Das Licht der Edlen (junzi zhi guang): Der Mond in der chinesischen Landschaftsmalerei (review)

Jeonghee Lee-Kalisch's Das Licht der Edlen (The light of the nobles) is a long-awaited descriptive analysis of a very important topic in Chinese landscape painting: the moon. This heavenly body has inspired poets and artists for centuries, and we owe to it the creation of many famous works of literature and art.

So far, only a handful of scholars have traced the moon's appearance in East Asian art. Lee-Kalisch—who recently attracted attention for conceiving and organizing the renowned exhibition Korea: Die alten Königreiche (Korea: The old kingdoms), which was presented in Essen in 1999 and later in Munich and Zurich—may have received the inspiration for the present book from her participation in an earlier exhibition at the Cologne Museum of East Asian Art in 1990-1991; that project was accompanied by a catalogue titled Herbstmond über der Tauterrasse: Der Mond in der Kunst Ostasiens (Autumn moon over the dew terrace: The moon in the art of East Asia).

By choosing a quotation from a poem as the title of the work under review here, the author already suggests the strong relationship between poetry and painting in Chinese culture. Her purpose is to analyze the thoughts and feelings that scholars associate with the moon, the role that the moon plays as a source of light, and the characteristics of moon landscape paintings in general. Her thesis is not only that the moon has played an essential part in the imagination of the Chinese literati but that this is reflected in theme, composition, and the media and technique used in painting (ink, color, line, and plane). The materials she analyzes consist of almost ninety paintings in all formats (hanging scroll, handscroll, fan, and album leaves) from the Southern Song (1127-1279) to the Qing period (1644-1911); she excludes religious paintings and those depicting beautiful women, animals, and plants.

The study is arranged in three parts that guide the reader through the viewing of moon landscapes from all conceivable angles. In the introduction, Lee Kalisch defines the key terms "scholar" and "moon landscape," gives a short overview of the state of the field, and outlines the purpose and content of her study, stating that Chinese literature until the Southern Song is her point of departure.

In chapter 1 the author analyzes the relationship between scholar and moon, presenting the existing body of Chinese myths and stories connected with this heavenly body. She argues that these ideas were all present in the mind of the scholar when viewing the full moon in the sky or its mirror image in the water from a tower, a terrace, or among trees, while in the midst of quiet contemplation, strolling, playing a musical instrument, while out in a boat, or even fishing. The moon evokes in the scholar associations with the ideal character of a noble or gentleman (junzi), which resembles the clarity of the moonlight. This notion was already present in the poetry of the Han period (207 B.C.-A.D. 202) (p. 29). The viewing of the moon has been a favorite topic in landscape painting. However, paintings depicting the landscape itself in the moonlight also gained popularity among painters, as Lee-Kalisch demonstrates with two examples that show, respectively, the autumn moon over Lake Dongting and ocean waves in the moonlit night. How much this "light of the nobles" was admired by scholars is shown by the author in a list of the literary names (hao) of famous poets and painters who selected the character for the moon as part of their name.

In chapter 2 Lee-Kalisch discusses the compositional role of the moon in moon landscapes. Her intent here is to present all the compositional varieties that can be found in extant paintings, with...