Chan and Three Yuan Landscape paintings · Web view2018/07/07 · The idea embodied in this unique pictorial space is obviously influenced by the Chinese concept of yin and yang

Virginia Review of Asian Studies: 20 (2018) 112-121ISSN: 2169-6306Zeng: Zen art

COMMUNICATING “CHAN SI” OR “CHAN YI”: ZEN BUDDHISM AND CHINESE LANDSCAPE PAINTING

LI ZENG1 UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE

ABSTRACT

It is common knowledge that Chan (Zen), although regarded as a school of Buddhism imported from India, virtually achieved its full development within Chinese culture during the Tang dynasty (680-806) and set the course it was to follow from the eighth century until now in East Asian cultures at large. In its larger outlines, Chan advocates emptiness and achievement of inner self-realization which, called wu in Chinese, is a spiritual, mysterious, and intuitive experience free from all distinctions.

In spite of the general agreement that there is a tight relationship between Chan and Chinese landscape painting—especially during the Yuan Dynasty period (1271-1368), issues like in which way Chan is woven into Chinese landscape painting, remain to be further addressed. Thus, it is my interest in this paper to demonstrate Chan tendencies in Chinese landscape painting through an analysis of a few representative landscape paintings from the Yuan Dynasty. My analysis of these paintings attempts to show that illuminated by Chan, the artists respectively developed ideal aesthetics and perspectives which were characterized with simplicity, naturalness, tranquility, and implication. The quiet imagery, the detached impersonality, and so forth visualized in these Yuan landscape paintings are seen as a particularly effective means of communicating the Chan spirit.

Introduction

In his well-known book, Zen and Japanese Culture, the internationally renowned Zen master and scholar, Dr. Daisetz T. Suzuki, mentioned a “one-corner” style in Japanese painting and its close relationship to Zen (Suzuki 1993, 22). In fact, as Dr. Suzuki confirmed, this characteristic of Japanese painting was originated by Ma Yuan (fl. 1175-1225), a talented Chinese scholar-artist of the Song dynasty. Just like the so-called “one corner” Japanese art style, Zen, or Chan in Chinese, was believed by Dr. Suzuki to be actually “one of the products of the Chinese mind” (Suzuki 1993, 3).

1 Dr. Li Zeng is Associate Professor of Chinese Studies in the Dept. of Classical and Modern Languages at the University of Louisville. His research and publications have covered multiple fields, such as classical Chinese literature, comparative studies of Chinese and Western visual cultures, Asian American literature, and Chinese and Chinese diasporic filmic adaptations of literature.

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Indeed, Chan, although regarded as a school of Buddhism founded by Bodhidharma who came to China from Southern India about 520 CE, virtually achieved its full development within Chinese culture. Arising in the Tang dynasty (618-907) and advocating emptiness and achievement of inner self-realization in its larger outlines, Chan, in return, had a far-reaching impact on Chinese culture over many centuries. To a large extent, Chan is a very practical teaching. According to Bodhidharma, man originally has his own ready-made Buddha-nature. Therefore, the basic teaching of Chan is enlightenment of the heart and beholding Buddhahood within oneself. As Kenneth Ch’en notes: “Chan has been described as an intuitive method of spiritual training aimed at the discovery of a reality in the innermost recesses of the soul” (Ch’en 1964, 357). Thus, meditation for Chan becomes a kind of intuitive method of realizing one’s own Buddha-nature. This approach to self-realization was especially emphasized in the teachings of Hui Neng (638-713), the sixth Patriarch of Chan who set Chan on the course it was to follow from the eighth century until now. According to Hui Neng, man does not reveal his original nature through a process of cogitation and analysis, or through intellectual concepts. Rather, he reveals it through a direct intuition: “The instant you see your own nature—this is the true (Buddha)” (Yampolsky 1967, 181).

The emphasis of Chan upon the experience itself of being enlightened entails a rejection of any stereotyped ascetic practice and rituals. Entering into the monastic community is thus not a condition for the Chan Buddhist to achieve the realization of Buddhahood. One can remain in lay life and at the same time practice spiritual training. In other words, man’s self-nature is to be apprehended in the midst of his daily activities. In addition, the Chan doctrine holds that the Buddha-nature is present not only in man but also in all sentient beings. Hui Neng says: “If men in later generations wish to seek the Buddha, they have only to know that the Buddha mind is within sentient beings; then they will be able to know the Buddha” (Yampolsky 1967, 180).

As outlined above, Chan practice is a spiritual, mysterious, and intuitive experience that leads to the attainment of Buddhahood within oneself and in life itself. This kind of enlightenment to one’s true nature inspired many Chinese literati who, originally under Taoist influence, had turned to nature for spiritual consolation. Along with their increasing disappointment by the social disorder, many discontented literati withdrew from the mundane world and escaped into a hermit life in remote mountains and forests. In their immersion in nature through poetry and painting, Chan helped them not only appreciate nature’s beauty and simplicity, but also try to get a firm hold of what lay behind the surface of the natural objects.

Historically, in the vast literature of Chinese poetry and painting, there is continual reference to Chan. Many scholar poets and artists emphasized “Chan meaning” in good poems and “Chan idea” in good paintings; and most critics repeatedly related Chan to poetry and painting. Yan Yu, the famous twelfth-century poetry critic, for instance, said: “Generally speaking, the Way of Chan lies in subtle enlightenment, the way of poetry also lies in enlightenment” (Yan 1962, 10). Today, such phrases as “Chan shi” and “Chan hua,” meaning Chan poetry and Chan painting, can still be seen in

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critiques of classical and modern Chinese poetry and painting. Moreover, Chan, or Zen, has made its ways to many cultures other than Chinese and Japanese since the 19th century. In American literature, for instance, there have been so many writers that are either linked to Zen or write in lights of Buddhist wisdoms, such as Philip Whalen and Gary Snyder (Falk 2009, 103), that Maxine Hong Kingston believes a new literary genre termed Buddhist American Literature is emerging (Whalen-Bridge and Storhoff 2009, ix). However, since most studies on Buddhist tendencies in literature and art, especially on Chan or Zen influence upon Chinese culture, have been general rather than specific, crucial issues like in which way Chan is woven into Chinese landscape painting or poetry remain to be further addressed. Thus, it is my interest in this article to demonstrate Chan tendencies in Chinese landscape painting through an analysis of three works by three representative scholar artists of the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). The three artists and their three landscape paintings are, Zhao Mengfu’s “Twin Pines, Level Distance,” Wu Zhen’s “Central Mountains,” and Ni Zan’s “The Rongxi Studio.”

Zhao Mengfu’s “Twin Pines, Level Distance” (Pl. 1)

If Chinese landscape painting “had attained the furthest point it was ever to reach in the direction of realism” in the works of the Song masters, a kind of “retreat from likeness” was realized under the brush of the Yuan masters (Cahill 1976, 6). Breaking away from the Song legacy of washes and tonality, the Yuan scholar artists were more concerned with expressive brushwork through which they conveyed their inner light. Often painted in ink monochrome, which to Yuan artists was more expressive than color, Yuan paintings exhibited the external world as an interior one. From a Chan view, the Yuan masters represented nature by artistically transmitting their concepts of the subtle and obscure operation of the mind.

Among the Yuan masters, Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322) occupies an important position. An outstanding calligrapher at that time, Zhao harmonized his painting with his broad foundation in calligraphy. To him, painting is like writing calligraphy: “Rocks like Flying-White, trees like the Great Seal script; the sketching of bamboos should include the Eight Strokes of calligraphic technique” (Bush 1971, 139). Zhao’s “Twin Pines, Level Distance” well exemplifies this calligraphic feature in his painting. This is almost a pure performance of brush and ink. In other words, the brush-strokes are carried out in a purely linear way, almost as if the painting were written down. The artist places the accents effectively, without a superfluous stroke. Thus, the viewer is led to see mainly the sketches of brush rather than the landscape.

To a large extent, this painting is full of Chan spirit. First, the visible brush-strokes result in an effect of effortlessness, spontaneity, and naturalness. With the visible brush-stroke, the artist creates rather than describes the essence of natural scenery. What he is really concerned with is the scenery in man’s inner nature. This inner scenery is more significant and richer than that of external nature. This highly expressive concept of technique and self-realization in painting is surely inspired by Chan.

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Secondly, the vast space in this painting suggests certain Chan ideas. It is the vast untouched blank part of the painting that unifies all the linear elements. As the space which contains everything in the universe, the blank paper harmonizes everything in this picture. The idea embodied in this unique pictorial space is obviously influenced by the Chinese concept of yin and yang and, what is more important, by the Chan concept of emptiness, or kong in Chinese. In the Platform Sutra, Hui Neng described the Chan emptiness like this: “The capacity of the mind is broad and huge, like the vast sky…. Emptiness includes the sun, moon, stars, and planets, the great earth, mountains and rivers…” (Yampolsky 1967, 146).

In the handling of vast space, this painting is one of the greatest expressions of man’s cosmic concept. With details obliterated in space and depth of distances, the artist emphasizes the silent majesty of nature and the mystery of the communication between nature and man’s mind. When viewing pictures like the “Twin Pines, Level Distance,” we seem to be lifted from the earth to a liberating space symbolized by the blank paper in which we participate in feeling and expressing our cosmic experience by grasping the true reality. The blank part of paper in landscape painting is a direct and pure device. It makes Chinese landscape painting profound and unique, and it makes both the painter and the viewer aware of the emptiness of the universe talked about in Chan.

Wu Zhen’s “Central Mountains” (Pl. 2)

Wu Zhen (1285-1354), one of the Four Great Masters in Yuan painting, was a real recluse. He planted plum trees around his house and named himself Meihua Daoren (the Plum Blossom Taoist). Most of his inscriptions on paintings of his later years were done while he was at Chan monasteries and even named his son Fu Nu (Servant of Buddha).

In 1336, Wu created “Central Mountains.” As one of his masterpieces, this painting has drawn great attention from critics and scholars. In his Hills beyond a River, James Cahill gives an adequate comment on the painting: “Most of what we have been led to expect of Chinese landscape painting is missing (here). The picture seems only a matter-of-fact presentation of the most ordinary scenery” (Cahill 1976, 69). Indeed, the elements of the composition are very simple and natural: Sloping hills rise and fall with groves of trees and bushes in the valleys and on the summits. There is no real foreground or background. What we see is mainly repetition of larger and smaller mountain shapes with our attention centered on the middle peak. The whole scene is so still and infinite that it suggests a sort of ancient and thick breath, a spiritual purification—the grandeur of universe. The thick and blunt brush-strokes, the simple and natural composition, and the whole spontaneous creativeness of this painting make an irresistible spiritual enlightenment.

To a large extent, this painting’s greatness lies in the natural way by which it was created. In other words, it lies in the artist’s talent of grasping the essentials of what he was representing, rejecting the unnecessary. As James Cahill points out: “It is unenlivened by any streams, waterfalls, figures, buildings, event paths. There is no

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indication of season or weather, no mists—which, as the drifting ‘breath’ of the landscape, would provide some hint of motion and change” (Cahill 1976, 70). It seems that, while creating the “Central Mountains,” Wu Zhen’s creative intuition penetrated so deep through the surface of things to their inner reality that he was able to experience imageless, wordless, and soundless untouched primordial nature. The entire picture renders a frozen moment when the painter’s nature is mingled with the external world. “A total stillness and timelessness pervade the scene” (Cahill 1976, 70). Here, the still, plain, and serene landscape implicitly reveals the artist’s tranquil feeling. It seems his soul leaves his body and the earthly world, blending with the scenery of nature. Or, the nature seems to have assimilated the artist’s tranquil feeling so that it looks so still and harmonious. We cannot tell which is the painter and which is nature. We can imagine that when he seized his brush to create this particular painting, his activity must be supported by all the vitality of universality. “Therefore, according to Chan, he was one with nature—his inner nature and the nature outside him—Buddhahood is manifested in both of them” (Zeng 2006, 23).

Ni Zan’s “The Rongxi Studio” (Pl. 3)

Among Yuan landscape painters, Ni Zan (1301-1374), another of the Four Great Masters in Yuan painting, is an extremely talented artist with a strong personality. Well known for their artlessness and aloofness, his paintings have been highly esteemed by both critics and painters. Indeed, Ni Zan’s paintings are sparse and desolute, with serenity and spaciousness. They are merely the release of the artist’s inner serenity. Their sublime quality is unreachable for his imitators and beyond the verbal capacity of the critics.

With a few exceptions, Ni Zan’s landscape paintings are variations on a single theme: a rocky shore with a few trees and an empty pavilion in the foreground, and a vast expanse of water separating the foreground from a range of bare hills in the distance. From his surviving works, we know that from 1339 to 1372 he worked on the same motif. This indifferent attitude toward his subject-matter made Ni Zan so unusual. A uniform structure and unchanging mood became the chief characteristics of his painting. To see these characteristics, we have “The Rongxi Studio,” which is regarded as Ni Zan’s greatest surviving masterpiece.

The whole scenery of this painting is as simple and plain as before. Yet, “the visual binding-together of the parts is more skillfully accomplished than previously: from the spreading treetops to their formal counterpart in the expanding shore above is such an easy leap that one is not conscious of the actual distance spanned. Moreover, by avoiding the standard means of separating near and far, such as reducing detail and dimming ink tone in the distant passage, Ni Tsan [Zan] makes near and far so alike in their substance and structure that they ‘reflect one another’ (as Huang Kung-wang [Gongwang] advised they should do) and thus effect an ideal unification” (Cahill 1976, 119).

When we view “The Rongxi Studio,” we have to agree that Ni uses ink extremely sparingly. The repeated theme, the plain structure, and the dry brushwork make the

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painting artless yet exceptionally artistic at the same time. Under Ni Zan’s brush, the knoll or hill is simplified to such an extreme that it expresses the essence of nature against the vast expanse of water. The whole painting exhibits the infinite stillness of the universe, and also indicates the last deepest structure of nature.

What we feel in viewing this painting actually applies to all of Ni’s works. It was from his heart that he repeated mountains and rivers to his paintings. And it is this transparency that enthralls the beholder. He painted simply to express his inner serenity. Therefore, whatever he painted—be it trees, rocky river banks, or rest shelters—all became reflections of his inner exalted state. Ni once said, “What I call painting does not exceed the joy of careless sketching with the brush. I do not seek formal likeness but do it simply for my own amusement” (Bush and Shih 1985, 270). It is free from the imitation of objective reality and subjective projection that “The Rongxi Studio” seems to transcend attachment to natural objects and ego. From a Chan perspective, in this painting we see little real scenery, and we fail to see any personal passion or temperament, nor do we see any technical elegance. What we feel is aloofness and tranquility—the highest degree of harmony of the human mind with nature. The significance of such harmony rests on the fact that particularity manifests potentiality. Through his free brush-strokes with simple and plain ink tones, Ni Zan seems to enter hun dun, a realm with no distinction between subjectivity and objectivity. This peaceful realm cannot be achieved without being enlightened.

To Ni Zan, painting landscape was merely a way through which he released his inner transparency—a feeling of far-reaching mood. Being not attached to either realistic objectivity or idealistic subjectivity, Ni Zan’s works are the product of absolute emptiness or kong, in the Chan sense of the term. According to Chan doctrine, emptiness is an attribute of Samadhi, or Sanmei in Japanese and Chinese, the state where deluded consciousness vanishes, or “the state of one-pointedness” in Suzuki’s words (Suzuki 1993, 226). Thus, we would say that in Ni Zan’s painting there is Samadhi.

Conclusion

Through the forgoing analyses of the three representative landscape paintings of the Yuan dynasty, we have seen that Chinese landscape paintings created by scholar artists often exhibit detachment from objective reality. They are the product of a dilute and withdrawn state of mind. By releasing their inner transparency, those paintings were permeated with cosmological experiences. From a Chan perspective, this may be described as an experience of qing and kong, meaning purity and emptiness. To a large extent, this kind of Chan meanings or realms displayed in those works was actually regarded as the highest stage in Chinese landscape painting by critics from earlier time. Inspired by both Taoist and Chan wisdoms, for example, the Tang art critic Zhang Yanyuan wrote: “Concentrating one’s mind and taking one’s thoughts afar, one has subtle insight into Nature. Object and self alike forgotten, one departs from form and rejects discrimination. One’s body can really be made to be like dried bird; one’s mind

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Virginia Review of Asian Studies: 20 (2018) 112-121ISSN: 2169-6306Zeng: Zen artcan really be made to be like dead ashes. Is not this to have attained the subtle principle? It is what may be called the Way (tao) of painting” (Bush 1971, 42).

Appendix

Pl. 1

“Twin Pines, Level Distance”

By Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322)

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Pl. 2

“Central Mountains”

By Wu Zhen (1285-1354)

119


Pl. 3

“The Rongxi Studio”

By Ni Zan (1301-1374)

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Works Cited

Bush, Susan. The Chinese Literati on Painting. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 1971.Bush, Susan, and Hsio-yen Shih, eds. Early Chinese Texts on Painting. Cambridge,

Mass: Harvard UP, 1985.Cahill, James. Hills beyond a River: Chinese Painting of the Yuan Dynasty. New York:

Weatherhill, 1976. Ch’en, Kenneth. Buddhism in China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1964.Falk, Jane. “Finger Pointing at the Moon: Zen and the Poetry of Philip Whalen.” The

Emergence of Buddhist American Literature. Eds. John Whalen-Bridge and Gary Storhoff. (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2009): 103-122.

Suzuki, Daisetz T. Zen and Japanese Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1993.Whalen-Bridge, John, and Gary Storhoff, eds. The Emergence of Buddhist American

Literature, SUNY Press, 2009.Yampolsky, Philip B., trans. The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. New York:

Columbia UP, 1967.Yan Yu. Chang lang shihua jiaoshi [Changlang Remarks on Poetry, an Annotated

Edition]. Beijing: People’s Literature Press, 1962.Zeng, Li. “Landscape Paintings: A Chan Approach.” Yiwen siji [Four Seasons in Arts

and Literature] No. 19 (Winter), 2006: 22-23.

Plates

1. Zhao Mengfu: “Twin Pines, Level Distance.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art,

New York. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1973.120.5/

2. Wu Zhen: “Central Mountains.” National Palace Museum, Taipei.

http://www.zhongshideng.com/gudai/201403/3760.html

3. Ni Zan: “The Rongxi Studio.” National Palace Museum, Taipei.

http://www.comuseum.com/painting/masters/ni-zan/rongxi-studio/

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Chan and Three Yuan Landscape paintings · Web view2018/07/07 · The idea embodied in this unique pictorial space is obviously influenced by the Chinese concept of yin and yang