LANDSCAPE PAINTING-EAST AND WESTBy DR. ELEANOR CONSTEN

Tlte attellt]Jt to understand thc d'if/erc'llce between thc Easle/"n u7Icltho IVester'll millCl is the fascinating plt'rsuit of anyone 'Who hus Uvedill bolh thc Orient and thc Occident. Manu a,1l8Wers to this ctcnwlquestion have becn olfel'ed, alld 'W6 i1ltend to cont,ribt~te a ftHU more i1:some of the next IJl8U1HI of ow;, 1n.a,gazine, hold'ing to concrete ]Joints l'athe1'than to general CO'lll?l101l1)laces.

The following article is a charm'iny yet penetrating a'llCll!./.~is of thelalldscape pai'nting of East enrd H cst.

Til author is IJecl/lill,rly fitted lor he/' taJJk, for she herself is the·lWod'llct of two l;lcl,tm'eB, being the daughte'r 0/ an America1l '//Iolher a'/ulCt Ge].?'mlln father, FrO1/! ea'r/-!! youth attracted bJl {ll't and Chine!le cll,ltwre,she 8t IIdiecl both Rubj cts at the r,tlivers'itie,~ of Vi n'llIt, Berli'n, alll:1 Bonn.A/tel' obl(li1l'illfl her docto'r's d~gree site went to America /01' post gmdl/ate1('('1'1. III I?adclijfe, the wom.en's bl'OIU;h of Hu,'vard 'Ilive/'sitl/. TI:e .firstthin" she II-"",s t Id .,hac by u wcll-meanill,q /'riend was, "Dol/'t tell (L

SQlll yo'll got 1/0'111' dodol"s de[/,rec at the aoc of N3, 0'1" yon ?!Jill nevc'/have n dnte." Dr, CO'Y/.sten I.h-inkfl her /1'ic'nd lVCt8 1'ight.

["01' scve?'al 'J/elU'S Dr. C01!.stel1 worked at the Odentat Depu.rtlllentof Ihe Foog ."11/8101 of Hanm"cl 'l1i118/' it:y, Th'll. she mow,,1 fi/'st 1.0Jupan, 1111 r to hilla, und here lIIarriecl thl1 10','it I' (llId st/(cl6nt of Mon­golian affai?'8, '\Ih. H. COl/stell, She ill the allthor of two books fill. Chineseart uud i.~ nolCl livin(/ 'i11 Peking.

Til I'ce excellent photou'raphs 0/ IJizwrl'c C/~ines:} land_~(:a,pe8 have beencontributed by Mias Hedda Ham'mer of Peking, O'lle of the fine,st1Jhotograplters of Ch'illCSC sllbjccts.-K..ll.

PAINTERSMAKE THE DIFFERENCEMan has always looked at Nature

around him and enjoyed what he saw.Earth, stones and rocks, trees, grassand flowers, in the changes of seasonand hour, ever repeated but never quitethe same-of these a landscape is built,be it a flat expanse of barren groundor mountains with trees, brooks, andwaterfalls. Landscape is fundamental­ly the same in the West and in theEast, comprising all 'the variations pos­sible in the temperate zone. It is thepainter who makes the difference.

To the Western painter the country­side is a book with a different pictureon each page; every aspect of Naturehas its beauties. He has never givenup the right to explore every cornerof the land in search of new effects,

and endless are the possibilities of find­ing a new view in a new light for anew and different picture.

NOT ALL EXAGGERATIONBut the Chinese have, in the earliest

stages of their landscape art, put theseal of approval on one type only-theshan sh-ui( J.I J~) "mountain and water."They have specialized in a landscapethat seems exaggerated to the Westerneye. And exaggerated it often is, butnot as much as we think. The photog­rapher of today sees the cliffs andgorges, the pine trees and trailing mistof Hua Shan (.-f J.I), the sacred moun­tain in Shensi, as dramatic and awe­inspiring as they appeared to thepainters of the T'ang and Sung dy­nasties, who reveled in striking con­trasts of line and dimension. Rocksare slashed in long, parallel lines.

LANDSCAPE PAINTING-EAST AND WEST

Mountains rise and break like angrywaves, crested with pines. The valianttrees cling to the unyielding stone; and80 does the pilgrim's path with stepscut into the deep decline. (Fig. I, photoby Hedda Hammer. Fig. II, painting byMa Yuan, .li,i.l, late 12th cent.) Mistrises out of the valley, the trees in theforeground stand out sharply against it.Mist emphasizes the distance betweenthem and the hills in the background­distance unmeasured and unbridged.Towering cliffs appear out of the fog;their jagged lines are softened by thehaze that swallows earth and sky alike.We do not know where solid groundmay end and the infinite begin. (Fig.III, by Hsia Kuei, J1. if, late 12th cent.Fig. IV, by Hedda Hammer.)

This spectacular, heroic landscapebecame the landscape for all Chinesepainters, even those who lived on theGreat Plain and never saw such fantas­tic scenery. For them it was only ashort step from the unbelievable to theimpossible, and the Chinese would hardlyconsider this difference very important,if the effect of grandeur, of Nature'smajesty is achieved. The technique oflandscape painting was standardized tosuch an extent that the fantastic andthe ordinary did not seem so far apart,after they were stylized in black andwhite. The West first made the ac­quaintance of the most exaggeratedand abbreviated bits of Chinese land­scape on porcelains and lacquers, andit has never quite got over the shockof this first glimpse of China, consist­ing mainly of fTaillittle temples perchedprecariously on most dangerouslyundermined cliffs.

MASTER OR CREATURE?

The Chinese artist paints in the ap­proved style and chooses the time­honored subjects of the old masters; theWestern painter relies only on Natureherself and what he can see with hisown eyes.

Yet the attitude of the Westernpainter is not one of humility; on thecontrary, it is homocentric. Man isthe crowning glory of Nature, her

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master. Landscape is only what hecan see; it stops at the horizon, thatimaginary end of the world that isnothing but the limit of man's eye­sight. Man and his doings are oftenthe center of the Western landscape,heroic or intimate. Even if no humanfigure appears in the picture, the stressis still on a human personality, on thepainter and his choice of subject.

The composition of a Chinese land­scape painting makes it quite clearthat human scope of vision has notbeen employed; only a bird on thewing would see the world thus. Onlya spirit not bound by the laws ofgravity could so convince himself thatthere is no horizon, where the worldends and we drop over the edge intonothing. The Chinese painter knowsthat out of the emptiness will risemore hills and new worlds.

The East gives a less exalted placeto man in Nature; his importance is inproportion to his size. The travelerson the mountain path, the meditatingscholars are as necessary to a completerepresentation of the universe as therock and the tree-and not a bit moreimportant than they. Man happens tobe one of Nature's many creatures,not her master.

LANDSC.4PE A BACKGROUNDLandscape painting in the West

began as an appropriate backgroundfor portraits and pictorial story-telling.The same was true of China; butit was a short and unimportant stage,whereas in Europe the landscapewas slow to come into its own. Itremained in a subordinate positionthroughout the Middle Ages. Beautifullandscapes have been painted as back­grounds to religious pictures by Dutch,German, French, and Italian painters;they were vast or intimate, fantasticor true to nature, they had everythingan independent landscape should have,except the recognition as such. Today'sart historians, with modern photographyat their disposal, delight us withenlarged reproductions of backgrounddetails. On the canvas they are small

122 THE XXth CENTURY

and easily overlooked, yet the painterhas lavished so much loving knowledgeof Nature on them, that, when finallylandscape was considered worthy ofrepresentation for its own sake, paint­ers had little to learn-just leave outthe foreground, and there was a full­fledged landscape.

The Chinese have always understoodthat the background for a portraitor some outdoor scene is different fromand inferior to real landscape, just asman and his doings are inferior to theuniverse. When they paint a saint, orpeople in a garden, they also userocks, hills, and trees, done in landscapetechnique; but they use them as "props,"they do not give depth and rhythm tomere indications of scene. Backgroundis limited, it serves a definite, ex­planatory purpose; landscape is bound­less, it has no other purpose thanunfolding itself. Its scope dwarfs manand his petty activities, until theytake their proper, insignificant place.

SITT1NG DOWNFOR A DAY'S WORKThe Western artist packs his paint­

ing kit in the morning, takes hislunch, and goes out in search of asuitable subject. He examines critical­ly this and that view, framing it in hismind and hanging 1t on a wall (pref­erably a museum wall). Size andshape of his canvas influence hiRdecision. He finds an ideal motif andsits down with his easel and colorsfor a day's work on tbat particularspot. Now he must show his skill.He must confine a segment of Naturewithin a given space, so that herendlessness will not strain against theframe. He must find a point towardswhich all lines gravitate, away fromthe frame, so that the frame can be aprotection and logical boundary, not aprison bar. The picture will then sayto the beholder:

Here is a place of perfect beauty,of harmony in line and color. Themoment at which I was painted wasperfect; time stands still for you inme. Beyond me the world is of no

importance; settle down in my center,and you will desire no more.

The Western painter will go intothe woods, he will see a pattern oftree trunks around him and densefoliage overhead, he will see deepshadows and flecks of light, colors andforms will close in on him and givehim a feeling of intimacy with nature.He dwells on the accidental beauty ofthe moment, on the effect of light oncolor. His landscape is built of staticforms, which he puts down in areas ofcolor. He enjoys the infinite andsubtle shadings of tints and hues. Hepaints only what he sees, and he seesshapes only through their difference incolor. Because sky and clouds havecolor, they are to him as well definedas trees and stones, and he paints thesky as he sees it - a flat sheet of blue.

He must study his perspective care­fully, because only by imitating thecentralizing powers of the human eye,by duplicating its faculty to create avanishing point wherever it fixes itsgaze-only thus can the painter hopeto gather a view into a small space,to cut it out of the universe withouthaving the edges bleed.

AT THE BEND OF A RIVERGottfried Keller, the writer and artist,

painted the bend of a river: a bigtree shades the angler at the right, itis balanced by a group of trees scrp.p.n­ing off the view at the left (Fig. VI).Colors range from warm browns overa rich varIety of greens to the clearblue of the sky. There is no outline,only innumerable changes of color,comprehensively and aesthetically ar­ranged. Any shifting of the viewpointwould destroy the delicate balance ofmass and color. We have no way ofgoing up the river, of finding out whatthe scenery beyond the bend and thetrees would look like-and we are notsupposed to. Our place is just on theedge of the frame, and we sit thereas placidly as the angler who posesfor his picture.

Hsia Kuei UI. 11), who lived a'lout1180-1230, also painted the bend of a

LANDSCAPE PAINTING-EAST AND WEST

,tver, with a clump of trees at the right(Fjg. V). A small figure crosses thebridge; unaware of painter or beholderit foUows the path into the background.There is only emptiness to balance thetreea and the earth. But wind and waterIlre moving into it, trees and rushespoint to it, the distant hills dissolveinto it. We must follow the courseof the river around the bend, becausethere we will find the real landscape, towhich the painted one is only a guide.od a promise.

The Chinese landscape is a repre­sentation of the universe and the spiritthat creates and preserves it; both aretimeless and boundless. Color is ac­cidental, static, a joy to the eye; lineis always on the move, while creatingone form it already points to the next,it invites the spirit to follow far be­yond the end of the picture (there isno frame) and beyond the man-madeJJorizon.

GOING FOR A DAY' WALKThe Chinese painter does not portray

Nature, he does not paint a view froma certain point at a certain day and)lour, as seen from a campstool. Hewants a wider view, a more comprehen­sive representation of the countrysidethan just one eyeful can give him. Heworks as the musician does, who listensto the voice of many trees before hecondenses them into the lucid form ofa melody, which, though suggestive ofNature, obeys laws of purely artisticorigin. Landscape photography maysuccessfully replace painting in manyWestern homes; to the Oriental itcan be a new and fascinating formof art. but not just another techniquetor the old landscape.

The Chinese painter roams overthe countryside, he looks at the ever­changing scenery, remembering strik­ing lines, forgetting accidental details(Fig. VII). He stretches his tired legsunder the wooden table in the rusticinn, he drinks homemade wine withtbe monk of the mountain-temple. Hedimbs a hill and sits down to rest andpze at the view, and tl;1e view will

123

unfold itself to him far beyond thepower of his eyes, because he hascome a long way and knows he canonly hope to do justice to the vastnessof the universe by understanding itsessence, by sending his soul where hiseyes cannot travel. He crosses thestream in the fisherman's boat andvisits the retired official in his hut bythe waterfall. They discuss philosophyand the affairs of the country, passingeasily over unimportant details as theleaves of distant trees merge into darkshadow against the pale outline of thehills. They match their skill in poetryand they drink some more wine­Chinese biographers did not mincewords about the bibulous inclinationsof their artists-and by the time thepainter continues on his way he isprobably a little tipsy and will gladlyaccept the services of a donkey. Im­measurable dimensions will gain inproportion in his mind as he gazes atnear and distant cliffs, and he willknow that the difference in speed be­tween the rushing water, his donkey'strot, the growing tree, and the moun­tain lifting its summit into the clouds,is really negligible in the light ofeternity.

NO FIXED VIEWPOINTSo he returns to his study and dusts

his table and spreads out his clean whitesheet of silk. His mind runs over theimpressions of the day, it lifts himhigher than the hills he has climbed,and with swift strokes of the brushhe writes down his landscape-only the"bones" of Nature, as the ancientcanon puts it-for he will give thepicture to his philosopher friend, whoseimagination will need no more than afew hints to fill the empty spaces withmore hills and trees than the silkcould hold.

The long handscroll is singularly wellsuited to the Chinese conception oflandscape. Painter and beholder travelalong as the scroll is unrolled, onevista merges into another. Many land­scapes combine into an account ofNature, not limited by a fixed view­point, not dependent on or composed

124 THE XXtb CENTURY

from the outside. Yet the greaternumber of Chinese landscapes arepainted on hanging scrolls. Sincelandscape painting in China is notselection of a detail, but abbreviationof the whole, the variation in scope ofthe hand- or hanging scroll is ofno account as compared with the ex­panse of the universe. Limitation liesin the choice of subject, only hills andrunning water being eligible. The factthat the first landscape painters in theT'ang dynasty chose such scenery musthave played an important part innarrowing down the painter's choice;but no love of tradition could have kepteven a Chinese from branching out intoother types, if the strong, upwardthrust of solid hills and the yielding,downward current of clear water hadnot expressed to perfection his con­ception of the forces that give life tothe universe.

THE CHINESENEED NO PERSPECTIVEPerspective would only Hpuil the scope

of a Chinese landscape; a centralizedcomposition would l:Itop the ::lIJirIt in H~

voyage. The Chinese picture invites usto change our viewpoiut. a::l uften as welike. We start from the top of the hillAnd look out towards other Bummiw, wedive into the valley and see the stonesin the river bed, we follow the pilgrimto the distant pagoda. Perspectivebalances every corner and detail of theWestern picture into instant, formwconnection with its main subject. TheChim·.se painter gives us rhythm instco.dof balance and thereby insures autonomyfor every little unit of landscape. Wecan enter and travel through each partof the picture in turn. going from oneto the other, and we shall be as li ttlebothered by the lack of a uniformviewpoint as we would be by thechanging pictures presented to our sightas we move around a familiar room.

The Chinese painter employs justenough laws to keep the picture fromfalling apart. The towering mountainis the keynote, the buildings in thebackground are slightly smaller than

those in the foreground, outlines anddetails of distant hills are dimmed bymist. But he does not assign to thebeholder the exact place from wherehe must not stray.

THE TINY COUNTRY DOCTORKuo Rsi (~ .~.l,) of the eleventh century

(Fig. VII) combines many scenes inone picture, a complete world fills hisstrip of silk, enough to give us anidea of what the universe is like.,Lauren Ford, a contemporary American(Fig. VIII), carried home many detailedsketches of the Connecticut countryside,and combined them into a panorama,seemingly in the Chinese manner. Sheworks in the Eastern way. combiningviews seen at different times; she alsoemploys the bird's-eye view and highhorizon. But the picture only seemsdecentralized; the VVesterner cannotdrop the approved standards; there must.be an excuse for a picture like that.So the artist introduces the "CountryDoctor": he enters the house in the­center and gives the picture itsname-and we are right back with thehomocentric type. A dramatic momentof human interest is the excuse for'Bnd vital point of the whole picture,even though we can hardly make outthe doctor's tiny figure in the wealthof surrounding detail. In spite of itsBcope, itB variety of places and activl~

ties, this painting is an intimate one;it evokes very personal, nostalgic feel­ings. We are already supplied withthe coloring of that particular day,from our memory we add the Boundlof birds and the smell of hay. To theNew Englander this picture representsa very precious corner of the earth,not the world in general. The Chinese­painter is always a Weltbib'ger (cosmo­polite) even if he paints only bamboogroves and temples with curved.roofs.

THE POLICEMANWITH THE BRUSHWestern landscapes are seldom really

bad, provided the painter has a fairamount of color-sense and technique

LANDSCAPE PAINTING-EAST AND WEST

and has been taught the laws of com­position and perspective. Because thesubject is beautiful, even less skillfulrenderings will still impart the charms ofthe place the painter chose to portray,and the picture will please those wholove that particular spot. If a Chineselandscape is badly done there is noth­ing left to admire. The subject is toocommonplace, has been too often re­peated, is too stylized to excite anyfeeling in the beholder. If the rhythmis jumbled, if the sweep of line iswithout life, if the shading is crude,then no amount of "brush-stroke"technique can save the picture. It isa complete waste of paper, silk, ink,and time-and many Chinese landscapesare. It seems easy to learn the "trade"of the shan shui: take mountains,waterfalls, and pines, dot with tinypeople, mix with some characteristicbrush strokes and a few rules of com­position, stir well, and throw on silk.Indulging in a genteel pastime doesnot guarantee stupendous results; if theperson thus agreeably occupied is nota genius, no amount of studying theold masters will do him any good.

I have watched a policeman on dutyat a city police station spend unoccupiedmoments in painting hills and bamboogroves with scholars in huts on paperfans. The result was quite charmingto the untrained eye, but the artisticmerits hardly surpassed those of apleasant picture postcard or calendardecoration. If the spirit of the universehas not inspired the painter, it cannotmove the beholder to any feeling either.The picture is then like so manycreations of modern art, which concealthe lack of inspiration and the lack ofsound training under heaped clichesthat are supposed to reflect the tasteof the public. The fact that not onlya change of mental attitude but theacquisition of a complete new philosophywould be necessary, may help to explainwhy-even among foreigners in Chinawho are ardent admirers of Chineselandscapes-there are so few whoattempt to paint in the Eastern style,whereas the results of opposite endeavorshave been quite commendable.

125

COLOR OF THE MOMENTColored landscapes are not unknown

in China, but to the Western eye thecolors seem limited, crude, and unnatural,as indeed they are. They are appliedin the study according to a conventionalsystem, a standard color chart sum­marily derived from Nature. Colorhas to be confined to one place, it isaccidental, it may change with theslightest change in lighting. TheChinese prefers to strip his landscapesof this unstable element, he only usesthe shades of ink from luminous blackto pale gray, they accent the line andmove along with it; they suggest colorwithout defining it.

Color dates a picture, it makes itthe child of one perfect moment whichwill never come back. Therefore thepainter puts all his skill in the selectionof the right moment and the colorharmony which is the mainstay of hispicture.

Moritz von Schwind, the Germanromantic painter, depicts a wandererresting under a shady tree to look at theview (Fig.IX). We are given every detailof that view, as encircled by the tree, theforeground in radiant reds and greens,the hills in the back fading away intopaler shades of blue, and above themthe blue sky and white clouds. Wefind the same theme and compositionin a painting attributed to the Sungemperor Hui Tsung (m:.:f:), the sameprotective tree, the same figure restingunder it, looking out over the country athis feet (Fig. X). But to the Chinesepainter the sky is not the limit, theclouds pass much too quickly to leavean imprint on the silk. The emptyspace is the most important part ofthe picture, we follow the man's gazeinto it and we see more than anypainter's brush could draw. Inspiredby the painted scholar's rapt contem­plation, our imagination takes wingsand flies over hill and vale throughmist and sun. So why try to paintthe landscape? The scholar lost to theuniverse, one with rock and tree, isfar more suggestive than any line orcolor could be.

126 THE XXth CENTURY

MOSS OR WINGS?

The Chinese landscape gives wingsto the beholder, but it does not resthim. He cannot linger on soft mossin a secluded grove, or in the shade ofCorot's trees, he cannot find his hornein a Ruisdael hamlet. He has to lookat the woods from afar; he has topass the hut by the wayside andjourney to the pagoda on the hill,which "ill give him no shelter; hewill take off from there into spacefilled with more mountains rising outof the mist of tomorrow. The West­ern landscape reminds us of somesummer day of the past, when weourselves have seen just that radianceof light and color in the country welove. To delight our eyes it blends theaccidental beauties of color and planes,preserving a beautiful moment thatotherwise would be lost.

The Chinese landscape promises toshow us all the glories of creation, ifwe dare abandon our safe foothold on

that little part of the world overwhich we are master. It fulfills man'sage-old longing for wings, the longingof Faust to follow the course of thesun:

Ah, that no wing can lift me fromthe soil,

Upon its track to follow, follow soar­ing!

Then would I see eternal Eveninggild,

The silent world beneath me glow­ing,

On fire each mountain peak, withpeace each :,valley filled,

The silver brook to golden riversflowing.

The mountain chain, with all itsgorges deep,

Would then no more impede mygod·like motion,

And now before mine eyes expandsthe ocean

With all its bays, in shining sleep.

MEDITATION

By Wei Li Eo

The evening rain has quenched the swirling dustRai.c:.p.1i in the hMt of day by BummCl- wluu.

The yollow moon cmel-ged [rum shadowy cloudsAnd through the plane trees cast her peaceful beams.

Through silence of the night from leaf and treeRings faint the reverent chime of silver drops.

MODERN PHOTOGRAPHS ORANCIENT PAINTINGS?

Fig. I This dramatic scene, photograp1Hllby Hedda Hammer in the Hua Shan ofShensi, might have been cho!\en as thesubject for a painting in the T'allror Sung dynasty