Chinese landscape painting officially arose during the Jin and Song dynasties, and many commentators have explored the reasons for its rise from the Six Dynasties period when literati and doctors lived in the mountains and forests and liked landscapes, but this is not the direct root of the rise of landscape painting.
The immediate root cause of the rise of landscape painting is metaphysics. Leaving metaphysics to explore the origins of landscape painting, there are many problems that are difficult to explain. For example, it is said that during the Wei and Jin dynasties, literati doctors loved landscapes and recognized the aesthetic value of landscapes, so they wrote their favorite subjects into paintings, then during the Wei and Jin dynasties, literati doctors also loved bamboo chrysanthemums, some people "picked chrysanthemums under the eastern fence", and even some people could not live without bamboo for a day, so why not rise bamboo chrysanthemum paintings from then on? I think that from the rise and implementation of metaphysics to find the root cause of the rise of landscape painting, many problems, especially in the theory of landscape painting can be better solved.
At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, due to the warlords' scuffle, the productive forces were greatly damaged, the cities lost the political and economic significance they once had, the local natural economy occupied a dominant position, and the local real power was scattered in the hands of those feudal nobles, who wanted to develop their own economic and social forces, so they demanded that the monarch "do nothing" and resign himself to nature, so as to achieve the purpose of consolidating the economy of the clan landlords and allowing them to fully develop. Therefore, the development of metaphysics has its own certain reasons.
The Wenxin Carved Dragon Treatise has a cloud: "From the beginning of the beginning (240 to 249), I wanted to keep the text, the disciple of He Yan, and the beginning of the Sheng Xuan theory." So Nie (Lao Tzu) and Zhou (Zhuangzi) took the road and fought with the nun (Confucius). Metaphysicians used various forms to advocate metaphysics, and in the beginning, He Yan's school expressed the philosophical content of metaphysics through poetry, so he founded "Xuanyan Poetry". During the Two Jin Dynasties, Xuanyan poetry developed even more, almost all of which were used to expound "Lao" and "Zhuang". The Wenxin Carved Dragon Chronology has a cloud: "Since the Middle Dynasty (Western Jin Dynasty) Guixuan, Jiang Zuo (Eastern Jin) is prosperous, because of the aftermath of talking, it has flowed into a literary style... The will of the poems under the pillar (Lao Tzu) is endowed with the righteousness of the Lacquer Garden (Zhuangzi). Shen Yue's "Biography of Xie Lingyun of the Book of Song" has clouds: "There is Jin Zhongxing, Xuanfeng Solo Vibration, poor under the pillar for learning, the natural material stops at seven, chi chengwen, and yidan (殚) is here... Don't hesitate to resign Shangde (Laozi) and Toyi Xuanzhu (Zhuangzi). Zhong Rong's "General Treatise on Poetry" also said: "Yongjia Shi Gui Huang Lao, a little bit of vain talk, Yu ShiShi, rationalize his words, faint taste, and Jiang Biao (Eastern Jin Dynasty)... The poems are like "Moral Theory". To this point, Xuanyan poetry has completely become a political preacher, and change is inevitable.
So the early Song Dynasty began with Xie Lingyun, from Xuanyan poetry to landscape poetry, and there is a famous passage in the Wenxin Carved Dragon Ming Poem: "Song Chu Wen Yong, the body has a cause of revolution, Zhuang and the old retreat, and the landscape is Fangzi." In fact, when advocating "Zhuang and Lao", it is laying the foundation for the "Fang Zi" of landscape poetry, and it is an inevitable trend for Xuanyan poetry to change into landscape poetry. Sun Qi's "Yu Liang Stele" has clouds: "Every inch is clear, and it is fixed on the landscape and water." "Landscape and occultism are connected in people's subjective consciousness, so the scholars and doctors of the Wei and Jin dynasties were obsessed with landscapes to appreciate the mysteries and pursue the spiritual realm of harmony with the Tao, which also had an inevitable impact on poetry and painting. Since the image of landscape is the most suitable medium for expressing the occult, a large number of landscape scenes have entered poetry and painting, making landscape poetry and landscape painting a tool for speech and enlightenment. Zong Bing said that the role of landscape painting was to "ChengHuai Guan Dao" and "Cheng Huai Taste Elephant" ("Cheng Huai Guan Dao" for the phrase "Song Shu Zong Bing's Biography"). For the phrase "Cheng Huai Wei Xiang", see "Painting Landscape And Water Sequence", "Elephant" is an image manifested by the way of the saints, and also "like"). He clearly pointed out in the "Preface to Painting Landscapes": "Landscapes and rivers are flattering in shape. ”
Whether it is "landscape and water in the form of a flattering way" or "with Xuan to the landscape", it can be seen that the literati of the Six Dynasties are attached to the landscape, in addition to visiting, there is a more important purpose, that is, to appreciate the mysteries or experience the way of the saints.
The content of Zong Bing's "Preface to Painting Landscapes" is to explain that the creation of landscape paintings can achieve the purpose of "viewing the Tao" and "taste".
Chinese scholars preach the "Tao", and current events are inseparable from the "Tao", and "those who are also the Tao must not be separated from it" ("Zhongyong"). The connotation of the ancient "Tao" is very large, referring to the irresistible law of natural and social development, the origin and essence of all things in the universe, the ideas and doctrines with special roles; it is a certain outlook on life and world, and it is an absolutized law that must be followed between heaven and earth from the people to the people. In short, "Tao" is the highest category in the philosophical system of thought. But ancient landscape painting has always been the most closely related to the old and zhuang ways.
The first to associate landscape painting with the old and Zhuang ways was Zong Bing. Although Zong Bing was a Buddhist, from the perspective of his surviving articles such as "On the Ming Buddha", his belief in Buddhism was mainly karma, and his thoughts were more influenced by metaphysics, he said: "If Lao Tzu and Zhuang Zhou Dao, Song and Qiao Liezhen techniques, faith can wash the mind and nourish the body." Therefore, Zong Bing's thought was "interpretation" and his practice was "Tao". What he said in "Preface to Painting Landscapes" that "landscapes and rivers are flattering in shape" is the way of the old and the zhuang. He spent his life touring landscapes and painting landscapes, that is, experiencing the way of the saints in landscapes.
How can you see the way of the saints in the mountains? In other words, which of the saints can "see things"? The way of the old and the zhuang is the metaphysical, Zhuangzi Yun: "I don't know what it is called the way." Although the Tao cannot be seen or touched, it is "blind to things," and the sages can observe things and know the Tao. Lao Tzu Yun: The Tao is like water, "The good is like water, the water is good for all things without dispute, and the evil of the people is almost better than the Tao" (Lao Tzu, chapter 8). The Tao that Lao Tzu talks about in many places is realized from water, water is "several than the Tao", looking at water is also looking at the Tao, and the water drawn is equal to the Tao. If the water is like this, the mountain is even more unspeakable. "Zhuangzi Zhibei Tour": "The heavens and the earth are big, beautiful but not words", do not go to the landscape, can you deeply understand these "Tao" of the saints? In the landscape, can we not see and realize the way of the saints?
The greater role of landscape is to "purify the Xuanlan" (Lao Tzu's ten chapters), "fast to nourish the heart", "fasting, dredging and the heart, bathing in the snow and spirit" (Zhuangzi Zhibei Tour). Taoists especially advocate "quiet knowledge", "to the virtual pole, keep quiet", "therefore quiet, all things are not enough to scratch the heart", the mountains and forests and the troubled downtown, on the contrary, is the most suitable for the Taoist "quiet knowledge of the Tao". Most of the Daoists in Zhuangzi are related to the mountains and forests: "Yao... To see the Mountain of the Four Sons of The Four Sons", "The Getaway"), "The Yellow Emperor will see the Great Kui at the Mountain of Guci" ("Xu Wu Ghost"), "The Yellow Emperor... Wen Guangchengzi was seen in the void above the mountain name" ("In Yu"), Gu Zhu "the second son north to the mountain of Shouyang" ("Let the King"). These accounts illustrate this point. Zong Bing's desire to "clear the way of contemplation" is to purify the heart of dirty snobbery, to escape from the empty mountains and forests, and to "communicate with the spirit of heaven and earth alone" (Zhuangzi), so when Zong Bing is old and sick and unable to swim in the landscape, he creates landscape paintings, lies down to swim, and "reproduces the principle of nature" to achieve the purpose of "sending things and passing through (the Tao)".
"Lin Quan Gao Zhi" tells the intention of the predecessors to paint landscapes: "So the gentleman loves the landscape of his husband, his purpose is at peace? Qiu Garden nourishment, so often also, Izumi shi xiao proud, so often happy also, fishing tree seclusion, so often suitable also... For the sake of the world's unworldly journey, it will be with Ji Ying Li Su and Huang Qi. "From here, we can see the mountain and forest character of the Taoist scholars.
After the Tang Dynasty, landscape painting occupied the mainstream of the painting world, and most of the important painters were hermits and people with hermit ideas, who painted more for themselves, and in their thoughts, Taoist thought dominated. Confucianism is active in joining the world, advocating "carrying the Tao with literature" and "supplementing the world"; Taoists are born out of the world, advocating "pleasant and pleasant nature" and "self-cultivation". Therefore, there are not many ancient landscape paintings that really have the role of discernment, and most of them are the works of "longitudinal music pictures" used by Zhuang Xueshi to experience the Tao.
The "theosology" in painting is largely attributed to Gu Kaizhi, but Gu Kaizhi's "theosophy" refers to the transmission of gods by figure paintings. Should landscape painting also convey the spirit? This can also be learned from zong bing and Wang Wei's painting theory.
Zong Bing was a famous theorist of the division of divine forms, Wang Wei was different from Zong Bing, in the ideological circles of the late Jin Dynasty and the early Song Dynasty, he, like Yan Yanzhi and Tao Yuanming, belonged to the same faction of "the unity of the divine form, the extinction of the form of death and the annihilation of the gods".
Zong Bing said in the "Preface to Painting Landscapes": "Perch sense of shape", "quality and interesting spirit". Wang Wei said, "The one who is in shape melts the soul." Zong Bing said that form and god (spirit) are two bodies, and Wang Wei believes that form and god (spirit) are originally one and inseparable. Zong Bing's Tao-based and ultimately tend to the Tao, Wang Wei is based on Confucianism and eventually tends to the Tao, the ideas they reflect in the painting theory are opposites, but the essential requirements for the expression of painting are the same, and both emphasize the need to "write the god of landscape and water".
Zong Bing's "Painting Landscape Sequence" mentioned in the "Beauty Tao", "Guan Dao", "Taste" and other functions of landscape painting, mainly through the god of landscape and water, Wang Wei recounted that landscape painting is different from the picture sutra, but also emphasizes the role of the god of landscape and water. The so-called god of landscape and water, the spirit of landscape, is actually synonymous with the beauty of landscape and the moving place of landscape.
Zong Bing, Wang Wei's theory of landscape painting theology broke the previous concept that only figure painting could convey god, and had a great influence on the theory that everything should be transmitted in the later painting theory, Tang Yuanshu: "Zhang Xuan painted ancient pines, often got the bones of the gods. Song Sushi: "Bian Luan Finch sketches, Zhao Changhua conveys the gods." He also said: "The old may be a bamboo photo, and Xiao Po is now with the bamboo gods." "Characters, flowers, birds, bamboo and stone all want to convey the gods, so Song Deng Chun in the "Painting Succession" volume 9 youyun: "Painting for the use of the big ,...... Those who can bend the end, stop one Dharma ear, one he also, that is, the transmission of God is only enough, the disciples of the world know that there is a God in man, but he does not know that there is a God in things. "This is in line with the theories of Zong and Wang.
The emergence of the theory of landscape painting was also influenced by metaphysics. "Getting carried away with the image", "sending words to the unexpected", and "getting the fish and forgetting the basket" are the central topics of the epistemology and methodology of Wei and Jin metaphysics, and they are also the unique way of observing and thinking about problems by the Wei and Jin masters. In fact, metaphysicians always exaggerate and propagate the spiritual essence through various channels, the so-called "form and god to stand" clouds, and deny the material content. Zong Bing emphasized that all things have spirits, and all things are manifestations of gods. But God cannot be seen, just as Zong Bing and the metaphysicians said that God is impossible to grasp, so the metaphysicians at that time had no choice but to admit that spiritual, formless, and nihilistic things were always expressed with the help of certain material, tangible, and real things. Wang Bi emphasized in the "Great Yanyi": "All husbands cannot be ignorant, and it must be because of existence." That is, "none" cannot be self-explanatory, and must be "existing" in order to exist. Zong Bing said: "The god is dead, and the sense of perching is similar." Wang Wei also said: "What the spirit sees when it dies, so it does not move." Guo Xiang said in the "Notes on Zhuangzi Foreign Objects": "The principle of nature has sent things and passed through them." Zong Bing, on the other hand, has the idea of "the sage Cheng Huai Wei Xiang" and "the landscape is beautiful and the benevolent is happy", and his "writing in shape, coloring with color" is to reproduce the "principle of nature", to seek the god of dwelling from "shape", that is, to appreciate the mysteries from the landscape on the painting and understand the Tao.
All of the above shows that the emergence of landscape painting and early landscape painting theories is closely related to metaphysical thought.
Text/Chen Chuanxi Selected from "The History of Chinese Landscape Painting in Full Color"
P.S. When the original manuscript of this article was published in the 4th issue of Fine Arts Research in 1983, it was deleted by seven tenths, and the main discussion was almost non-existent, and the language was not similar.
Source: Yueya Calligraphy and Painting
EDIT: Pony