5.2 Asian Classical Traditions

We can quickly see that these features are shared within the genre. They include matters of content and of form. But what do these features signify? For that, we need context. You may, as I do, lack a great deal of knowledge about Chinese cultural history. If so, let’s recall what we have said about bridging the Context Gap: when we encounter work from a context we know little about, we should …

A “Classical” Chinese Aesthetic

In compiling a list of shared, conventional features, we pretty much cover the first three steps of our process. But the significance of those elevated vistas, those misty, open zones may require a bit of research.

The landscape genre arose during the Song dynasty of imperial rule. Established in 960 CE, Song rule re-established stability after a chaotic period of internal warfare, the so-called Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The Song were conquered by the Mongol Kublai Khan, whose Yuan dynasty ruled China from 1271 to 1368, when the Ming dynasty restored Chinese rule.

At a glance, we can imagine that, throughout this period, the question of cultural identity would arise. What does it mean to be Chinese? Buddhist and Confucian religion, the legacy of bureaucratic organization, and art would all help maintain what we might very loosely term a “classical” cultural tradition.

In a 2017 article, Van Thi Diepp provides a Westerner like me with my minimal knowledge of Chinese cultural a primer on the traditional Chinese aesthetic that guided Ch’eng and others in developing the genre of landscape painting.

The vista of the immaterial

Diep warns Westerners that, to see these paintings from the cultural inside, they must consider landscape from a substantively different perspective. In a landscape by John Constable or Claude Lorrain, we see a close observation of picturesque geographical features. But, says Diep, the core Chinese concept is different.

Mountain and water.

We noticed that our paintings shared visual subjects, especially mountains and water. DO these subjects have special significance? Well, yes: “The Chinese character for valley, gŭ 谷,” explains Diep (p. 81), “is derived pictorially from a flowing River and not as the space between mountains.”

Diep’s observations inform us that Chinese script consists of characters derived from pictograms. In Chinese culture, calligraphy forms the core skill leading to literacy, education, and art. Traditionally, Chinese painters began with calligraphy and developed their techniques using ink and paper. Paintings featuring ink on paper are not surprisingly, often monochromatic (displaying a limited range of colors).

So, mountain and water. What is it about these conventional elements that inspire not only landscape paintings, but the essence that defines the whole idea of a valley? Here is Diep:

A Scribal culture

You’ll notice that Diep’s discussion of paintings refers to calligraphy, the art of composing manuscript text. Of course, Chinese writing is itself comprised of ideograms which fuse drawn images with abstracted ideas. Chinese painters first learn calligraphy, and the border between image and text is permeable. You’ll notice that verses usually form portions of a Chinese painting.

As we consider the formal features of these landscape paintings, the elongated, rectangular boundaries, the muted colors, we must think of the media: long silk or paper scrolls inscribed with pen and ink. Chinese painting is generally found on scrolls either hung vertically or rolled out horizontally. And the limited color palettes are related to a scribal orientation.

Indeed, traditional Chinese culture was oriented toward scribal discipline. The Confucian tradition was steeped in scribal scholarship and philosophy which were adopted as the tenets of civilization and the bureaucratic basis on which empires and businesses were run. The scribe’s pen gives birth to painting and art inhabits the very nature of Chinese text.

A Classical Genre

Chinese artists have worked in many Media and Genres. Some Chinese traditions of painting focused on depicting the aesthetic splendors of aristocratic life. Others depict mythical realms of action among gods and demons. But the landscape genre turns resolutely away from both the elegant luxuries of the elite and the squalor of poverty. Human perspective is reduced to temples of meditation compressed into a minimized foreground and, occasionally, tiny figures with scholarly or monkish aspirations.

Landscape paintings, then, affirm the highest, Classical ideals of Chinese culture. Buddhism offers enlightenment as the fruit of a pilgrimage out of the self and into the mystery of the transcendent. Confucianism and Taoism both call for the individual to rise above selfish indulgence and surrender to the principles of heaven.

So let’s return to the paintings. We noticed mountains, water, minimized humanity, and open zones of emptied space. Our brief foray into the paintings’ context helps us follow the thematic Signification of these Conventions, doesn’t it? Banal human life, minimized in mere traces of human presence, fades against spectacular natural vistas. Vertical composition lifts our eyes to the heavens and mountaintop elevations into spiritual enlightenment. Mystical voids seem to open out into the mysteries of infinity.

The final step calls us to decide what we will think. I see in these paintings core Aesthetic qualities, beauty, harmony, balance. I do feel the inspiration pictured in those elevated and open spaces. I am touched by the minimized but persevering figures of people toiling toward enlightenment though dwarfed in an enormous world. I feel much of this on a first look while a return to the works armed with some information leads me at least minimally across the contextual bridge to share universal human concerns.

What do you see?

I know. You like assigned poems that are this short. But there’s a lot to see here. The plain sense of the poem appears to be straightforward. The words visualize a poignant scene: branch, crow, autumn evening. But what about Signification?

“Yet, it is not the opposite of ‘heaviness’” warns Ueda, “rather, it is a dialectical[2] transcendence[3] of it.” Haiku center on images of nature caught in seasonal moments which deftly suggest themes of mortality and the passing nature of time:

A successful haiku does not attempt to describe things in detail. … The writer (or observer) is only half of the process: the reader is the other half. Every haiku is almost asking the reader to be a poet too, by hopefully triggering an emotion or reaction. Haiku do not include the poet’s reaction to what is being observed. They hope to evoke a response in the reader from recorded observations (Ōhashi).

How did your reading go? Perhaps you had a nice experience of ennui, of somber beauty. Yet this deceptively complex form has complex rhythms, as Ōhashi explains:

The “cutting word” in haiku  is often found at the end of the 1st or 2nd line. This rhythmic break encourages us to compare the 1st and 2nd images or themes. Below, the weary traveler’s yearning for rest is crosscut by a sudden vision transcending weariness. Structure and rhythm open up thematic contrasts. Can you see them?