CHINESE PAINTING.*
MR. WALEY has written an admirable book on Chinese painters. It is none the less valuable for the cautious spirit in which he discusses their works. He writes as one who desires to inform himself as a painter works to obtain true knowledge of his subject. This is an unusual quality in a writer on art. Mr. Waley, through his devotion, has gained a mass of valuable information concerning the views of the Chinese on their own art and of the works of their great painters. Fromthis he gives us an enthralling selection. In spite of an austere inhibition to say no more than he knows or feels, his concentration has allowed a spirit closely akin to the aloof but penetrating daemon of Chinese painting to permeate each chapter of his book.
It is rare to come upon an illustrated book on art in which the text is better than the pictures. Perhaps it is because Mr. Waley has not tried to write as a painter that he evokes so many images, themselves enshrined in the painter's art. The chapter on the bamboo is an exquisite example of this translation into words of the Chinese artist's language. Mr. Waley rejects the temptation to isolate his subject from the whole aesthetic field. He gives it the reverence due to all good art. A rare honesty, and perhaps something of the steely mentality evident in the younger generation, corrects any tendency towards exaggeration. For many men only the things with which they are occupied seem true ; Mr. Waley is able to retain his sense of the supreme achievements of Italian, and also of-French, painters while applying his mind to the consideration of Chinese art. He tells us that, a thousand years ago, Chinese scholars travelled far and wide in search of genuine works of the masters. This knowledge makes him cautious of accepting the examples open to Euro- pean artists and connoisseurs ; even the famous roll at the British Museum, generally attributed to Ku-Kai Chih by Eastern experts, he will not unhesitatingly regard as a genuine work of this almost legendary master. This exquisite series of scenes of Court life gives us an insight into the aims of the early Chinese painters. We see a highly-developed and refined art, owing nothing to the Indian influences which deeply affected Chinese Buddhist art. It seems as though pre-Buddhist art were largely secular in character. Indeed, Mr. Waley, if I understand him rightly, regards Chinese paint- ing as inclining, like Flemish and French art, towards the interpretation of the visible world. In devoting himself to flowers, trees, rocks, mountains and rivers, birds and beasts, and the home life of men and women, the Chinese artist most completely expressed the religious side of his nature. His painting was itself an act of homage. Hence we find landscape art regarded as the highest manifestation of the painter's genius. The Chinese artists' relations to the Buddhist art which was brought to their country by Indian works was not, perhaps, dissimilar from the pseudo-mediaeval attitude of modern ecclesiastical painting and carving. It is possible that, had we seen no early Italian painting, we might regard the stained glass and the altar pieces of our modern craftsmen as truly religious in spirit. In Indian eyes the Buddha differed only in sacredness from his fellows ; the places in which he preached and meditated were actual scenes which
• Chinese Painting. By Arthur Waley. London : Benn Bros. I3i Gns.1
any pilgrim might visit. The world in which he lived was familiar to all ; hence Indian religious painting reflected the common life of men and women, the life of the Court, of the vihara, of the forest.
The Chinese painters, in adopting the Indian representation and symbolism, not unnaturally gave to their illustrations of the Buddhist stories an exotic and remote quality. Of their great religious paintings, however, we know little. The reproductions of the cave paintings of Touen-houang are not sufficiently clear to allow of fair comparison with the paintings of the Ajanta and Baghcavrs. The examples which we owe to the intrepidity and devotion of that great scholar and traveller, Sir Aurel Stein, lack the freedom of the Indian Buddhist painters ; but they show a beauty of colour and design and a high remoteness which gives them a notable place among the religious paintings of the world.
Indeed, after reading Mr. Waley's book, we might hesitate to believe that any European scholar has sufficient knowledge on which to form a quite exact appraisement of Chinese painting. But we are not sure that a superficial acquaintance may not be a reasonably accurate guide. The first walk in a strange city sometimes brings an intenser appreciation of its beauties than later familiarity. We are apt to be over- greedy. Half-a-dozen good examples may give us a true insight into a whole period of art. And when we have Mr. Waley's book as a guide, the spirit of the Chinese painters seems to enter into our consciousness and kindles into vivid life the memories we have of the few paintings we have met with. The aims and achievements of the many Chinese schools of painting pass in a fascinating review before us. There were apologists for realistic and imaginative painters, such as we meet with in Europe. Citylife seemed to the ancient Chinese painter as dusty and noisy and crowded as it appears to-day. Country life called to him, and it seemed no easier of achievement to a professional man than we find it to be. Life seemed complex, worldly and evil ; the only way of escape then, as now, was in the search for true values. Through the intricacies of Chinese aims, traditions and aesthetic values, Mr. Waley guides us with a light wand. When we finally shut his book a crowd of memories cluster round unfamiliar names. The spirits of Ku-Kai Chih and Lu Tan-Wei, of Wu Tao-Tzu and of how many others, long unknown beyond the confines of their own country, arc evoked for us out of the past, and the fragrance of their art comes to us on the breeze
Previous page
