Abstract
In the Chinese tradition, the concept of nature 自然 is predicated on its difference from or contrast to whatever belongs to the sphere of human effort, thus the nature-culture relationship needs to be explored to appreciate the artistic idea of natural scenery or 山水 in Chinese literature and painting. This chapter explores that relationship in an East-west comparative perspective and traces the beginning of landscape poetry and painting in China, presenting the basic idea that despite its appearance of huge mountains and tiny human figures, Chinese landscape painting represents a humanized nature as the manifestation of the artist’s ideas, emotions, and desires, quite different from a realistic representation of nature as the outside world.
A slightly shorter version of this chapter was presented as the 35th Annual Freeman Lecture at Wesleyan University on April 15, 2010. I would like to thank Professor Vera Schwarcz for inviting me to deliver the Freeman Lecture and for providing the opportunity for a most helpful exchange of ideas with my audience and friends.
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Notes
- 1.
Zhouyi zhengyi 周易正義[The Correct Meaning of the Book of Changes], in Ruan Yuan 阮元 (1764–1849) (ed.), Shisan jing zhushu 十三經注疏[The Thirteen Classics with Annotations], 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1980), 1: 86.
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Lorraine Daston and Fernando Vidal, “Introduction: Doing What Comes Naturally,” in L. Daston and F. Vidal (eds.), The Moral Authority of Nature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), p. 4.
- 5.
Ibid., p. 7.
- 6.
For the use of the first chapter of Liu Xie’s Literary Mind for a “naturalist” interpretation of the Chinese language and literature, see François Jullien, La valeur allusive: Des catégories originales de l’interprétation poétique dans la tradition chinoise (Contribution à une réflexion sur l’altérité interculturelle) (Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1985); and Stephen Owen, Traditional Chinese Poetry and Poetics: Omen of the World (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985).
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Zhang Longxi, Allegoresis: Reading Canonical Literature East and West (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), p. 34.
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Liu An 劉安 (178?–122 b. c. e.), Huainanzi淮南子 [The Master of Huainan], ed. and annotated by Gao You 高誘, in Zhuzi jicheng 諸子集成 [Collection of Master Writings], 8 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1954), 7: 116–17.
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Wang Xianqian 王先謙 (1842–1918), Xunzi jijie 荀子集解 [Xunzi with Collected Annotations], in Zhuzi jicheng [Collection of Master Writings], 2: 274.
- 10.
Ibid., 2: 289.
- 11.
Ibid., 2: 243.
- 12.
Oscar Wilde, “The Decay of Lying,” Intentions (New York: Brentano’s, 1950), p. 55.
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Plato, Republic X, 605b, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, including the Letters, eds. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 830.
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Laozi with annotations by Wang Bi 王弼 (226–249), Laozi zhu老子注 [Laozi with Annotations], chapt. 81, in Zhuzi jicheng [Collection of Master Writings], 3:47.
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Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. Werner S. Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), §5, p. 53.
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Liu An, Huainanzi [The Master of Huainan], in Zhuzi jicheng [Collection of Master Writings], 7: 95.
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John Rennie Short, Imagined Country: Environment, Culture and Society (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 6.
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Ibid., pp. 7–8.
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Zhang Yanyuan 張彥遠, Lun hua 論畫 [On Paintings], in Shen Zicheng 沈子丞 (ed.), Lidai lun hua mingzhu huibian歷代論畫名著彙編 [Collection of Famous Writings on Painting from Various Dynasties] (Beijing: Wenwu, 1982), p. 37.
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Fu Baoshi 傅抱石, Zhongguo gudai shanshui hua shi yanjiu 中國古代山水畫史研究 [Studies in the History of Classical Chinese Landscape Painting] (Taipei: Xuehai, 1982), p, 56.
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Chen Chuanxi 陳傳席, Zhongguo shanshui hua shi 中國山水畫史 [History of Chinese Landscape Painting] (Nanjing: Jiangsu meishu, 1988), p. 1.
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Liu Xie, with annotations by Fan Wenlan, Wenxin diaolong zhu [Literary Mind or the Carving of Dragons with Annotations], 1:67.
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See Tang Yongtong 湯用彤, “Wei-Jin Literature and Thought,” in Tang Yongtong quanji 湯用彤全集 [Tang Yongtong’s Complete Works], 7 vols. (Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin, 2000), 4:292 ff.
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Zhang Yanyuan, Lun hua [On Paintings], in Shen Zicheng (ed.), Lidai lun hua mingzhu huibian [Collection of Famous Writings on Painting from Various Dynasties], p. 39.
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Zou Yigui 鄒一桂, Xiaoshan huapu小山畫譜 [Xiaoshan’s Painting Models], ibid., p. 453.
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Fedja Anzelewsky, Dürer: His Art and Life, trans. Heide Grieve (New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1980), p. 37.
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Jing Hao 荊浩 (855?–915), Shanshui jue 山水訣 [Essentials of Landscape], in Shen Zicheng (ed.), Lidai lun hua mingzhu huibian [Collection of Famous Writings on Painting from Various Dynasties], p. 53.
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Wang Guowei 王國維, Renjian cihua 人間詞話 [Commentaries on ci Poetry], ed. Xu Tiaofu 徐調孚 (Hong Kong: Zhongshu, 1961), p. 1.
- 31.
Ibid., p. 2.
- 32.
Quoted from Mo Xiaoye 莫小也, Shiqi-shiba shiji chuanjiaoshi yu xi hua dong jian 十七—十八世紀傳教士與西畫東漸 [The Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Missionaries and the Eastward Spread of Western Painting] (Hangzhou: China Fine Art College Press, 2002), p. 54.
- 33.
Zou Yigui, Xiaoshan huapu [Xiaoshan’s Painting Models], in Lidai lun hua mingzhu huibian [Collection of Famous Writings on Painting from Various Dynasties], p. 466.
- 34.
Wang Wei 王維, Shanshui lun 山水論 [On Landscape Painting], ibid., p. 32.
- 35.
Zhang Yanyuan, Lun hua [On Paintings], ibid., p. 38.
- 36.
Ni Zan 倪瓚, Lun hua論畫 [On Painting], ibid., p. 205.
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Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修, “Panche tu,” in Ouyang Xiu quanji 歐陽修全集 [Ouyang Xiu’s Complete Works], 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhongguo shudian, 1992), 1:43.
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Shen Kuo 沈括, with annotations by Hu Daojing 胡道靜, Xin jiaozhu Mengxi bitan新校注夢溪筆談 [Mengxi’s Conversations with a Writing Brush with New Annotations] (Hong Kong: Zhonghua, 1975), p. 169.
- 40.
Guo Xi 郭熙, Lin quan gaozhi 林泉高致 [The Elegance of Woods and Springs], in Lidai lun hua mingzhu huibian [Collection of Famous Writings on Painting from Various Dynasties], pp. 71–72.
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Guo Qingfan 郭慶藩 (1844–1895), Zhuangzi jishi莊子集釋 [Variorum Edition of the Zhuangzi], in Zhuzi jicheng [Collection of Master Writings], 3:53–54.
- 42.
Su Shi, “Three poems on Yuke’s bamboos in Yao Buzhi’s collection,” Su Shi shiji [Su Shi’s Collected Poems], 5:1522.
- 43.
Su Shi, “Wen Yuke’s bamboo paintings,” Su Shi wenji [Su Shi’s Collected Writings], 6 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1979), 2:365.
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Du Fu 杜甫 with annotations by Qiu Zhao’ao 仇兆鰲 (fl. 1685), Du shi xiangzhu 杜詩詳注 [Du Fu’s Poems with Detailed Annotations], 5 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1979), 3:1149.
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Wu Guanzhong 吳冠中, Wo du Shi Tao hua yulu 我讀石濤畫語錄 [My Reading of Shi Tao’s Remarks on Painting], (Beijing: Rongbaozhai, 1997), pp. 1, 16, 18.
- 46.
Yun Shouping 惲壽平, Nantian lunhua 南田論畫 [On Painting], in Lidai lun hua mingzhu huibian [Collection of Famous Writings on Painting from Various Dynasties], p. 329.
- 47.
Liu Baonan 劉寶楠 (1791–1855), Lunyu zhengyi 論語正義 [The Correct Meaning of the Analects], in Zhuzi jicheng [Collection of Master Writings], 1:127.
- 48.
Ibid., 1:188.
- 49.
Jiao Xun 焦循 (1763–1820), Mengzi zhengyi孟子正義 [The Correct Meaning of the Works of Mencius], in Zhuzi jicheng [Collection of Master Writings], 1:331.
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Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒, Chunqiu fanlu 春秋繁露 [Exuberant Dews of the Spring and Autumn] (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1937), pp. 249–50.
- 51.
Li Bai 李白, “Question and Answer in the Mountain,” in Li Taibai quanji李太白全集 [Li Bai’s Complete Works], 3 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1977), 2:874.
- 52.
Li Bai, “Sitting Alone in Mount Jingting,” ibid., 2:1079.
- 53.
Xing Qiji 辛棄疾, “In the tune of He xinlang,” in Deng Guangming 鄧廣銘 (ed.), Jiaxuan ci biannian jianzhu 稼軒詞編年箋注 [Xing Qiji’s ci Poetry in Chronological Order with Annotations] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1993), p. 515.
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Zhang, L. (2013). Nature and Landscape in the Chinese Tradition. In: Cheng, Pk., Fan, K. (eds) New Perspectives on the Research of Chinese Culture. Chinese Culture, vol 1. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4021-78-4_1
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