This brief survey has shown how the distinctive features of China's
artistic activity were distributed. Though subjected to varying
influences, this evolution possesses a unity which is quite as complete as
is that of our Western art. In the beginning there were studies, of which
we know only through written records. But the relationship existing
between writing and painting from the dawn of historic time, permits us to
carry our studies of primitive periods very far back, even earlier than
the times of the sculptured works. We thus witness the gradual development
of that philosophical ideal which has dominated the entire history of
Chinese painting, forcing it to search for abstract form, and which
averted for so long the advent of triviality and decadence.
The goal sought by Chinese thought had already been reached in painting
when, in the third and fourth centuries, we are vouchsafed a glimpse of
it. It is a vision of a high order, in which the subtle intellectuality
corresponds to a society of refinement whose desires have already assumed
extreme proportions. Like Byzantium, heir to Hellenistic art, the China
of the Han dynasty and of Ku K'ai-chih was already progressing toward bold
conventions and soft harmonies, in which could be felt both the pride of
an intelligence which imposed its will upon Nature, and the weariness
following its sustained effort.
[Illustration: PLATE XXIV. PAINTING BY CHANG CHENG
Eighteenth Century. Collection of M. Worch.]
This refinement, arising from the exhaustion of a world which even thus
retained a certain primitive ruggedness, was succeeded by a stupendous
movement which followed in the wake of the preaching of Buddhism. With the
new gods we see the first appearance of definite and long-continued
foreign influences. Civilization was transformed and took on new life.
Then, as in the days of the great forerunners of the Florentine
Renaissance, there appeared a whole group of artists, prepared by the art,
at once crude and refined, of an earlier people. This group set resolutely
to work at the close study of forms, ascertaining the laws of their
structure and the conditions of the environment which produced them. The
period in which the work of Li Ss[)u]-hsuen, Li Chao-tao and Wang Wei was
produced may be likened to the fifteenth century in Florence with
Pisanello, Verocchio, Ghirlandajo and Masaccio. Similar conditions gave
birth to a movement that is directly comparable with the Italian movement
for, no matter how varied the outward appearances due to differences of
race and civilization, the fundamentals of art are the same everywhere and
pertain to the same mental attitudes.
The great leaders in periods preceding the T'ang dynasty paved the way to
the culmination which took place in the Sung period, and thus the fruit of
that prolonged activity is seen ripening between the tenth and the
thirteenth centuries. Through the gropings of the primitive period, the
heterodox philosophies and the mystic stirrings of Buddhism, Eastern
thought had arrived at an unquestionably noble comprehension of existence.
The impersonal mystery of the universe, its mighty principle, its manifold
manifestations and the secret which unveils itself in the innermost soul
of things are the conceptions which form the inspiration of Chinese
painting. These lofty thoughts are the source of that spirituality which
declares itself therein with such nobility. The religion to which they are
due will seem perhaps, to certain people, to be broader and less trammeled
than our own. There is no doubt that the entire Far East was under the
spell of its grandeur.
Up to this point art had sounded every depth and attained the highest
summits of human achievement. Thenceforward it concerned itself with
varying manifestations which were only the different modes of a formula
that was still flexible, until the time when--the great inspirations of
the past forgotten--there appear signs of a spirit on the quest for
realism, emerging from the ancient tradition. This is the distinctive note
in the evolution of Chinese painting under the last two dynasties. It
would seem as if, even in this guise, a universal need of the mind is
being satisfied, a need which we, too, have known after experiencing a
chilling academicism, and when modern culture had overthrown the ancient
idols. Chinese painters have thus completed a round analogous to that
traveled by our own artists.
[Illustration: PLATE XXV. TIGER IN A PINE FOREST
Eighteenth to Nineteenth Centuries. Collection of V. Goloubew.]
For the Far East as for Europe, the problem now presented is that of a
revival. Bent beneath the weight of the prestige of the past, too learned
in the last word of culture, modern art is seeking to find itself, groping
blindly, full of promising but unfinished works. The time has come when
there are signs throughout the world of a desire for a universal
civilization, by the reconciling of ancient divergencies. Europe and the
Far East bring into contrast the most vigorous traditions in history.
Henceforward there is interest for both civilizations in studying and in
coming to understand a foreign ideal. Though incomplete, these pages will
perhaps help to show that such a mutual comprehension is not impossible
and that, if egotistic prejudices are overcome, apparent dissimilarities
will be resolved into a profound identity. Thus will arise the elements of
a new culture. In coming to understand a mood which so fully reflects an
unknown world, the European mind will discover principles which will make
it rise superior to itself. May this broad comprehension of human thought
lead Europe to estimate with greater justice a civilization numbering its
years by thousands, and to refrain from thwarting the fulfillment of its
destiny.
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