Dimensions of Originality: Essays on Seventeenth-Century Chinese Art Th eory and Criticism

Chapter 10: The End of Originality

chapter 10 The End of Originality as the Seventeenth Century Knew It Whereas expressions of originality and difference dominate aesthetic discourse in the late Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), open and explicit interest in these ideals continued during the first decades of the early Qing (1644– 1911) yet was met with some resistance. As the new Manchu state sought to legitimize itself in the eyes of its Han Chinese subjects, it established controlling social and cultural policies. On the surface of it, these policies endeavored to align the state with the traditional values of the intellectual and political Han elite; functionally, however, they favored predictability and sameness for easy governance. This political stance is reflected in the aesthetic criticism of the time, as Qing critics of the late seventeenth-early eighteenth centuries began to find ways to change the seventeenth-century paradigm. Some transformed the values of bold difference and newness once celebrated in what is termed in this book as Originalist art (that is, art in the styles of seventeenth-century painting previously identified as “eccentric” or “individualistic ,” discussed in Chapter 2) into values pejoratively connoting confrontational difference and defiance. Others denigrated it, dismissed it, or ignored it altogether, and offered instead a discourse of pabulum disguised as traditional literati values. Qing painting has been considered by many to be conservative in nature (Fig. 10-1). With its heavy reliance on prescribed reiterations of established literati forms and techniques, some, then and now, would even say it is boring, especially in contrast to the boldly challenging paintings that dominate the long seventeenth century, that is, a period from about 292 | dimensions of originality Fig. 10-1 Wang Yuanqi (1642–1715), Landscape after Huang Gongwang for Zhanting, 1710, hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, 95.2 × 47 cm (371/2 × 181/2 in.). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Marie-Hélène and Guy Weill, 2011 (2011.574). Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. chapter 10: the end of originality | 293 1570–1720. In a biography of his contemporary, the great Originalist artist Shitao 石濤 (1642–1707, sobriquet, Dadizi), early Qing critic Li Lin 李驎 (1634–1710) laments (in this translation by Jonathan Hay): Alas! What was considered poetry and prose in ancient times started from the Self (wo), while that of today is no more than plagiarism. The same is true of calligraphy and painting. [People] are incapable of generating their own ideas: Using formulae, they fondle the ability of their predecessors. This is the way of the mediocre! Now, qishi (“originals”) are necessarily different, but qishi are never to be seen. There is only Dadizi whom I find original (qi).1 In this passage, Li Lin indexes the discourse of originality through the term qi 奇, literally, “different,” and by extension “marvelous,” and “extraordinary ,” and in aesthetic criticism, also “original,” as here. (For a fuller discussion of the term, see Chapters 4 through 7.) We need summon but one example by a member of the group commonly referred to as the “Six Orthodox Masters” (Fig. 10-1) and compare it to a work by Shitao (Fig. 10-2) to remind ourselves how these influential artists and critics conformed to conservative expectations for literati style painting. Without even reading a shred of criticism, visual analysis immediately informs viewers that these artists emphasize conventional literati values. Eschewing the Originalists’ dramatic, whimsical, playful, bold, and daring compositions and techniques, Orthodox painters and critics called for a return to a conventionalized literati style. Even though Originalist and Orthodox painters alike frequently could cite the same earlier sources, and could even label their paintings with the same title, such as Landscape after Huang Gongwang, Originalists such as Shen Hao 沈顥 (1586–after 1661) tend to push against pictorial conventions of form and space in their compositions (Fig. 6-2, 10-3), whereas Qing Orthodox painters like Wang Yuanqi 王原祁 (1642–1715) defend pictorial conventions in their paintings (Fig. 10-1). Where both Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368) artists, such as Huang Gongwang 黃公望 (1269–1354), and Qing Dynasty artists create a foreground at the bottom, middle ground in the middle, and more distant ground toward the top of surface supports, the Originalist artists of the long seventeenth century challenge expectations of spatial relationships. 294 | dimensions of originality In Shen Hao’s After Huang Gongwang’s “Fuchun Mountains” Scroll (Fig. 10-3 detail), convulsing thrusts of rock push left and up to suggest directional movement across the...