An 18-year fog in the woods?
In capturing the inner spirit of nature and conveying its living manifestations, the linkage of spirit and matter requires much hard observation. Thus flower and bird painting has been seen to be a refined pursuit using a simple elegance of color, as with the Hsu Hsi school of painting of the Southern Tang of the Five Dynasties period which managed to integrate its art with nature to such a great degree. I Yuanchi of the Northern Sung once went deep into the mountains to live with the apes so as to observe their ecology. Digging a pond for flowers, letting water fowl gather there and concealing himself in dark places to observe their activities, his spirit of investigation was not so far removed from that of today's ecologists.
Because the ability of the Sung artists to work from nature was built on the foundation of observation, when you share their ornithological experience many problems are revealed in what are faked Sung paintings as it is possible to observe whether they have been done from life or are just imitations. Lin Po-ting explains, "Usually later people imitated the Sung paintings with great skill, but they had not been through the process of observation, so they could often unwittingly reveal their weak points."
This is especially so with the Ming dynasty, when artists also worked from life, had great ability when it came to realistic portrayal and adopted a more florid style than the Northern Sung. Many works from that time were stamped with seals counterfeiting the Sung paintings. But if you look carefully you can discover that what they ultimately lacked was actually that special quality of thinking developed by the Sung after its engagement in studying the anatomy of objects.
Lin Po-ting says that one cannot go so far as to say that everyone in the Sung was possessed by the empiricist spirit, but at that time it was certainly a prerequisite for any artist who wanted to set about painting birds. It was this flourishing of research into the nature of birds that gives Sung paintings their degree of rationality when looked at from today's perspective.
Finding the self in contemplation of nature:
The basic nature of art is to evolve according to the principle of moving from simplicity to complexity, then returning back from over-complexity to simplicity. By the Southern Sung, painting had developed to such extreme realism that brush work tended now to veer back towards calligraphic simplicity. In sketching flowers and birds, the Southern Sung painters gave up intricate lines of neat perfection in favor of bold and vigorous strokes and forsook rich colors in favor of more gentle pigments. Simplification of form could bring out the impressionistic meaning of subjects, opening the way to vigorous brush work, forlorn imagery and the world of impressionism.
In his writing On Sparrows and Painting Sparrows, Lin Yu-shan, a painter of the older generation, says that the paintings of that time already show an understanding that beauty can be achieved without florid shapes and colors but through a simplicity and plain elegance that emphasizes the effects of brush work. Under the influence of this tide of thinking, although the "appearance" of a sparrow might be plain, its status is not inferior to that of a rare species and it came to play an important role in bird painting.
Art is essentially free and there are no fixed rules to determine how it should be done. After the Southern Sung, painters forsook appearances for the sake of spirit, thinking it was enough to just pursue the spirit of things and that true appearances could be given up. Those who followed could only say that this was a choice made by Chinese artists, an aesthetic shift that could be judged to be neither right nor wrong. Yet even this kind of change was still built on the detailed observation by which it was preceded, passing through the intermediary of formal expression, although the ultimate aim was complete self-fulfilment.
In the later development of Chinese art, artists on the whole came to believe that all that was needed was a richness of thought and no fear of crude technique and simple colors. People felt that human beings would never be able to really attain the rigorous standards of such a teacher as nature and had to get rid of gaudy representations. The return to nature was thus rather seen as a returning to one's own heart, a quiet listening to the dialog of nature with the self. Such was the case of the animal and bird paintings of Pa Ta Shan Jen of the Ching dynasty in which the subject is portrayed with just a few minimal strokes of the brush. Here the aim of using birds as subjects is to express the territory of the artist's inner being. It is this that the Chinese literati came to think of as being the highest attainment in art.
If you do not suffer the winter . . .:
Unfortunately, later developments, no matter whether of an impressionistic or realistic bent, have all been considered not in tune with the times. Lacking form and structure, following the whims of subjective opinion, "fish eyes came to be passed off as pearls, " while flower and bird painters gradually lost their interest in quiet contemplation of the myriad things of nature. The Ching dynasty artist Fang Hsun could thus say that while the flower and bird painting of the Sung was held in high esteem for its capturing of the vital significance of life, "Today when people paint vegetables, insects and fish using blobs of ink it is called impressionist, while detailed outlines and filled in colors are called realistic; thinking that impressionism follows impressions and realism is like life and resembles objects, they know not the meaning of the laws and ordinances established by the ancients. In reality, impressionism and realism are merely the portraying of the vital significance of the being of objects."
Apart from a small minority, most people arrived at the misunderstanding that Chinese flower and bird painting lacks the qualities of observation, only knowing the detailed craftsmanship and polish that harks after the refined brush work of the ancients.
At this time the West was passing through a turbulent stage in which observation of nature developed to become a special discipline.
In Europe after the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the rise of commerce, the individual was released from the yoke of religion and people became conscious of the value of their own nature. Human existence and the materials conquered by people became the stuff of art. This was especially so for the Dutch, who colonized Taiwan and were the earliest to expand their markets and search for resources. When the ascending bourgeoisie became important buyers in the art market, this led to the rise of portraiture and the gentrification of subjects which came to include scenes common in everyday life, animals and plants, with rabbits, fish and birds often appearing in still lifes. The development of science and medicine and the flourishing of anatomy meant that gashed horses and wounded birds appeared in hunting scenes and became fashionable for a time. However, such art, revelling in the human conquest of nature, never became mainstream.
When China meets the West:
With the eighteenth century explosion in the natural sciences, many artists followed explorers to all corners of the earth to portray the flora and fauna they found. Such painting for the scientific record was concerned primarily with seeking factual truth. When tools were developed to aid in the appreciation of nature and ecological research took off, conservationism swept the world and the number of bird watchers increased daily. Scientific illustrations were produced in great quantities and the demands of the art market gave rise to the ecological art of today.
While the West is in the process of learning from nature, Western artists appealing for respect for the environment and set on portraying nature still lock swords with the traditional painters of the hunt. Now that the dust has settled, the natural ecology of plants and animals has become a favorite subject for artists. Birds, with their resplendent colors and great variety, have especially come to play an important role. "In this way China and the West are connected," thinks Chiang Hsun. Although Chinese artists in the past did not have the Western biological knowledge of what animals eat and how their bodies are shaped, "There are different kinds of scientific method, and the level of respect for the fundamental essence of nature had already reached a very high point."
Looking at it from the long river of art, China once took the lead in ecology. Yet aesthetics developed to take roads leading in different directions, no matter who has been fastest or most able. The ideals and thinking given to painting by the Western meeting of art and science in bird painting might accidentally be the same as those of the classical Chinese, but it can only be said that people today have finally discovered the wonders of nature and drawn them to areas of great beauty. It is thus that it has become the subject matter of painting.
Realism easy--art from life hard:
Today native culture is increasingly receiving more attention, and people are concerned about indigenous bird species. In science, great emphasis is placed on exact breeds and species, and painters strive to portray Mikado pheasants or other precise species of birds. What must be aspired to in painting birds, apart from aesthetic enjoyment, must still be to let spectators understand birds at a glance. The challenge for artists is very great.
"Ultimately, impressionism can paint with a bold freedom, although there is a fear that it lacks any real significance. But wanting to paint in a refined and detailed way that can bring your work to life is not at all easy," says Lin Po-ting. That the flower and bird painting of the Ming and Ching dynasties is said to have fallen into an ossified pattern was precisely because, having followed classical styles for too long, their work lacked vitality.
In fact, it is not that difficult to just go through a rigorous artistic training to overcome the difficulties of true representation. But to achieve the meeting of spirit and form, as did the artists of the Sung dynasty, artists must overcome the problem of style and not just technique.
Perhaps modern bird painting originated from the West. Yet an artist like Ho Hua-jen, who gave up his job to go to the central mountains to make observations, apart from seeking to paint birds realistically also wants to use his prints to represent the bird species of Taiwan with simple bold lines. Instead of being called Western, such an evolution might better be said to be even more Chinese in its travelling of the same road as the ancients. What must be fully realized is that just portraying a good likeness is not the essence of art. If you want to get back to real art, then questions of "real or unreal" are really of secondary importance.
[Picture Caption]
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Nature's myriad manifestations have always been subjects for Chinses painting, although artists have never been confined to realistic portrayal but have pursued the spirit behind appearances. In this work by Ming dynasty artist Sun Lung, simple patches of ink fully capture the lofty air of the hoopoe. The photograph below shows a hoopoe caught in the lens of photographer Kuo Chih-yung.
p.79
In this painting of a "bamboo pigeon" (shrike) by Li An-chung of the Sung dynasty, the upper part of the bird's beak is slightly curved, covering the lower part, while there is white coloring over the eye and on the shoulders and layers of coloring on the body are disdtinct. It seems as vivid as either the one in the wild or the one painted by Ho Hua-jen, except that the Sung dynasty painter chose to emphasize the round body shape. (right photo by Kuo Chih-yung, left picture courtesy of Ho Hua-jen)
p.81
(Above)The maroon oriole painted by the nineteenth century German artist Wolf appeared in the English ornithological journal /bis. The modern style of painting wild birds began with depictions by Western painters of the flora and fauna collected by biologists from all over the world.
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(Below)Two years ago, the issue of stamps by the Chinese Postal Museum showing the wild bird species of Taiwan's mountain streams by Yang En-sheng was widely welcomed. The challenge for artists wanting to unify art and acience is a big one.(courtesy of the Chinese Postal Museum)
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The unity of form and spirit evident in Tsui Pai's Double Happiness is representative of the Sung dynasty genre of flower and bird painting from
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Art historians say that Plum, Bamboo and Animals from the painting academy of the Sung emperor Hui Tsung reveals that the artist not only knew how bamboo grows and sprouts leaves, but also that he understood the difference between the long fine feathers of the pigeon and the pointed plumage of the quail.
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Huang Chuan's scroll of rare species painted from life features birds the names of which today's bird watchers can call out with ease. To the left and center of the picture can be seen the migratory white wagtail which passes through Taiwan every year. Below is a photograph of the white wagtail taken by photographer Kuo Chih-yung.
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Ho Hua-jen, who held an exhibition of woodcut prints of Taiwan's birds, once left the city to travel to Liukuei and observe birds as an aid to capturing their spirit and ecology. This woodcut shows an innocent-looking wide-eyed owl in a style that is natural, simple and unexaggerated. (courtesy of Ho Hua-jen)