan
Ying.1 Lan, who was older by fourteen years, was in his late twenties and
had studied the literati-painting styles for a number of years. Thus, in
addition to the methods of coloring, Lan's literati landscapes might as well
have affected the young Ch’en Hung-shou. Lan Ying's achievement in both
the academic and literati styles not only reflected the blurred line between
the professional and the literati painters in the late Ming, his effort in

intergrating the well-trained professional painting skills with the taste for

 

3 Cahill, The Distant Mountains, 182.

‘ Yen, Lan Ying yufang-kn hui-hua, 6.

5 Wen Fong, "Tung Ch’i-ch’ang and Artistic Renewal," in The Century of Tung Ch 'i-ch 'ang,
1555-1636, vol. 1, ed. Wai-kam Ho, (Kansas: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1992), 43.

6 Cahill, The Distant Mountains, 185; Yen, Lan Ying yu fang-ku hui-hua, 6.

7 Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu, 8-9.

43

scholarly-painting seems to have been shared by his disciple and friend
Ch’en Hung-shou.

The undated fan painting “Autumn Landscape” (Fig. 1) may well be one
of Ch’en Hung-shou's early landscapes. The composition consists of the
dominant trees and rocks in the foreground, with a stream leading the
viewers' eyes into the distant mountains. The “shih” (solid, substantiality)
of the trees and bushes at the left is contrasted by the “hsu” (void) of the
stream at the right; while the group of rocks in the foreground is balanced
by the mountains in the background. The diagonal composition reminds
one of the Sung academic practice. In indicating the bleakness of autumn,
Ch’en had used ink sparingly except for retouching on some of the
branches, the outlines of the rocks and mountains, and the grass along the
promontories. The dry brush strokes are close to the Yuan style. The red
leaves and the intricately patterned bare branches clearly speak of the
season. The rocks and mountains are executed with wavy contours, moss
dots, and short texture strokes recalling the style of Wang Meng, which
was also constantly employed by Lan Ying.a Due to the repetition of the
motifs of the rocks and mountains in similar tones, the effect of depth
seems to be reduced. The short inscription at the left was carefully written
and the brush strokes reveal uncertainty, suggesting that this painting is an
early work.

Comparing another of Ch’en's landscapes “The Mountain of the Five
Cataracts” (“Wu-hsieh shan”) (Fig. 2) to the first painting, “The Mountain
of the Five Cataracts” displayed a clear confidence in execution. The artist

added the inconspicuous signature Hung-shou and his seal Chang-hon at the

 

8 For Lan Ying's works after Wang Meng's style, see Yen, Lan Ying yu fang-ku hui-hua, Figs.
23-29.

44

middle right edge, hidden among the dotted foliage. This famous site was
located close to Chu-chi. Ch’en Hung-shou and his friend Chou Liang-
kung had made several trips to the mountain during 1624 to 1625; thus this
painting has been dated at that period.9

The colophon at the upper right was inscribed by the collector Kao Shih-
ch’i (1645-1704) in 1699. Kao wrote:

The landscape there is extraordinary and precipitous, with ridges and
peaks standing in circles. Rocks of strange shapes gaze down
everywhere, ...The water from five pools overflow and is suspended
in five steps--that is why it is called Five Cataracts....Hsu Wei
(1521-93) said that the grotto is unique for the shade (yin) and the
‘ five cataracts unusual for the sun (yang). There are seventy-two
peaks, with a ravine between two cliffs. At times they are bright and
other times gloomy; sometimes they seem to be open, sometimes
closed, yet often bordered between shady (yin) and sunny

(yang)....‘°

The whole painting was piled up with rocks, trees, and mountains, so that
it resembles Wang Meng's dense compositions. At the same time, it also
recalls a scheme adapted by Wen Cheng-ming in his paintings “Landscape
in the Manner of Wang Meng” (1535) and “A Thousand Cliffs Contended
in Splendor” (1548-50), with the steep mountains filling almost all the
space and the composition vertically divided by the waterfall which ends in
a ravine.” Ch’en Hung-shou seems to have depicted the scenry in a clear
weather, for the silhouetted distant mountains were in sight and the sun
glittered among the lush foliage, the rocks, and the mountains, producing

various degrees of tones--the yin and yang. The texture stroke of the

 

9 Wai-kam, Ho et al., Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson
Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Exhibition catalogue.
(Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1980), 267-268. See also Chapter I, p. 8.

‘° Ibid., 267.

” For the discussions and reproductions of the two paintings by Wen Cheng-ming, see Cahill,
The Distant Mountains, 204; and Parting at the Shore, 236-237, Pls. 115-116.

45

mountains and hills is reminiscent of “hemp-fiber” tsun of the Southern
School masters Tung Yuan and Huang Kung-wang. The dotted foliage was
in the manner of Wu Chen's “rat-feet” tsun.‘2 Comparing this painting with
a passage from Lan Ying's handscroll “Imitation after the Landscape of
Huang Kung-wang,” close resemblance can be found in the way Ch’en
handled the angular-shaped mountains and rocks in the “bent-ribbon” tsun.
The similarity is also evident in that Ch’en had employed the "lotus-leaf"
tsun favored by Lan Ying.” In addition, the linearity of the whole painting
reflected his early training of Sung academic styles; and the distant
mountains in light ink washes were derived from the Li-T’ang tradition.
Ch’en Hung-shou's interest in employing the Southern School literati
idioms might be influenced not only by his teacher Lan Ying but also by
Ch’en Chi-ju--a family friend. Both Ch’en Chi-ju and Tung Ch’i-ch’ang's
enthusiasm in extolling a painting tradition meeting the social status and the
expressionistic need of the amateur-literati-painters--an identity expected
by the young Ch’en Hung-shou--seems to have inspired him in his painting.
Although occasionally selling paintings while young, the social prejudice
against the professional painters, his official-gentry family background, his
Confucian education, and his expectation of becoming a scholar-official

probably also resulted in Ch’en's learning and adapting a new painting

 

'2 Lai T. C., Shan-shui ts'un-fa (Brushwork in Chinese Landscape Painting), (Hong Kong: Chung
Hwa Book Co. and Swindon Book Co., 1983). 26, 34-36, 53. For example of Wu Chen's “rat-
feet” tsun, see his painting “The Central Mountain” (Chung-shan tu) (1336) reproduced in
Cahill, Hills Beyond a River, P1. 27.

'3 This handscroll now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei was painted when Lan Ying
was fifty. Although executed several years later than Ch’en Hung-shou's painting, it might reflect
Lan's painting style during that time period and thus could still serve as an example of Lan's
influence on Ch’en. For the reproduction of this passage, see Yen, Lan Ying yu fang-ku hui-hua,
Fig. 15.

46

mode different from the more conventional styles practiced by ordinary
professional painters."

A painting succeeding in the stylistic traditions of both the Sung
academic painting and the Southern School lineage, the “Mountain of Five
Cataracts” reflects the artist's individualistic sensitivity in the strong angular
brush strokes applied on the rocky mountains, on the twisted branches and
gnarled tree trunks, and on the rocks along the ravine, transforming the
landscape of eclectic elements into an unprecedented outlook, akin to a
wood-block-print. This angular linearity seems to become one of the
characteristics of Ch’en Hung-shou's style in the 16305 as examplified by
the historical painting “Meeting of Su Wu and Li Ling” (Fig. 3) and by the
set of playing-cards “Shui-hu yeh-tzu” (Water Margin Cards) in wood-
block print that Ch’en had illustrated."

Furthermore, the image of a scholar-like figure sitting among the
landscape in three-quarter-back-view, as seen in the “Mountain of Five
Cataracts, will emerge repeatedly in the paintings of Ch’en Hung-shou.
This scheme of putting the viewers behind the seated "ob5erver"--here,
probably the painter himself--thus facing the whole scene as spectators,
seems to suggest a gap between the painter's inner world and the realistic
world lived by the viewers outside his painting. Examining Chen's life by
that period, in his twenties, he already experienced ups and downs, like
travelling among the yang and yin, the suuny and shady peaks of the “Wu-
hsieh” Mountain. His experiences of becoming a “budding talent,”

undergoing pressure and then frustrations in failing the civil service

 

'4 The biographer Mao Ch’i-ling had recorded that at the age of fourteen, Ch’en had sold
paintings at a market place--see Burkus, Artefacts of Biography, Appendix 1, 425.

‘5 For the discussion of the “Meeting of Su Wu and Li Ling,” see Cahill, The Distant Mountains,
252-253. Two examples of the playing cards have been reproduced in the same book--Figs. 4-5
in p. 251. Dr. Cahill has dated them in the 16305 due to the angularity of the lines.

47

examination, together with his first wife's death, followed by the miserable
first journey to Peking, all appeared to be negative. The psychological
detachment reflected in this painting scheme seems to have expressed
Ch’en's desire of escaping from unhappiness in real life, resting his soul in
the refuge of his pictorial world.

Ch’en Hung-shou had retreated to his hometown Feng-ch’iao in the
16305 after consecutively failing the civil service examinations. Living at
ease like a retired scholar and gradually giving up the dream of becoming a
scholar-official, Ch’en had devoted much time to painting and frequently
traveled to the West Lake in Hang-Chou. The idealistic story of T’ao Yuan-
rning (T’ao Ch’ien, 372-427) seems to have fascinated him. The dignified
ancient scholar-official T’ao Yuan-tiling, who- had withdrawn from
turbulent politics to live in the country side, had always been the role model
for later Chinese scholar-officials who chose to leave the active life when
facing adversity. Although the failures in civil service examinations
prevented Ch’en Hung-shou from attaining the status of a scholar-official,
which absolutely precluded him from being a retired scholar-official like
T'ao, Ch'en nonetheless compared himself to one. He seems to find an
excuse in justifying his early retirement owing to the frustrations in real life
in his analogy to T’ao Yuan-ming. This ambivalence towards his own
identity would occasionally slip into his writing. In one of his articles dated
in 1634, Ch’en wrote:

When one was frustrated in attaining some higher position, he then
thought about returning home in retirement... When relaxing among
the woods and trees, he was not without the feeling of being alone.
These are those who cannot be content with their own fate, borrowing
the woods and hills as the place to bury their grief and to lodge their

48

misery...."’

The painting, “Scholar under a Pine Tree” (1633) (Fig. 4) in the
collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, depicts a
scholar accompanied by his attendant wandering in nature. The little
attendant, revealed among the trees, is wearing a Chrysanthemum flower in
his hair and carrying a wine jar on his back. These images, together with
the roaming scholar, clearly relate to T’ao Yuan-ming. In this way, Ch’en
seems to present to the viewers an idealized version of his retired life
during that period through this allusion. As far as the landscape is
concerned, the composition is similar to the “Mountain of Five Cataracts”
in the arrangement of the mountains, which are situated at the upper left,
and the tall trees growng from the foreground, covering most of the space
at right. The angular-shaped mountains and rocks also recall those in the
“Mountain of Five Cataracts,” but the boldness of the angular brush strokes,
resembling the rigid lines in a wood block print is here softened, to become
far subtler and with a richer display of variety in the calligraphic brush
strokes. The painting is executed in the archaistic “blue-and-green” method
originating in the T’ang dynasty. Ch’en's choice of this heavily colored
style instead of the literati ink mode might be due to the demand of the
patron, as noted by James Cahill.l7 Compared to two other works in the
same manner, such as “A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains” by the
Northern Sung painter Wang Hsi-meng (c. 1096-c. 1120) in the Palace
Museum in Peking, and “The Lute Song” by the earlier Ming painter Ch’iu
Ying in the Nelson-Atkins Gallery at the Kansas city, Ch’en uses a lighter

color-scheme. Instead of the heavy application of the primary colors of

-\

'6 Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien put, 47; translation by the author.
'7 Ibid., 254455.

49

blue and green, he confers in his painting a sense of subdued elegance that
is more in accord with literati taste.‘8 What made this painting decorative
is the diversity of lines and patterns. Various kinds of trees and vegetation
with leaves in different shapes are added. The scholar's red robe is
delineated in the “tremulous brush stroke” (“chan-pi”)--a characteristic of
the painting style of the Five Dynasties painter Chou Wen-chu (active 961-
975), which was also practiced by Ch’en Hung-shou's contemporary, figure
painter Ts’ui Tzu-chung.l9 The angular mountains and rocks were
contrasted to the circular knots of the tree trunks. Distinct calligraphic
brush strokes are applied as the contours and texture strokes of the
mountains, rocks and tree trunks. Pale ink washes are employed again in
describing the distant mountains. An interesting characteristic of this
painting is two misty hard-edged bands of fog introduced in the middle, as
in Ch’iu Ying's painting “The Lute Song,” which immediately remind one
of the lyrical atmosphere in the Southern Sung painter Chao Ling-jang's
(Chao Ta-nien, ca. 1080-1100) painting “Ho-hsiang ch’ing-hsia” (Pure
Summer in Cottages by Lily Ponds), now in the Boston Museum of Fine
Arts.20 Ch’en Hung-shou's teacher Lan Ying had made copies of this
painting in Tung Ch’i—ch’ang's collection, which might have been Ch’en's

direct inspiration.“

 

'8 The painting by Wang Hsi-meng has been reproduced in The Palace Museum: Peking, ed.
Wango Weng and Yang Boda, (London: Orbis Publishing, Ltd., 1982), P1. 88. For the
illustration of Ch’iu Ying's painting, see Cahill, Parting at the Shore, Color plate 9.

‘9 Thomas Lawton, Chinese Figure Painting, (Washington D. c. : Freer Gallery of Art, 1973), 8.
For the example of Tsui's paintings, see his “Sweeping the Elephant” in the National Palace
Museum, Taipei reproduced in Cahill's The Distant Mounatins, Pls. 128-129.

2° For the reproduction, see Robert J. Maeda, “The Chao Ta-nien Tradition," Ars Orientalis, vol.
VIII, 1970, Fig. 12.

2‘ One of Lan Ying's copies dated 1622 “Landscape in the Manner of Chao Ling-jang” in the
Palace Museum, Taipei has been reproduced in Cahill, The Distant Mountains, P1. 96.

50

Two years later in 1635, Ch’en Hung-shou again painted a similar
subject, yet in a very different mood. The painting “A Tall Pine and Taoist
Immortal (The Artist and His Nephew in a Landscape)” in the National
Palace Museum at Taipei (Fig. 5) repeated the T’ao Yuan-ming-like,
eremetic theme of a scholar and his chrysanthemum flower-wearing, wine-
jar-carrying attendant in a landscape, but the artist has turned this
traditional, idealistic subject into a personal version. The artist's inscription
in the upper right states:

Lien-tzu (Ch’en Hung-shou) and Nephew Han have been roaming at
ease for days on end. In spring we have been intoxicated by the

' beauty of peach blossoms; in autumn we have contemplated the
charm of hibiscus; in summer we have stumbled through thick
growths of pine; in late winter we have made verses about the
whiteness of snow. In all things we looked after each other, leafing
through numerous books, feeling doubly relaxed in spirit, practicing
pure-talk and sketching pines and rocks. If these words accord
somewhat with the Tao, why should we feel ashamed to eat the three
meals?"22

Kim Hongnam has observed, “Ch’en [Hung-shou]....a man of worldly
ambition rather than eremetic disposition, he never really achieved the
contentment of the idealistic world of T’ao Ch’ien [Yuan-ming]....”23 Kim's
point seems to be well demonstrated in Ch’en's 1634 essay expressing his
inner conflict about retiring, as well as in the painting discussed here.24
Ch’en Hung-shou's ambivalent feeling towards his early retirement and his
own identity, once hidden in the “Scholar under a Pine Tree,” is totally
unfolded in the contrast of the seemingly merry, self-content inscription and
the sarcastic look of the artist's self-portraiture. In this painting, both

figures have been placed by a tall tree-group on a promontory in the

 

22 Cahill, The Compelling Image, 107.
23 Kim, “Chou Liang-kung and His Tu-hua-lu," vol. I, 102.
2‘ See Chapter III, 47.

51

foreground with the artist looking out to confront the viewers directly while
his nephew lifts his head to appreciate the exotic trees. These trees grow so
close together that their crown fuse. The drapery folds of the artist's
garment are described by gentle and fluent curves while those of his
nephew's are clearly delineated in “chan-pi.” Although the artist's gaze tells
that he is fully aware of the viewers' observation, his stance, with the robe
pulled high in guarded concealment, as perceived by Richard Vinograd,
clearly indicates the artist's psychological isolation and his intention to keep
the viewers in distance to avoid their judgment.”

The landscape elements have been totally schematized. The pine trunk,
no longer has natural clefts, but is now fully covered by small circles
similar to the scales of a dragon. The red leaves of the farthest tree were
drawn in a specific pattern which, as Cahill points out, once represented
curled leaves."5 The small water fall at the left, the promontory, and the
rocks are depicted in a way that resembles wood-cut prints; mostly notably
in the splits of the rocks, which seem to have been derived from the “lotus-
leat” tsun drawn up-side-down. Echoing the psychological ambiguity is the
spacial duality. The rocks in the middle-ground are depicted in the same
way as those in the foreground, without being diminished in size or toned
down in shading; thus the sense of space is reduced. At the same time, the
artist obviously tries to create a spacial effect and the sense of three-
dimensional structure through the arrangement of the rock groups and
promontory, as well as through various degrees of tones schematically
applied on them. What is more curious is the uneven horizontal level

suggesting instability at both sides of the composition, which also enhances

 

25 Richard Vinograd, Boundaries of the Self: Chinese Portraits, 1600-I900, (Cambridge;
Cambridge University Press, 1992), 32-33.
26 Cahill, The Compelling Image, 141, 143.

52

the unrealistic sense of the schematized landscape. Such kind of horizon-
shifting device, as Cahill has noted, often appeared in Tung Ch’i-ch’ang's
paintings.27

Elizabeth Fulder has commented on Tung Ch’i-ch’ang's theories as
advising painters to “seek in natural forms, or in well-constructed old
paintings, a principle for the organization of landscape compositions.”28
Examing Tung's theories, Wen Fong states that T’ung Ch’i-ch’ang “saw
landscape composition as abstract design with ‘solid and void’ elements
and with ‘rising-and-falling’ and ‘opening-and-closing’ movements” meant
to develop the sense of momentum (shih). Tung wrote:

If a painter can both open [fem divide] and close [ho] a composition,
and if his texture method is able to carry out all that he intends, then
his painting will look convincing from all sides....Only when a painter
subtly weighs the void [hsu] against the solid [shih], and presents
both aspects with feeling, will his painting naturally appear
exciting.29

Bearing all these concerns in mind and examing “A Tall Pine and Taoist
Immortal,” one finds Ch’en Hung-shou had followed the traditional
tripartite composition in dividing the foreground promontory and rocks, the
middle-ground rocks, and the distant mountains in the background. The
contour outline of the promontory and the rocks, specifically those in the
middle-ground, is arranged in a rising and falling pattern which alternates
with solid and void within the compositional space.

With these now altered traditional landscape elements, Ch’en Hung-shou

colored the whole painting in the archaic blue-and-green style and

 

2’ Ibid., 141.

28 Elizabeth Fulder, “The Achievements of Late Ming Painters,” in The Restless Landsacape, 20.
29 Wen C. Fong, Images of the Mind: Selections from the Edward L. Elliott Family and John B.
Elliott Collections of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting at The Art Museum, Princeton
University, (Princeton: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1984), 170-171; see also his
article “Tung Ch’i-ch’ang and Artistic Renewal,” 45.

53

presented a version of his eccentric landscape painting. The curious
juxtaposition of the realistic, portraiture-like figures in the unrealistic,
transformed landscape seems to speak again the artist's desire of detaching
himself from the real life, escaping into his personal world. On the other
hand, the representation a literati-erematic-theme in the painting tradition
generally followed by professional painters may somehow reflect Ch’en
Hung-shou's ambivalence towards his self-identity--a frustrated-scholar-
tumed professional painter. The uneasiness he felt under such
circumstances might well be conveyed through the distorted, schematized
forms. In addition, the consciously transformed archaism of this painting
seems to suggest the unfortunate fate of the colorful blue-and-green
tradition derided by the literati-group represented by Tung Ch’i-ch’ang and
his followers.

Investigating the motivation behind Ch’en Hung-shou's creation of an
eccentric painting style, some aspects deserve attention. First, one must
recognize Ch’en's transformation as a highly conscious personal choice,
influenced by early experiences and culminating in these later
individualich paintings. Remembering that Ch’en Hung-shou's grandfather
was involved with some Kung-an school writers who promoted self-
expression, and that Chen's association with his father's friend Ch’en Chi-
ju, who was close to Tung Ch’i-ch’ang, cannot be ignored. We can see
both the ideas of the individualistic Kung-an school and Tung Ch’i-ch’ang's
theories about the “orthodoxy” painting tradition and pien (transformation)
seem to have influenced Ch’en Hung-shou's painting. Although, due to his
early training, the sources of his painting techniques and idioms, which
included both the archaic blue-and-green and the literati-ink-mode

traditions, were far broader than Tung's, the basic notion of transformation

54

as a means of self-expression is the same. Ch’en's friend Chou Liang-kung
once described Ch’en's attitude towards painting as not limited by formal
likeness, but rather transforming the original master's method after
numerous imitations.30

If self-expression is the goal of Ch’en Hung-shou's eccentric painting
style, then exactly what kind of feeling did the artist try to convey? By
exarning Ch’en's distorted painting style as represented in “A Tall Pine and
Taoist Immortal,” one finds that it illustrates, both in style and in purpose,
what Wen Fong has termed “schematic archaism,” which he viewed as
means to repudiate the present--to shock and amuse--as a form of personal
retreat or protest chosen by painters like Ch’en Hung-shou.” This is
especially apparent when interpreted in the light “as a form of personal
retreat,” the bizarre painting style in “A Tall Pine and Taoist Immortal”
precisely conveys the painter's escapist mentality.

Secondly, if one looks back at the development of Chinese art history, it
is very clear that by the end of th Yuan dynasty, many painters believed all
the painting techniques, including ideas lying behind them, had already
attained the state of perfection. Andrew Plaks has pointed out the difficult
situation faced by the late Ming artists as he writes: “self-conscious artists
of the period laboring under a strong pressure to restate their position vis-
a‘-vis a cultural heritage that had already become too massive for any
individual to wholly master.”32 The Wu-school masters and the Che-school
artists of the early Ming were simply followers of different traditions. With

the heavy burden of great traditions, an artist attempting to establish himself

 

3° Kim, “Chou Liang-kung and his Tu-hua-lu,” vol. II, 206.

3‘ Wen C. Fong, “Archaism as a ‘Primitive’ Style,” 108.

32 Andrew H. Plaks, The F our Masterworks of the Ming Novel (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1987), 49, quoated by Fong in “T"ung Ch’i-ch’ang and Artistic Renewal," 50-51.

55

must break the boundry of pure imitation and start a self-conscious
stylization, sometimes involving bizarre distortions and elegance--
transformation thus became the answer. This phenomenon seems to
parallel the emergence of the Mannerists after the High Renaissance in the
western art history and might help explain Tung Ch’i-ch’ang's ideas and the
appearance of several late Ming individualistic painters whose styles were
characterized by curiously distorted images.

So far, through the discussion of some of Ch’en Hung-shou's early
works, one understands Ch’en to be an eclectic individualistic painter
capable of transforming the traditional literati ink mode as well as the more
decorative blue-and-green style. Observing these early works, Ch'en seems
to try to consolidate both the professional and the literati painting styles in
one work, as evident in the “Autumn Landscape,” in “The Mountain of Five
Cataracts,” and in “A Tall Pine and Taoist Immortal.” This tendency, and
Ch’en’s interest in representing the literati-erematic theme with linear,
ornamental, colorful, academic painting style as in the paintings “Scholar
Under a Pine Tree” and “A Tall Pine and Taoist Immortal,” reflect Ch’en's
consciousness of his dual identity as a professional painter and scholar.
However, his ambivalence towards such incompatible duality and his
frustrations as an unsuccessful scholar was communicated through the
eccentric, transformed pictorial imageries suggesting psychological
detachment, clearly revealed in “A Tall Pine and Taoist Immortal.” These
individualistic, distorted imageries, appeared as early in “The Mountain of
Five Cataracts,” indicate simultaneously Ch’en Hung-shou's awareness of
the contemporary artistic trend extolling transformation as a means of self-
expression. Furthermore, his powerful personal emotions imbued his works

with aspects parallel to the Kung-an School ideal of sincere expression of

56

true emotions. In the following discussion, we will see that these
characteristics of Ch’en's painting style develop continuously, finally

reaching a point of fusion.

CHAPTER IV

THE LANDSCAPE ART OF CH’EN HUNG-SHOU:
Entreating to Be a Painting-master in the World

Late in 1639, Ch’en Hung-shou made a second trip to Peking. Due to a
famine in his hometown, he was forced to purchase a Studentship in the
National Academy in Peking, hoping still again to find a way to achieve a
political career and solve his economic problems.1 However, it was his
artistic talent that drew the attention of Emperor Ch’ung-chen. Ch’en
Hung-shou was appointed to copy the portraits of emperors of the previous
dynasties. Through this opportunity, he was able to study the imperial
collection, thus improving his painting skill. Judging from his extant
landscape paintings dated after 1640, a new and interesting format is used
by Ch’en. His former large scaled, decorative and heavily-colored hanging
scrolls are mostly replaced by small scale album leaves in the ink mode
with subtly pale colors. Although some of them still retained the refined
ornamental effect from his early period, they seem to be infused with a
sense of elegance more akin to the literati taste. Such change might have
been related to his closer involvement with the literati circle in Peking,

along with his teacher Liu Tsung-chou and friend Chou Liang-kung. This

 

' See Chapter I., 13.
57

58

change might also reflect the preference of his patrons in the capital. Since
the collector-painter-theorist Tung Ch’i-ch’ang had previously been an
eminent court-official there, his orthodox literati painting theory would
have influenced the taste of the local art-lovers.2 In 1642, Ch’en Hung-shou
was offered the title of “Tai-chao” (Painter-in-Attendance) in the Painting
Academy. Though he rejected this offer, his reputation as a painter was
greatly increased and thus as a result he attracted numerous admirers.3

If the second trip to Peking had revived his political ambition, his
growing fame as a painter seemed to have interfered with his political goals,
and he indicated:

There were great personalities throughout history who, having left
their native towns, lingered at the capital. Ideals they did not find in
their home town they hoped to pursue at the court. Those who know
me, love me. What comes afterwards should not trouble me. A sage
like Confucius was criticized for being too able; a wise man like Tzu-
tsan was blamed because of his knowledge was too vast....”

Whatever his original purpose was, Ch’en Hung-shou gradually became
disillusioned by the overt corruption at the court, leaving Peking in 1643.‘
The Ming dynasty itself fell within a year.

Considering the content of Ch’en Hung-shou's landscape paintings after
1644, one observes a sense of mourning for the fall of the Ming and a
strong affiliation with erematism related to the legendary figure of T’ao
Yuan-ming. In Chinese history, erematism, extolled by Taoism, first
attained popularity during the chaotic Wei-Chin period when Chinese
intellectuals sought to protect themselves from dangerous political

 

2 For the political career of Tung Ch'i-ch’ang, see Nelson Wu, “’I‘ung Ch’i-ch’ang (1555-1636):
Apathy in Government and Fervor in Art," 283-286, 292-293.

3 Tseng, “A Report on Ch’en Hung-shou," 76.

‘ Ibid..

59

involvement through retirement.’ At that time, T’ao-Yuan-nring, who had
renounced his own political career due to the turbulent political reality,
chose to live as a farmer-recluse in the country.6 Thereafter T'ao became
the idol of numerous Chinese scholars who decided to withdraw from
officialdom; and his famous autobiography “Mr. Five Willows,” his
writings “The Homecoming Ode” and his utopian fairy tale “The Peach
Blossom Spring,” his favorite chrysanthemum flower, and his love of wine
all together became the symbols of erenriticism in Chinese culture. T’ao's
contemporary recluses, including the eccentric “Seven Sages of the Bamboo
Grove” also attained their fame as part of Chinese erematic tradition.
Scholars have agreed that during the late Ming-early Ching period, the
socio-political upheavals and the individualich intellectual atmosphere
paralleled those of the Wei-Chin period. Ellen Johnston Laing also has
discussed the conscious imitations of the practices of the Wei--Chin
eremites by the late Ming intellectuals. She concludes by attributing the
popularity of the erematic themes in the late Ming art, including T’ao
Yuan-ming and the “Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove,” to this socio-
historical background" Especially when the dynastic change in 1644 made
the government service impossible for the Ming loyalist “i-min”, erematism
turned out to be the only alternative. Based on these circumstances, Ch’en
Hung-shou's continuing interest in depicting T’ao Yuan-ming-like themes

after 1644 is understandable. In addition, Huang Yung-ch’uan has recorded

 

5 Liu Chi-yao, “Shih yu yin--ch’uan-t’ung Chung-kuo cheng-chih wen-hua te liang
chi”(Government Service and Retirement--The Di-poles of Traditional Chinese Political
Culture), in Chung Kuo Wen Hua Hsin Lun--Ssu hsiang pien--Li-hsiang yu hsien-shih (TheNew
Treatises on Chinese Culture--The section of thoughtuldeals and Reality), ed. Huang Chun-
chieh, 6th ed. (Taipei: Lien-Ching chu pan shih yeh kung ssu, 1989), 306-310, 316.

6 Wang Kuei-ling, T’ao Yuan-ming chi ch 'i shih te yen chiu (A Study of Tao Yuan-ming and His
Poetry), (Taipei: National Taiwan University Press, 1966), 20-21.

7 Ellen Johnston Laing, “Neo-Taoism and the 'Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove' in Chinese
Painting,” Artibus Asiae, vol. 36, no. 112 (1974), 49-53.

60

that late in 1646, when seeking refuge in the village Pao-wu, Ch’en Hung-
shou was inspired by reading T’ao Yuan-ming's “Peach Blossom Spring,”
executing a painting with the same title.8 This account can be regarded as a
direct evidence for his consciousness and perpetual interest in erematic
themes. Especially when facing in real life constant warfares of dynastic
change, Ch’en must have been able to deeply identify with T’ao Yuan-
ming's yearning for a peaceful “Peach Blossom Spring” utopia.

From 1644 to 1646, Ch’en Hung-shou stayed at the “Ch’ing-t’eng shu
wu” (the Green-ivy Study) that had once belonged to the eccentric painter
Hsu, Wei (1521-93) at Shao-hsing. A set of album leaves in the National
Palace Museum of Art in Taipei is dated in this period, based on the
painter’s inscription, “Hung-shou painted [this] at the Green-ivy Study” on
one of the leaves" Executed both in a refined outline with colors and in the
ink manners on silk, some of these album leaves exceed the decorative and
bizarre taste of his early style. Their carefully arranged motifs as well as
their exaggerated, transformed pictorial images are derived from earlier
masters’ repertoire. Others seem to follow the styles of the great Yuan and
the Ming Wu-school scholar-painters. By eliminating unnecessary details
in creating these seemingly naive and unsophisticated compositions, Ch’en
Hung-shou appears to have retained the child-like mind as promoted by Li
Chih. The bold exaggeration of forms in these works, on the other hand,
demonstrates Ch’en's love of individualistic expression that was valued by
the Kung-an school writers. Besides, the original owner of the Green-ivy
study, the painter Hsu Wei, who used to be an associate of Ch’en Hung-

shou's father, was famous for his unbridled character which paralleled his

 

8 Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu, 98.
9 The titles of each leaves are found in The Third Edition of Mi-tien chu-lin and shih-ch’u poo-
chi--shih-ch’u poo-chi, vol. 5, (Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1969), 2108.

61

freely expressionistic splash-ink bird-and-flower paintings and
calligraphy.'° Although painted in styles different from that of Hsu Wei's,
the eccentric, expressionistic quality reflected in this set of album leaves
might also be partly inspired by Hsu's spirit and works.

Leaf (a) (Fig. 8) from this set of album entitling “Hsi-t’ing Liu-se” (The
Willow Color by a River Pavilion) depicts a simple scene of a river-side
pavilion with willows and other trees backed by mild hills. This garden-
like scenery suggests the painter's idealistic retreat. Remembering the fact
that the fall of Ming left the surviving Ch’en Hung-shou as an "i-min"
painter, psychologically, he might tend to identify himself the more as a
recluse; thus his depiction of this theme as an erematic utopia seems to be
understandable. In this picture, the motif of the pavilion was reminiscent of

6

the paintings of another ‘i-min” Ni Tsan; while the sweet and lyrical
composition seems to be an improvisation based on Chao Ling-jang's “Ho-
hsiang ch'ing-hsia” (Pure Summer in Cottages by Lily Pond)” Displaying
different kinds of line and form--the triangular pavilion, the simplified, X-
shaped wild geese, the tiny dots of the water lily leaves, the curving willow
twigs, the brush-like unknown trees--this painting followed the decorative
trends of his earlier works. The peaceful feeling of the scene is enlivened
by a line of wild geese flying by the hill. All the pictorial elements were so
well calculated that any additions or reductions would spoil the whole
balance. Thus within such a simple picture, Ch’en Hung-shou fully grasped
the meaning of “hsu” (void) versus “shih” (substantiality) and “tung”

(movement) versus “Ching” (serene).

 

m Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu, 79.
“ See Chapter 111,49, no. 20.

62

Leaf (c) “Peach Blossom Spring” (Fig. 9) which illustrates the scene of
T'ao Yuan-ming's story, provides a good example of Ch’en Hung-shou's
transformed landscape. Hidden under grottoes by the water are some
houses. Instead of textural strokes, the grottoes are defined by short, stiff
lines with some shading. The motif of a boat tied by the bank is balanced
by the distant promontories. Similar to the leaf (a) are the linearity and the
simplification and balance of the composition. The trees growing above the
grottoes with their “crab-claw” twigs, resemble the Li-Kuo school tree
type. The employment of the rigid lines strongly reminds one of the
woodcut technique in which Ch’en was also proficient. The linearity and
the diagonal composition with the partial landscape scene seem to have
been based on the Southern academic tradition.

Reconsidering the issue of Ch’en Hung-shou's preference for such kinds
of small compositions after 16405, combined with the fall of the Ming
dynasty in 1644, one might doubt whether Ch’en's reinterpretation of this
old tradition was intentional. Although thoroughly familiar with the
Southern Sung academic styles due to his early training, Ch’en might as
well hold the same melancholy feeling as his Southern Sung predecessor
Ma Yuan when depicting the waning Chinese territories after the foreign
invasion.l2 At the same time, a sense of sterile serenity reflected in this
abstract, distorted landscape, seems contradictory to the idealistic “Peach
Blossom Spring" utopia, and restates the painter's feeling of an unattainable

dream when suffering from the painful reality of the Manchu invasion.

 

‘2 Cahill has noted that the the form of album-leaves was favored by the Southern Sung painters.
Among them, Ma Yuan was known as “One-corner Ma,” for his diagonal composition in
painting. In addition, Sullivan had suggested a relation between the emotional content in Ma
Yuan’s painting and the contemporary political condition. See Cahill, Chinese Painting, 76, 82;
Michael Sullivan, Symbols of Eternity--The Art of Landscape Painting in China, (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1979), 76-78.

63

The grotesque rock “Wen-shih” in the leaf (t) (Fig. 10) is another striking
example. The tremulous brush stroke (“Chan pi”), once used in his human
figure draperies as the one in the “Scholar under a Tall Pine Tree” in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art is now transplanted to the depiction of the
rock. Tracing the more direct source, Ch’en Hung-shou once said that he
had modeled after the portraitures of the Five Dynasties painter Kuan Hsiu
(832-912).'3 Kuan Hsui was known for his distorted Buddhist Lohan
figures that he claimed came to him in dreams. A painting attributed to
Kuan Hsiu in the National Museum, Tokyo, depicts a Lohan seated on
eroded rocks. Such treatment suggests a link between Ch’en Hung-shou
and this Five Dynasties master, for the rocks in Kuan Hsiu's painting were
also drawn with tremulous brush strokes.“ In painting this odd-shaped
rock, Ch’en Hung-shou reflects the traditional literati's interest in collecting
the eroded, fantastic-shaped rocks.“ These bizarre-looking rocks usually
have a long history, their enduring quality thus has inspired Chinese literati
to give them the name of “t’ien-di-chih-ku” (the bones of the heaven and
earth). Scholars also identify such rocks with a person’s moral
characteristics.16 Therefore, exotic rocks such as the one depicted by Ch’en
Hung-shou is regarded as a symbol of an ideal personality. Further
observation of the twisted form of this rock reminds one of a pine tree. The

pine tree may be a metaphor for th painter's own survival after the fall of

 

‘3 Ch’en Hung-shou, Pao-lun-tang chi, cited by Wang Li-ling, Ch ’en Hung-shou jen-wu-hua.
104.

” See Laurence Sickman and Alexander Soper, The Art and Architecture of China, (New York:
Penguin Books, 1987), 232 and Fig. 162. p

‘5 Ts’ai Mei-fen, “Wen-fang ching-wan--The handicrafts in the studies of literati”, in Chung klm
wen hua hsin lun--Yi shu pien--Mei kan yu tsao hsing (The New Treatises on Chinese Culture--
The section of art--Aesthetic sense and Form), ed. Kuo Chi-sheng, 7th ed., (Taipei: Lien-Ching
ch’u— pan shih-yeh kung-ssu, 1991), 627.

'6 Chao Hung-pao, “Ya-ch’u--ku-tai wen-jen li hsiang chung te chu-she wen-hua”(The Flavor ot'
E1egance--The Ideal Housing Culture of Ancient Literati), Ku Kung Wen Wu Yueh [Can (The
National Palace Museum Monthly of Chinese Art), no. 135 (June, 1994), 80.

64

Ming in 1644. After 1645 when the failure of the short-lived court in
Shao-hsing had proved the Ming loyalists' revival dream to be in vain,
many, including Ch’en Hung-shou's teacher Liu Tsung-chou and his friend
Ch’i Piao-chia, chose to sacrifice themselves. Others, such as Ch’en's
friend Chou Liang-kung surrendered to the new regime. As indicated in the
first chapter that the fact that Ch’en Hung-shou became an “i-min” (left-
over of the previous dynasty) was probably due to his disillusion with the
corrupt Ming court. The motif of a pine tree in China has always been a
symbol of perseverance, of surviving the hardship of wintry environment.
Through the hidden image of a pine tree in this distorted rock, as both
representing perseverance, Ch’en Hung-shou had projected himself as a
survivor of harsh reality.

Ch’en Hung-shou's interest in erematic themes, his use of archaism, and
his eclectic talent are well represented in the set of album leaves in the
Freer Gallery in Washington D. C.. Generally speaking, these leaves
consist of figures derived from the T’ang tradition, but employ the dry
brushwork of the Yuan painters, and use the landscape motifs adapted from
the Sung, Yuan and Ming masters. Distinguished from the highly eccentric,
distorted painting style in his earlier works, they are characterized by a
more subdued elegance. Due to the stylistical resemblance of the figure
type to those in the album “Sixteen Views of a Hermit's Life” (1651) in the
National Palace Museum in Taipei, The Freer Gallery album has been dated
to the nrid-seventeenth century.” In addition, the identical calligraphic

 

‘7 See: A Decade of Collecting (I966-I976)--The Avery Brundage Collection. Exhibition
catalogue. (Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 1976), 193. For the discussion of the “Sixteen
Views of a Herrnit's Life”, see Kohara Hironobu, “An Introductory Study of Ch’en Hong-shou,
Part II,” trans. Anne Burkus. Oriental Art, n.s. 33, no. 1 (1987), 67-83. The same works were
also discussed in the exhibition catalogue Style Transformed, 490-491.

65

signatures and seals of the painter in these two albums further support this
dating.

Leaf (a) (Fig. 11) depicts a scholar reclining under a pine tree. Holding a
cup of wine in his hand, he slightly raises his chin and half opens his eye,
seeming intoxicated. The origin of the imagery of a reclining, intoxicated
figure can be traced back as early in the Wei-Chin period, when a clay brick
engraved with the “Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, and Jung Ch’i-ch’i”
from a Nanking tomb, depicts the figure of Juan Chi in similar way.18
Comparing these two figures, both are represented as seated on a mat with
one knee raised, the upper torsos supported on the left arm. Similarly,
under the tree, beside the human figure is a jar of wine.” This pictorial
scheme invented for representing these Neo-Taoist eccentrics and recluses,
as Ellen Laing has noticed, had been developed into a special figural type
tradition for rendering themes about recluses, drinkers and poets. Previous
examples include the tenth century painting “Noble Scholar under a
Willow”, possibly representing the scholar-recluse T’ao Yuan-ming, now in
the Palace Museum in Taipei (Fig. 12). Among contemporary works are
the Ming Che school master Tai Chin's (1388-1462) painting “The Hermit
Hsu Yu Resting by a Stream” in the Cleveland Museum of Art (Fig. 13), and
a recluse figure depicted in a handscroll attributed to the Ming painter
Ch’iu Ying now in the Tientsin Art Museum.20

In this album leaf by Ch’en Hung-shou, the three-quarter-frontal-view of
the traditional figural type has been replaced by three-quarter-back-view.
Closely framing the figure, the curve-trunked pine tree, a symbol of a

person's moral integrity, presses down almost menacingly. Judging by the

 

‘8 Juan Chi was one of the “Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove."
‘9. Laing, “Neo-Taoism and the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove," 12, Figs. 2 & 5.
2° Ibid., 545, Figs. 16 & 28.

66

traditional Chinese values, Ch’en Hung-shou's choice of survival rather
than suicide in support of the defeated Ming dynasty suggested a failure of
moral integrity. The scheme of the three-quarter-back-view, which had
been used to suggest a psychological detachment appearing as early as “The
Mountain of Five Cataracts” was again employed for expressionistic value.
Here Ch’en's intention of avoiding outside judgement is clear. This picture
effectively manifests Ch’en's escapist mentality, while his ambivalence
towards the choice of survival is temporarily relieved by alcohol.

In leaf (b)(Fig. 14) , a scholar sits by a vase of flowers in his boat close
by the bank of a stream near a pine tree. Pausing from his reading, he
directs his attention to the hills across the river. The diagonal composition
is in the Southern Sung academic tradition. The swift fine lines drawing for
the figure and the ripples by the boat reveal the painter's talent in his well-
known figure-painting. The dry brush strokes are derived from the Yuan
painting. The bright coloring for the painting, especially for the pine tree
and the foreground rocks, though not as heavy, is akin to the blue-and-green
manner. Such a technique, mingling both the ink style with the blue-and-
green coloring, was originated by the Northern Sung painter Wang Shen
(1036-c.1103).21 Dominating the whole composition is the heavily colored
pine tree that links the foreground to the distant hills. Emerald-green pine
needles are contrasted by the tiny red flowers of a Wisteria vine twisting
around, which implies the season of spring and in turn, complements the
pondering scholar in a delightful way. This kind of motif was clearly

borrowed from that in the painting “Scholar of the Eastern Fence (T’ao

 

2' For the discussion of Wang Shen's life and works, see Bush and Shih, Early Chinese Texts on
Painting, 341-342; “Wang Sheri” in Chung-kuo ming-hua-chia ts 'ung-shu (The Series of Famous
Chinese Painters), Vol. I, (Chung-kuo shu-hua yen-chiu-hui, 1969), 399-478.

67

Yuan-ming in a Landscape)” by the Southern Sung painter Liang K’ai.22
This leaf presents us an idealistic version of the life of a scholar-recluse. It
is also evocative of the leisurly aspect of Ch’en Hung-shou's old age.

Leaf (c)(Fig. 15) is dominated by the figure of a retired scholar who just
crossed a stone-slab bridge by a red-leaf tree, pausing to watch the fallen
leaves drifting in the stream, suggesting an autumnal mood. The figure,
with his full face and fluent draperies, is drawn in fine tapering curve lines
developed from those in Ch’en Hung-shou's 1638 painting “Lady Hsuan-
wen Expounding the Classics,” now in the Cleveland Museum of Art (Figs.
16-17). This figure style succeeds the pre-T’ang painter Ku K’ai-chih and
the T'ang painter Chou Fang's tradition. The dry-brush drawing for the
landscape elements such as the gnarled-tree trunk and the earthy rocks from
which the tree grows are in the Yuan manner. The hatchings on the rocks,
strongly remind one of Huang Kung-wang's “hemp-fiber” textural strokes.

Leaf (g) (fig. 18) again repeats the theme of a T’ao Yuan-ming-like
wandering scholar-recluse. Comparing this leaf to Leaf (c), a more
complicated composition has been adopted. Further analysis on Leaf (g)
suggests a compositional resemblance to Wen Cheng-ming's 1507 painting
“Spring Trees After Rain” in the National Palace Museum in Taipei (Fig.
19) because that both paintings include in the middle a river with
mountains, rocks, and the platform-like terrain, and both contain a pavilion
on the left. The platform-like terrain that also appears in Leaf (c) is clearly
an invention by Shen Chou while the tiny “pepper dots” spread over the
mountains, rocks and the foliage are a characteristic of Wen Cheng-ming's

"fine-style" landscape. For this dotting technique, the Ming critic Chan

 

22 This painting is now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei and has been reproduced in
Cahill, The Compelling Image, Fig. 4.5.

68

Ching-feng noted: “People think that Wen Cheng-chung's [Cheng-ming's]
recent method of dotting clumps of trees follows Wu Chung-kuei [Chen
0280-1354)]. They do not know it comes from Liu Sung-nien.” Thus the
origin of this pointillist dotting, according to Liu, could be traced back to
the Sung.23 The depiction of the mountains and rocks in angular outlines
with sparse tiny moss dots recalls the Yuan “i-min”-painter Ch’ien Hsuan's
method.“ Besides, the dry-brush strokes of the mountains, rocks, and
platform-like terrain also retain the Yuan flavor.

If Leaf (g) is closer to the Ming painting tradition, then Leaf (h) (Fig. 20)
is more akin to a Yuan painting. Comparing this leaf to Ch’en Hung-shou's
other album leaf--Leaf (j) in the “Sixteen Views of a Herrrrit's Life” (Fig.
21) painted in 1651, the theme here has been slightly varied from a staff-
carrying wandering scholar to a recluse sitting between two bare trees to
listen to the river singing in order to cleanse his mind. In addition, both
pictures feature an arrangement of two large knotted trees in the foreground
and the mannerof execution in the Yuan style dry-brush is very similar.
The rocks and flat-topped hills again recall Huang Kung-wang's painting
while the misty mountains in the background are reminiscent of Chao Ling-
jang's poetic composition. Earlier, in 1648, Ch’en Hung-shou's teacher and
friend Lan Ying had collaborated with the painter Hsieh Pin for a
handscroll "Portraits of Shih-jen in a Landscape," in which Shih-jen was
depicted repeatedly in ways similar to those in the Freer album leaves (c)

and (h), namely, as a roaming figure and as a spring-listening, pondering

 

23 For example, see “Walking with a Staff” by Shen Chou in the National Palace Museum.
Taipei, which has been reproduced in Cahill's Parting at the Shore, P1. 29; Anne de Course)
Clapp, The Painting of T'ang Yin, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 112-114.

2‘ For examples, see Ch'ien's handscrolls “Home Again (Kuei-ch'u-lai-t'u)” and “Wang Hsi-chih
Watching Geese” reproduced in Lee and Ho, Chinese Art under the Mongols, no. 184 & no. 185.

69

recluse.” In view of Lan Ying and Ch’en Hung-shou' 5 close relationship,
Lan's painting might have been a more direct inspiration for Ch’en Hung-
shou's Freer compositions.

The themes derived from the eremitism of T’ao Yuan-ming, which were
once used as a way of self-justification in Ch’en Hung-shou's early painting
"A Tall Pine and Taoist Immortal," now accompanied by the motifs of red
leaves or bare trees symbolizing aging and decline, become a proper vehicle
for this old retired “i-min”-painter in reflecting on life in his final years.
Furthermore, the broad use of the Yuan painting idioms such as the dry
brush-strokes, Huang Kung-wang's “hemp-fiber” texture strokes, and
Ch’ien Hsuan or Ni Tsan’s pictorial language in this set of album leaves,
despite their firmly-established status in the literati painting tradition, may
have a specific meaning for the painter. As a retired “i-min”-painter, Ch’en
Hung-shou seems to have deliberately quoted from the styles of the earlier
scholar-painter-recluses who rejected service under a foreign regime.
Among them, the Yuan master-painters Ch’ien Hsuan, Huang Kung-wang
and Ni Tsan were the most outstanding examples. By transforming
different stylistic traditions from these Yuan masters, Ch’en Hung-shou
successfully expressed in his paintings his emotions as a survivor living
through numerous personal and historical crises.

A set of album leaves “Paintings after Ancient Masters” from the
Cleveland Museum of Art, though undated, was regarded as one of Ch’en
Hung-shou's late wor .” Subjects alluding to erematism represented by
Ch’en's eclectic painting style again play a major role in the landscape

leaves in this album. Although the exact date of this set of works is

 

25 The reproduction of passages from this handscroll and their discussion has been included in
Cahill, The Compelling Image, 122-123.
2° Ho, Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, 272.

70

uncertain, a possible time frame can be deduced. The leaf (g) “Taoist and
Crane in Autumn Landscape” bears the painter's short inscription: ”The old
man Fu-ch’ih painted [this] for the Taoist Chung-ch’ing,” followed by the
painter's seal “Chang-hon”. Due to the fact that Ch’en Hung-shou had
adapted the sobriquets such as “Hui-ch’ih” (Regret and Too-late) or “Lao-
ch’ih” (Old and Too-late) since 1646, this work was surely executed after
that year. In addition, according to Huang Yung-ch’uan, Ch’en Hung-shou
was associated with the Taoist Lin Chung-ch’ing during 1650 and 1651,
therefore, this set of album leaves was probably painted around that
period.27

Leaf (h) (Fig. 22) entitled “Portrait of Chung-ch’ing in a Landscape” is
painted in the refined contour outline and color manner of the T'ang. The
figure of Lin Chung-ch’ing is contained in a shallow, stage-like space
framed by flowers, trees, and rocks. He is turning his head to the left,
seemingly attracted to something outside the pictorial space. This human
figure is rendered in Ch'en Hung-shou's exaggerated style, with a large,
slightly out of proportion full face, bushy eyebrows and mustache. The
layered drapery using Ch’en Hung-shou's famous fluent iron-wire lines are
similar to those in his 1650 handscroll “The ‘Homecoming’ Ode of T’ao
Yuan-ming” now in the Honolulu Academy of Arts.” Stylistically, this
picture also resembles one of Ch’en Hung-shou's undated handscrolls, the
“Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove,” especially in the foreground rocks
and the multiple knotted tree trunks with hatching depicted in similar short,

angular brush strokes that demonstrate calligraphic competency, as well as

 

27 Huang, Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu, 110-112, 116-117.
28 For the discussion and reproduction of this handscroll, see Cahill, The Compelling Image, 134-
140; Tseng, “A Report on Ch'en Hung-shou,” 81-85.

71

for the floral type.” In this handscroll, the painter stated his stylistic
source: “Hung-shou imitates the T’ang for Taoist Ch’ieh-ch’ien.”-"0 The
exaggerated images are characteristic of Ch’en's individualistic style, drawn
in fine iron-wire-lines and in the seal-script manners that retain an archaic
spirit. Although titled as a portrait of Ch’en's Taoist friend Lin Chung-
ch’ing, the juxtaposition of the archaistic technique with a recluse-like
figure relaxed in a landscape setting also alludes to erenritism. This album-
leaf, provides a climactic example of Ch’en's achievement in applying his
eccentric style, usually associated with his figure-paintings, to his
landscapes.

Another work, the album leaf (1) (Fig. 23) is “.Mr Five Willows (Wu-
liu).” T’ao Yuan-ming was known as Mr. Five Willows due to his
autobiographical article “Mr. Five Willows,” which describes his own life
as a scholar-recluse living in a house with five willows planted in the front
yard.3| He was especially fond of the chrysanthemum flowers for their
exalted and immaculate symbolism and wrote in a poem: “....[While]
picking the chrysanthemum flowers under the eastern fence, far off, [I] see
the southern mountains...”32 Therefore, he is also called “Mr. Eastern
Fence.” In this picture, Ch’en Hung-shou approached his subject directly.
T’ao Yuan-ming is shown holding his staff as if he had just returned from
his roaming. Greeting him in front of his fence outside the house by the

five willows, is his attendant. The chrysanthemums spread around the yard

 

29 This painting is now in the Walter Hochstadter Collection in Hong Kong and has been
reproduced and discussed in Cahill, The Compelling Image, 130-134; Laing, “Neo-Taosim and
the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove,” 5-54.

3" Cahill, ibid., Fig. 4. 35.

3' For the life and writings of T'ao Yuan-ming, including his autobiography “Mr. Five Willows,"
see The Poems of T’ao Ch 'ien, trans., Lily Pao-hu Chang and Marjorie Sinclair, (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 1953).

32 This translation is partly referred to David Hinton trans., The Selected Poems of T ’ao Ch 'ien.
(Port Townsend: Copper Canyon Press, 1993), 52.

72

are fully in blossom. Comparing this leaf to the handscroll “Kuei-ch’u-lai
tu” (Home Again) of the same theme by the Yuan “i-min”-painter Ch’ien
Hsuan in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Ch’en Hung-shou
seems to have followed Ch’ien in retaining the traditional symbols of T’ao
Yuan-ming, namely, the willow trees, the eastern fence, and the
chrysanthemum flowers.33 Previously I had suggested the possibility of
Ch’en's identification of himself with other “i-min”-painters; thus he might
consciously follow their practices. Such a possibility seems to be well
supported here. Both Ch’ien Hsuan and Ch’en Hung-shou, as noted by
Wen Fong, are archaists, people who worked in a style of schematic
archaism as a personal retreat or protest.34 In these works, the two painters
draw on sources from the past. While Ch’ien Hsuan painted in a seeming
naive, distorted, rigid-looking, heavy blue-and-green manner, Ch’en Hung-
shou has a more eclectic approach. The earthy foreground rocks are in wet
ink manner; while the terrain is outlined with fine lines; and the
meticuously weaving willow branches, as well as the seal-type title of the
painting, are in the archaic style. The light color scheme is suitable to the
literati's taste. At the same time, the main character, Mr. Five Willows, is
delineated with Ch’en Hung-shou's distorted figure type. In this picture, the
human figures are comfortably fitted into the landscape background; the
ambivalent, escapist feeling in his earlier works is gone. What is implied is
the sense of a love towards nature and the acceptance and embrace of one's
environment without hesitation. Ch’en Hung-shou, who had earlier been
tormented by ambivalence resulting from his choice of surviving as an “i-

min,” seems to have accepted his fate as a recluse-“i-min”-painter only late

 

33 This handscroll is reproduced in Ho and Lee, Chinese Art under the Mongols, no. 184.
3‘ Wen C. Fong, “Archaism as a ‘Primitive’ Style,” 108.

73

in life. In this way, he was able to make peace with his life and his
environment.

I will conclude my discussion with Leaf (g) (Fig. 24), “Taoist and Crane
in Autumn Landscape.” In this painting, Ch’en Hung-shou repeats the
theme of the solitary wanderer in a bleak autumnal scene. Highlighting the
whole wet ink composition is the decorative red on the leaves and on the
human figure's upper garment. The pinkish tone of the sky is contrasted by
the pale-green distant hills. The short inscription and the red seal on the
upper left, together with the broad strokes on the sky, are balanced both in
shape and color by the dominant foreground trees and the autumnal leaves.
However, a more optimistic feeling distinguishes this album-leaf from the
other works of the same theme. In the lower center, the image of a crane, a
symbol of longevity which is always associated with the immortality
pursued by Taoists in China, is about to drink in the stream. Following it is
the featureless figure on the path, framed by withered trees and bushes with
red leaves stubbomly cling to their twigs, and paved by flaming maple-
leaves.

As I have suggested in the previous paragraph, this set of album leaves
was probably executed around 1650 to 1651. By that time, Ch’en Hung-
shou was fifty-two-years old, just one year before his death. Looking back
to all those ups-and-downs, this old painter, although he had endured
numerous hardships in life, seems to have preserved a love for life that
accorded with Taoist beliefs. Especially in realizing that his days were
limited, the painter thus reflected his strong will of survival and his
affection for life by adding the crane, the emblem of longevity, to a

declining, melancholy, yet beautiful, landscape.

74

Observing Ch’en Hung-shou's landscapes after 1644, most works
discussed here are album leaves with literati and erematic themes. The fall
of the Ming closed the route of government career for the Ming-loyalist-
scholars. For those choosing to survive, some rejected service under the
foreign Manchus government, and retired as “i-min.” Although
disillusioned by the corruption in the Ming court earlier, unlike his
collector-friend Chou Liang-kung who surrendered to the new regime,
Ch’en Hung-shou was constantly ambivalent towards his choice of life. He
wavered over being disloyal. Being pressed by family burden, he chose the
option of becoming an “i-min”-painter. This new identity allowed him to
work as a professional painter without feeling ashamed of his scholar
background. He might thus be able to closely identify himself with the
ancient scholar-recluse T’ao Yuan-nring as evident in his strong interest in
the erematic themes after 1644.

The paintings related to erematism discussed in this chapter displayed
two major characteristics, one alludes to the idealized aspects of retirement,
and the other reflects Ch’en Hung-shou's own life and emotions as an "i-
min"—recluse. The first characteristic, representing the painter's idealistic
notions about eremitism, is exemplified by works evocative of the “Peach
Blossom Spring” utopia such as “The Willow Color by a River Pavilion”
painted right after 1644, or by works with the imagery suggesting a T’ao-
Yuan-ming-like scholar-recluse relaxing or roaming in a landscape as the
Freer Gallery album leaves (b), (c), (g), (h), and the “Portrait of Chung-
ch’ing in a Landscape,” from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The second
characteristic, mirrors the painter's complicated, changing personal
emotions in adapting to reality. The "Peach Blossom Spring" from the

Green-ivy Study period suggests Ch’en Hung-shou's consciousness about

75

the gap existing between ideal and reality. From the same album, the
fantastic-shaped rock “Wen-shih,” suggests that the painter saw himself as a
persevering survivor. However, frequently haunted by the contradictory
feeling about his choice of surviving, his escapist feeling is reflected in Leaf
(a) of the Freer Gallery album. Finally, in approaching the end of his life,
Ch’en Hung-shou was able to accept his own fate with a sense of
contentment and affection for life that permeated in his late works “.Mr
Five Willows” and “Taoist and Crane in Autumn Landscape.”

In addition, if we consider Chen Hung-shou's simultaneous adoption of
both the small scaled, album-leaf format popular among the Southern Sung
painters and the styles derived from the Yuan "i-min"-painters Ch’ien
Hsuan, Huang Kung-wang, and Ni Tsan, there is a strong probability that
the artist intended not only to express his melancholy feeling due to the loss
of his country, but also to make an implicit political statement.

In terms of Ch’en Hung-shou's painting style in his post-1644
landscapes, these works once again demonstrate his eclectic, individualistic
talent. From the discussion in Chapter IE, it is apparent that since his
youth, Ch’en had been capable of drawing sources from various ancient and
contemporary traditions, including idioms from both the academic and the
literati camps. This tendency was continuously developed in his later
landscapes discussed in this chapter. Also, he was able to paint distorted
landscapes in ways identical to his more famous figure painting, such as
those in the “Peach Blossom Spring” and in the “Wen-shih” from the
Green-ivy Study-period as well as that in the Freer Gallery leaf “Portrait of
Taoist Chung-ch’ing.” Most of his transformed landscapes, also contain the
hints of painter's personal emotions. To Ch’en Hung-shou, distortion

99

became a means of self-expression. At the same time, as a retired “i-nrin

76

painter after 1644, he strove to consolidate in his works all these traits,
namely, his competency in both the professional and the literati painting
styles, his personal identification as a scholar-recluse that led to his
perpetual interest in the literati-erematic themes, as well as his
individualistic distorted painting style, which was used to suggest his own
emotions. In these ways, he had formed a personal style characterized by
decorative refinement, literati elegance, and a sensible touch of humanity,
establishing himself as one of the greatest painters in the seventeenth-

century China.

CONCLUSION

The art field in the late-Ming--early-Ch’ing period was dominated by
individualistic artists, of whom Ch’en Hung-shou was one. Living through
the first half of the seventeenth century in China, Ch’en had witnessed late
Ming socio-political disturbances and the conquest and establishment of the
Ch’ing dynasty. His dual identity as a well-trained professional painter and
as scholar aware of contemporary artistic trends, resulted in the versatile,
eclectic, and individualistic nature of his landscape art. At the same time,
influences from his personal life experiences and the impact of the turbulent

period in which he lived were implicit in his landscape art.

Receiving his education as a scholar, Ch’en Hung-shou's main goal in
youth was to pursue a government career. Although talented at painting, to
be a professional painter of low social status was incompatible with his
gentry family background, and thus the last thing he expected. His
consecutive failures in civil service examinations shadowed all his early
years, leaving him no alternatives but to retire back to his hometown during
the 16305. Unskilled at farming, he was forced to pick up the brushes,
working as a professional painter. He constantly indulged himself in wine
and women, in an effort to relieve his sense of frustration, and ambivalence

towards the twist of fate that had left his ambitions unfulfilled.
77

78

In the discussion of Ch’en Hung-shou's selected early paintings which
include the “Autumn Landscape,” “The Mountain of Five Cataracts,”
“Scholar under a Pine Tree,” and his self-portrait “A Tall Pine and Taoist
lrnmortal,” I have found that these works are executed in an experimental
and eclectic style. They consist of widely borrowed styles from the
traditions of both literati and professional painting. This trait of
eclecticism, as I have explained, is probably due to his artistic training
combined with his dual identity as a scholar and professional painter.
Another trait revealed in his early works is the employment of distorted,
transformed pictorial imageries appearing as early as “The Mountain of
Five Cataracts” and culminating in “A Tall Pine and Taoist Immortal.”
These landscape paintings coincide stylistically with his eccentric figure
painting. The hints of psychological detachment in the former work may
well have roots in his personal frustrations and ambivalence in real life,
stemming from his failure in civil service examinations, the death of his
first wife, and his unsuccessful first journey to Peking. The psychological
attitudes in his later works reflect his feelings about his early retirement and
the resulting contradictory identity as a failed-scholar turned eremite-
professional painter. While the “Mountain of Five Cataracts” expressed
Ch’en's escapist feeling when facing unhappiness in life, “A Tall Pine and
Taoist Immortal” was meant to be a statement of self-justification. Based
on these reasons, Ch’en Hung-shou seems to have an early tendency to
reflect his personal life and emotions in his landscapes. In other words,
these two landscapes seem to have autobiographical elements. . This
autobiographical character, as I will explain, remains as a significant factor

in his later works to come.

79

In 1644, a combination of domestic disturbances and the Manchu
invasion resulted in the downfall of the Ming. The historical event of
dynastic transition freed Ch’en Hung-shou from the stress of his identity
crisis. Since to under the newly established foreign Ch’ing government was
not considered a diginified career for a traditional, Ming-loyalist scholar,
Ch’en no longer needed to deal with the sense of failure that had resulted
from his early unsuccessful attempts to pursue a government career. Based
on his short-term association with the Ming court in 1642 and 1643, Ch’en
might well now call himself an “i-min.” Under such a circumstance,
working as a eremite-professional painter, like his predecessor Ch’ien
Hsuan had done in the Yuan dynasty, seemed suitable. This also explains
his continuing enthusiasm for depicting literati, erematic themes such as
those alluding to the Chin recluse T’ao Yuan-ming or his famous “Peach
Blossom Spring.” Now, Ch’en could easily identify himself as a retired-
scholar without feeling a looser. However, a new crisis arose in that he
frequently felt ambivalent about his choice of survival rather than suicide,

a choice which might be viewed as disloyal to the old regime.

In the album leaf “Wen-shih” painted soon after the fall of the Ming.
one sees Ch’en Hung-shou's self metaphor as a survivior. On the other
hand, this leaf executed in the painter's unique distorted style may also be
regarded, again, as a statement of self-justification in that the perserving
spirit symbolized by this fantastic-shaped rock may beseen as analogous to
the painter's own character. His ambivalence about surviving and his

escapist mentality kept on tormenting him until late in his life, as shown in

80

the painting of the intoxicated scholar reclining under a menacing pine tree

in the Freer Gallery album.

Ch’en's paintings with erematic themes display two main aspects. The
first is an idealistic version. The other, imbued with the artist's true,
personal emotions, and therefore, autobiographical, is often executed in his
individualistic, transformed style. One may trace such kind of practice back
to his early period when Ch’en had presented two versions of a theme
respectively, namely, the idealistic, “Scholar under a Tall Pine,” and the
self-justifying “A Tall Pine and Taoist Immortal.” His post-1644
landscapes repeat the same pattern, and suggest that the artist realized the
painful fact of the unattainable nature of ideal and the huge gap lying
between ideal and reality.

The persistent, autobiographical connotations in Ch’en's landscapes are
also obvious in his late works, such as “.Mr Five Willows,” and the “Taoist
and Crane in Autumn Landscape” from the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Reflecting the theme of the scholar-recluse T’ao Yuan-ming, “Mr. Five
Willows” may be regarded as a metaphor of the artist living in retirement.
The peaceful feeling of this work suggests Ch’en Hung-shou's final
acceptance of his own fate. In this year, at the age of fifty-three, Ch’en
Hung-shou was near the end of his life. Reflecting his feeling about his old
age in the “Taoist and Crane in Autumn Landscape,” his strong affeCtion

for life despite the hardships, demonstrated by his choice of survival after

81

the fall of the Ming, finally found justification in the life-preserving, nature-

loving beliefs of the Taoist recluse.

In terms of Ch’en Hung-shou's painting style, evidence from this
examination of selected landscapes supports the fact that Ch’en, as a true
archaist, worked in an eclectic way. Out of his identity as a scholar, and in
responding to the contemporary artistic trend, Ch’en might thus follow the
“orthodox” painting tradition advocated by Tung Ch’i-ch’ang and imitate
the literati-painters' styles. He was capable of transforming idioms derived
from the literati ink mode tradition, especially those of the Yuan and Ming
masters. At the same time, Ch’en also employed the professional, academic
tradition represented by the Pre-T’ang, T’ang, and the Sung masters. For
Ch’en Hung-shou's archaistic eclecticism, one must take into consideration
the fact of the Manchu conquest in 1644. Similar to such Yuan “i-min”-
painter predecessors as Ch’ien Hsuan, in facing the threat of losing Chinese
native traditions to the foreign ruling, Ch’en Hung-shou seems to have
deliberately attached himself to the permanent past of China by working in
an archaistic manner. Hence, his post-1644 paintings could also be
regarded as subtle statements of his political sentiments. Moreover, his
proficiency originated from his background as a professional painter, and
his consciousness about the importance of originality, which, as a result of
the indirect influences from Tung Ch’i-ch’ang's theory about pien
(transformation) and from the self-expressionism extolled by the Kung-an
School, allowed him to create his highly personal, distorted painting style
demonstrated in his figure and landscape painting. This eccentric painting

style, as I have indicated, was often employed in his autobiographical,

82

expressionistic landscapes. Therefore, as far as the spirit is concerned,
Ch’en Hung-shou's landscape art was truly in accord with the Kung-an
School's ideal in that it was not bound by the rules and conventions of
accepted art forms, not limited by Tung Ch’i-ch’ang's theory about the
orthodox painting tradition, and was able to express the painter's emotions

and individuality sincerely.

Based on all these reasons, Ch’en Hung-shou's achievement in landscape
art makes him not only a famous figure painter but also a great landscapist.
I regret that limited by time and available sources, I am unable to provide
more examples of his landscape painting; and thus my investigation may
not be complete. Hopefully, this short study will evoke the over-due

attention and recognition to Ch’en Hung-shou's landscape art.

FIGURES

83

-Eow so 228 25 x5

5282.8 :30 53> 9.20 ...v: -NN x QTe gonna count-a
.mEEEm SE .emccufiSNN 555% Begum—5: coho ._ 0.5mm—

 

84

n.s.!

4.8....

1.,

9

4

Heat

 

Figure 2. Ch'en Hung-shou. The Mountain of Five Cataracts. Hanging scroll, ink on silk,

118.3 x 53.2 cm. Cleveland Museum of Art. John L. Severance Fund.

85

 

. . .e v .. a... . . ....1 . .r ... .
, . . . . 1 . . .r.... .l I; a 4‘
. ... z.. . .19 so
. . . -. . v.41“. .311th 1. 0?.
......... . .. u . (was: .h‘ u .1 h

\

.. .
.. .. p . .... (W rt‘x. .
. . . . ...A. ....mWs
.. .. . . .. ark 34L ,
. .. . . . x ..
a .1 .2 a l.
\ y

i;
by
.71!”
‘5."
A
$5-

Figure 3. Wen Cheng-ming. Landscape in the Manner of Wang Meng. Dated 1535.
Hanging scroll, ink on paper, 133.9 x 35.7 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.

86

.
i
' ‘1. y.

-4,

-' iii?-

‘ V’QO".
. .. .3

 

Figure 4. Wen Cheng-ming. A Thousand Clifls Contend in Splendor. Dated 1548-50.

Hanging scroll, ink and light colors on paper, 132.6 x 34 cm. National Palace Museum,
Taipei.

87

are:

.7. .. ,. ..
... W--~,.P,{" .
.. ~ n ’. e ‘3 r”;
. 1L.“ ;,__ -c 9.-

 

Figure 5. Ch'en Hung-shou. Meeting of Su Wu and Li Ling. Hanging scroll, ink and
colors on silk, 127 x 48.2 cm. Ching Yuan Chai collection.

88

area

 

Figure 6. Ch'en Hung-shou. Scholar under a Pine Tree. Dated 1633. Hanging scroll, ink

and colors on silk, 92.8 x 30.6 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gift of Mr. and Mrs
Earl Morse.

89

in“:
i1“?

. still

.-‘
I.-.

-
:4
o.

~8-
r:

*% $4155qu

swarm

rut- “HHS”!
1‘an
omgtséiiszrfi‘i

   
   

A.

wear-(>2.
M
. Vs

wilzxwrv-
1‘:in Sara‘s-7532:8315
\NKELQINN

are
~.-\
2 "1'

_.
t.—

-¢
33
~.

\
e.

 

Figure 7. Ch'en Hung-shou. A Tall Pine and Taoist Immortal (The Artist and His Nephew
in a Landscape). Dated 1635. Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk, 202.1 x 97.8 cm.

National Palace Museum, Taipei.

90

e.

' T

r 1': .' kip!
:1 3 {rib ' I

1' I - h ' .

l." v ' ,' .
" l 3‘4“ __ -__.___ ....f-
\ " _/ ' -

 

Figure 8. Ch'en Hung-shou. The Willow Color by a River Pavilion ( "Hsi-t’ing Liu-se"),
leaf (a) from the Album of Miscellaneous Paintings. Ink and colors on silk, 5-4/5 x 5 in.

National Palace Museum, Taipei.

9|

 

Figure 9. Ch'en Hung-shou. The Peach Blossom Spring, leaf (0) from the Album of
Miscellaneous Paintings. Ink and colors on silk, 5-4/5 x 5 in. National Palace Museum,
Taipei.

92

 

Figure 10. Ch'en Hung-shou. "Wen-shih". leaf(t)from the album of Miscellaneous
Paintings. Ink and colors on silk, 5-4/5 x 5 in. National Palace Museum, Taipei.

93

    
  

,_. —,..
:S'Q'A‘w . .
‘v‘l5:-. e.-
, . MEWS"
L_‘ ‘ .\.
. r .- \v

.N

  

Figure 11. Ch'en Hung-shou. Leaf (a) from the Album of Paintings after Ancient
Masters. Ink and colors on paper. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

94

’W‘ ‘-e;.

.f.

.
'.

 

Figure 12. Anonymous. Noble Scholar under a Willow. Hanging scroll, ink and colors on
silk, 25-3/4 x 15-3/4 in. National Palace Museum, Taipei.

95

.- irala‘l'liitliitt

 

, .
“tn-:57:

“WW 8“ :3“

i
n”.-
-

Figure 13. Tai Chin. The Hermit Hsu Yu Resting by a Stream. Hanging scroll, ink and
colors on silk, 138 x 75.5 cm. Cleveland Museum of Art. John L. Severance Fund.

96

 

Figure 14. Ch'en Hung-shou. Leaf (b) from the Album of Paintings after Ancient Masters.
Ink and colors on paper. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

97

 

.‘l

pf“ ,. n ,

.. ' . ' ‘EI': . '
I ‘¢,1%.."rr $27 5",. a“ s
. .‘LI 0‘ 1,77: . ....

 

Figure 15. Ch'en Hung-shou. Leaf (c) from the Album of Paintings after Ancient
Masters. Ink and colors on paper. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

98

...Nenfli.

.6100 TCAu-Tltiblfi

 

Figure 16. Ch'en Hung-shou. Lady Hsun-wen Expounding the Classics. Dated 1638.
Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk, 173.7 x 55.6 cm. Cleveland Museum of Art.

99

 

Figure 17. Ch'en Hung-shou. Detail from Figure 16.

 

Figure 18. Ch'en Hung-shou. Leaf (g) from the Album of Paintings after Ancient
Masters. Ink and colors on paper. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

101

afilrfiflfifl

$13.3“.-.

11649.net

meat. «1 ...

..ta mien».
t tenant}...

 

Figure 19. Wen Cheng-ming. Spring Trees After Rain. Dated 1507. Hanging scroll, ink

and colors on paper, 94.3 x 33.3 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.

102

 

Figure 20. Ch'en Hung-shou. Leaf (h) from the Album of Paintings after Ancient Masters.
Ink and colors on paper. Freer Gallery of Art. Washington, DC.

103

485,—. .Ezomaz 82am 3:262 .50 wdm x v.3 Comma co 6.:—
.w\.§ i=5»: axe ENS =we3wxc E=£< NS EEKSBNN $05.95: 5.50 ._N Esmi

 

 

Portrait of Chung-ch’ing in 0 Landscape, leaf (h) from the

shou
Album of Paintings after Ancient Masters. Ink and colors on silk, h. 9-5/8 in. Cleveland

en Hung-
Museum of An.

Figure 22. Ch

105

 

Figure 23. Ch'en Hung-shou. Mr. Five Willows, leaf ( l ) from the Album of Paintings
afier Ancient Masters. Ink and colors on silk, h. 9-5/8 in. Cleveland Museum of An.

 

Figure 24. Ch'en Hung-shou. Taoist and Crane in Autumn Landscape, leaf (g) from the

Album of Paintings after Ancient Masters. Ink and colors on silk, h. 9-5/8 in. Cleveland

Museum of Art.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Burkus, Anne Gail. “The Artefacts of Biography in Chen Hung-Shou's Pao-
lun-t’ang chi.” Ph. D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1987.

Bush, Susan. The Chinese Literati on Painting: Su Shih (1037-1101) to
Tung Ch ’i-ch ’ang ( 1555-1636). Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1971. .

Busch, Heinrich. “The Tung-lin Academy and Its Political and
Philosophical Significance.” Monumenta Serica: Journal of Oriental
Studies 14 (1949-1955): 1-163.

Cahill, James. “The Six Laws and How to Read Them.” Ars Orientalis 4
(1961): 372-381.

----. Fantastics and Eccentrics in Chinese Painting. New York: Asia
Society, 1967.

----. The Restless Landscape: Chinese Painting of the Late Ming Period.
Exhibition catalogue. Berkeley: University Art Museum, 1971.

----. Hills Beyond a River: Chinese Painting of the Yuan Dynasty, 1279-
1368. New York: Weatherhill, 1976.

----. Parting at the Shore: Chinese Painting of the Early and Middle Ming,
[368-1580. New York: Weatherhill, 197 8.

----. The Compelling Image: Nature and Style in Seventeenth-Centurry
Chinese Painting. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982.

----. The Distant Mountains: Chinese Painting of the Late Ming Dynasty,
1570-1644. New York: Weatherhill, 1982.

107

108

----. Chinese Painting. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.,
1985.

Chan, Albert. The Glory and Fall of the Ming Dynasty. Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 1982.

Chang, Lily Pao-hu and Marjorie Sinclair, trans. The Poems of T’ao Ch ’ien.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1953.

Chao Hung-pao. “Ya-ch’u--ku-tai wen-jen li-hsiang chung te chu-she wen-
hua” (The Flavor of Elegance--The Ideal Housing Culture of Ancient
Literati.) Ku kung wen wu yueh k’an (The National Palace Museum
Monthly of Chinese Art), 135 (1994): 66-87.

Chaves, Jonathan. “The Panoply of Images: A Reconsiderstion of the
Literary Theory of the Kung-an School.” In Theories of the Arts in China,
edited by Susan Bush and Christian F. Murck, 341-364. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1983.

Ch’en Yu-fu. “Nei-sheng-wai-wang chih hsueh te fu hsing--hsin ju hsueh te
fa chan” (The Revival of the Learning that Both Sound in Theory and
Practice--The Development of Neo-Confucianism.) In Chung kuo wen hua
hsin lun--Hsueh shu p’ien--Hao han te hsueh hai (The New Treatise on
Chinese Culture-The Section of Leaming--The Vast Sea of Learning),
edited by Lin Chin-Chang, 233-283. Taipei: Lien-ching chu pan shih yeh
kung ssu, 1991.

Chia feng-cheng. Chung kuo li hsueh shih (The History of Neo-
Confucianism in China), 2nd ed.. Shanghai: Shang wu yin shu kuan, 1937.

Chung-kuo ming-hua-chia ts’ung-shu (The Series of Famous Chinese
Painters.) Vol. I . Chung-kuo shu-hua yen-chiu-hui, 1969.

Clapp, Anne de Coursey. The Painting of T’ang Yin. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1991.

De Bary, William. Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. I. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1960. .

----. “Individualism and Humanitarianism in the Late Ming Thought.” In
Self and Society in Ming Thought, edited by William de Bary, 145-247.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.

109

A Decade of Collecting (1966-1976)--The Avery Brundage Collection.
Exhibition Catalogue. San Francisco: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco,
1976.

Fong, Wen C. “Archaism as a Primitive Style.” In Artists and Traditions,
edited by Christian F. Murck, 89-109. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1976.

----. Images of the Mind: Selections from the Edward L. Elliott Family and
John B. Elliott Collections of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting at the Art

Museum, Princeton University. The Art Museum , Princeton University,
1984.

----. “Tung Ch’i-ch’ang and Artistic Renewal.” In The Century of Tung
Ch ’i-ch ’ang, 1555-1636, vol. I, edited by Wai-kam Ho, 43-54. Exhibition
catalogue. Kansas: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1992.

Fulder Elazabeth. “The Achievements of Late Ming Painters.” In The
Restless Landscape: Chinese Painting of the Late Ming Period, edited by
James Cahill, 19-21. University Art Museum, Berkeley, 1971.

Hinton, David, trans. The Selected Poems of T’ao Ch ’ien. Port Townsen:
Copper Canyon Press, 1993.

Ho, Wai-kam. “Nan Ch ’en Pei Ts’ui: Ch’en of the South and Ts’ui of the
North.” Cleveland Museum of Art Bulletin, 49/1 (l962):2-11.

----. “'Tung Ch’i-ch’ang's New Orthodoxy and the Southern School
Theory.” In Artists and Traditions, edited by Christian F. Murck, 113-129.
Princenton: Princeton University Press, 1976.

Ho, Wai-kam, Sherman E. Lee, Laurence Sickman, and Marc F. Wilson.
Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson
Gallery-Atkins Museum , Kansas City, and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Exhibition catalogue. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1980.

Huang Yung-ch’uan. “Ch’en Hung-shou.” In Li tai hua chia p’ing chuan
(The Critical Biographies of Painters of the Past Dynasties), edited by Yu
Chien-hua. Hong Kong: Chung-hua shu chu, 1986.

----. Ch ’en Hung-shou nien pu (The Chronological Biography of Ch’en
Hung-shou.) 1960.

110

Hucker, Charles 0. "The Tung-lin Movement of the Late Ming Period.” In
Chinese Thought and Institutions, edited by John K. Fairbank, 132-162.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964.

long Chao-tzu. Ming tai ssu hsiang shih (The History of Ming Thought).
Taipei: Taiwan K’ai-ming shu-tien, 1970.

Kim Hongnam. “Chou Liang-kung and His Tu-hua-lu (Lives of Painters):
Patron-critic and Painters in Seventeenth Century China.” Vols. I-HI. Ph.D.
diss., Yale University, 1985.

Kohara Hironobu. “An Introductory Study of Ch’en Hongshou, Part 1.”
Translated by Anne Burkus. Oriental Art, n.s. 32/4 (1986-87): 398-410.

----. “An Introductory Study of Ch’en Hongshou, Part [1.” Translated by
Anne Burkus. Oriental Art, n.s. 33/1 (1987): 67-83.

Lai T. C.. Shan-shui ts’un-fa (Brushwork in Chinese Landscape Painting.)
Hong Kong: Chung Hwa book Co. and Swindon Book Co., 1983.

Laing, Ellen Johnston. “Neo-Taoism and the Seven Sages of the Bamboo
Grove in Chinese Painting.” Artibus Asiae 36/1-2 (1974): 5-54.

Lawton, Thomas. Chinese Figure Painting. Exhibition catalogue.
Washington, DC: Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1973.

Lee, Sherman E. and Wai-kam Ho. Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The
Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368). Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1968.

Li Chu-tsing. The Autumn Colors on the Ch'iao and Hua Mountains: A
Landscape by Chao Meng-fu. Artibus Asiae Supplementum 21 . Ascona,
Switzerland: Artibus Asiae Publishers, 1964.

Li Kuang-t’ao. “Dorgon ju kuan shih mo” (The Episode of Dorgon's
Entrance into the Shan-hai Pass.) In Ming Ch ’ing tang-an lun-wen chi
(Collection of the Treatises on the Ming and Ch’ing Official Files), 687-
707. Taipei: Lien-ching chu pan shih yeh kung ssu, 1986

Li Wen-chih. Wan Ming min pien (The People’s Riots of the Late Ming
Period.) Hong Kong: Yuan-tung Book Inc., 1966.

11!

Liu Chi-yao. “Shih yu yin--Ch’uan-t’ung chung-kuo cheng-chih wen-hua te
liang chi” (Government Service and Retirement--The Double Poles of
Traditional Chinese Political Culture.) In Chung kuo wen huahsin lun--Ssu
hsiang p’ien--Li-hsiang yu hsien shih (The New Treatises on Chinese
Culture--The Section of Thought--Ideals and Reality), edited by Huang
Chun-chieh, 289-343. Taipei: Lien-Ching chu pan shih yeh kung ssu, 1989.

Lynn, Richard John. “Orthodoxy and Enlightment: Wang Shih-chen's
Theory of Poetry and Its Antecedents.” In The Unfolding of Neo-
Confucianism, edited by William T. de Bary, 217-269. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1975.

----. “Alternate Route to Self-Realization in Ming Theories of Poetry.” In
Theories of the Arts in China, edited by Susan Bush and Christian Murck,
317-340. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.

Lynn, Struve A. The Southern Ming: 1644-1662. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1984.

Maeda, Robert J. “The Chao Ta-nien Tradition.” Ars Orientalis 8 (1970):
243-253.

Murck, Christian F, ed. Artists and Traditions. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1976.

Oertling, Sewall Jerome H. “Ting Yin-p’eng: A Chinese Artist of the Late
Ming Dynasty.” Vols. I-II. Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1980.

Pang Mae Anna Quan. “Late Ming Painting Theory.” In The Restless
Landscape: Chinese Painting of the Late Ming Period, edited by James
Cahill, 22-28. Exhibition Catalogue. Berkeley: University Art Museum,
1971.

Sickman Laurence and Alexander Soper. The Art and Architecture of
China. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.

Style Transformed: A Special Exhibition of Five Late Ming Artists.
Exhibition catalogue. Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1977. '

Sullivan, Michael. Symbols of Etemity--The Art of Landscape Painting in
China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979.

112

Ts’ai Mei-fen. "Wen-fang ch’ing-wan--The handicrafts in the studies of
literati.” In Chung kuo wen hua hsin lun--Yi Shu p’ien--Mei kan yu tsao
hsing (The New Treatises on Chinese Culture--The Section of Art--
Aesthetic Sense and Form), edited by Kuo Chi-sheng, 595-664. Taipei:
Lien-ching ch’u pan shih yeh kung ssu, 1991.

Tseng Yu-ho. “A Report on Ch’en Hung-shou.” Archives of the Chinese Art
Society of America, 13 (1959):75-88.

The Third Edition of Mi-tien chu-lin and shih-ch’u pao-chi--Shih-ch ’u pao-
chi. Vol. 5. Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1969.

Vinograd, Richard. Boundaries of the Self: Chinese Portraits 1600-1900.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Wang Kuei-ling. T’ao Yuan-ming chi ch’i shih te yen chiu (A Study of T’ao
Yuan-ming and His poetry.) Taipei: National Taiwan University Press,
1966. '

Wang Li-ling. Ch ’en Hung-shou jen-wu-hua te yi-shu-hsing-hsiang chih
yen chiu (A Study of the Artistic Images of the Portraiture by Ch’en Hung-
shou.) Master thesis, Taipei: Wen-hua University, 1988.

Wang Yao-t’ing. “Ch’en Hung-Shou pi hsia te Yuan-ming yi chih.” (Ch’en
Hung-shou's Depiction of the Leisure of [T’ao] Yuan-ming.) Ku kung wen
wu yueh k’an (The National Palace Museum Monthly of Chinese Art), 8/11
(1982): 96-108.

Weng Wango and Boda Yang, eds. The Palace Museum: Peking. London:
Orbis Publishing, Ltd., 1982.

Whitfield, Roderick. In Pursuit of Antiquity: Chinese Paintings of the Ming
and Ch ’ing Dynasties from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Earl Morse.
Princeton: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1969.

Wu, Nelson 1. “Tung Ch’i-ch’ang, the Man, His Time and His Landscape
Painting.” Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1954.

----. “Tung Ch’i-ch’ang (1555-1636): Apathy in Government and Fervor in
Art.” In Confilcian Personalities, edited by Authur F. Wright and Denis
Twitchett, 261-383. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962.

113

Yen Chuan-ying. Lan Ying yu fang-ku hui-hua (Lan Ying and Archaistic
Painting.) Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1980.

Yu Kun. Chung kuo hua lun lei pien (The Categorized Compilation of
Chinese Painting Theory.) Taipei: Hua-cheng shu chu, 1977.

111041an STATE UNIV. LIBRARIES
lll11111111111111 WillWillilllllllll
31293014202778