Chinese flower-and-bird painting studies

Author: Fu Jingsheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-02-01
Features: Flower-and-bird painting is a branch of traditional Chinese painting. Traditional Chinese painting, as a unique system in the world of art, has various forms such as murals, screen scrolls, scrolls, albums, and fan surfaces. In terms of techniques, it includes methods like meticulous brushwork, freehand brushwork, line drawing, colored outlining, ink painting, and more. These techniques can be further subdivided into numerous lower-level forms, for example, coloring alone can be divided into gold-and-green, light and dark blue-green, boneless, splashed color, light coloring, and light and muted ink, among others. Before the Sui and Tang dynasties, the categories of painting in the traditional painting system could be broadly divided into: figure painting, landscape painting, architectural painting, flower-and-bird painting, gourd-and-fruit painting, feathered-bird painting, mammal painting, and fish-and-insect painting. Figure painting gradually matured from the late Zhou Dynasty to the Han, Wei, and Southern and Northern Dynasties. Landscape and flower-and-bird painting began to mature during the Sui and Tang dynasties and had already formed independent painting categories by the Five Dynasties. Flower-and-bird painting is one of the expressive forms within the scope of traditional Chinese painting themes. As the name suggests, it should express the author's thoughts and emotions and provide aesthetic enjoyment by depicting and portraying flowers, birds, and other natural elements. However, strictly speaking, its thematic scope is not limited to flowers and birds; grasshoppers, fish, shrimp, fruits, vegetables, as well as domestic animals, are all subjects it depicts. Therefore, it also has broad and narrow definitions. Currently, what people commonly refer to as flower-and-bird painting is the broad definition, which is a historically established understanding. Traditional painting, during the Wei and Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and even the Tang Dynasty, was influenced by metaphysics and Buddhist thought, emphasizing "learning from nature and finding the source within the heart," requiring "meaning before brushwork and intention in painting," and focusing on shaping forms to express spirit, achieving both form and spirit, and valuing the vitality of artistic conception, the fusion of self and object, and the creation of artistic scenes. It also emphasized the connection between artistic conception and poetic sentiment, stating that "poetry is invisible painting, and painting is tangible poetry." Under this cultural context, the meticulous flower-and-bird painting of the Five Dynasties and Song Dynasty particularly emphasized poetic expression, showcasing a dreamlike charm and laying the foundation for the future development of Chinese flower-and-bird painting. Therefore, some later scholars also called flower-and-bird painting "silent poetry." After the Song Dynasty, various schools emerged, and with the influence of Taoist thought of freedom and Buddhist thought of emptiness deeply penetrating the minds of scholars (primarily represented by the Chan Buddhist concept of dependent origination and emptiness influencing painting theory), ink painting flourished. As a result, freehand landscape painting and freehand flower-and-bird painting became prominent during the Yuan and Ming dynasties due to their ability to express life feelings, convey emotions and intentions, and facilitate the formation of individual styles, creating a magnificent scene. Chinese literati painting began to flourish in the Tang Dynasty, experienced significant development in the Song Dynasty, and matured in the Yuan Dynasty, with a trend toward freehand brushwork. It continued to evolve in the Ming, Qing, and modern periods, increasingly emphasizing the use of poetic metaphorical techniques to express emotions through objects, focusing on conveying emotions and intentions through brushwork and ink, and achieving the goals of expressing emotions, uplifting the spirit, and clarifying intentions through the act of painting or the process of appreciation. Additionally, since scholars in the Song and Yuan dynasties often advocated that calligraphy and painting share the same origin, after the rise of literati painting, both calligraphy and painting became closely linked in terms of expressing meaning and emotion through the bone structure of brushwork, the flow of artistic conception, and the smoothness of lines. Therefore, painting, calligraphy, and seal carving mutually influenced each other, forming the distinctive artistic feature of integrating poetry, calligraphy, painting, and seals in Chinese painting. In flower-and-bird painting, the traditional Chinese painting's expression of integrating poetry, calligraphy, painting, and seals is particularly prominent. Under the influence of these ideological concepts, the modeling techniques of the freehand painting school gradually became diversified, with broader perspectives and composition techniques no longer constrained by linear perspective. Instead, they primarily used variations in lines and ink, focusing on brushwork techniques like hooking, scraping, dotting, and coloring, ink techniques like thin, thick, dry, and wet ink, and compositional techniques like the interplay of light and shadow,, and negative space to depict objects, arrange scenes, and position elements, thereby conveying emotions and intentions. In other words, the rich modeling forms and ink textures of freehand flower-and-bird painting serve as formal beauty, which inherently contains profound poetic elements—in this sense, the form of freehand flower-and-bird painting is its content. The development and changes of traditional Chinese painting are closely tied to how painters used flowers, birds, fish, and insects to metaphorically express their aspirations and emotions. Therefore, studying flower-and-bird painting allows us to understand how ancient Chinese painters, through the brushwork and modeling of flowers, birds, fish, and insects, achieved a harmonious connection with the metaphysical "Great Way" within their hearts. In this sense, it can be said that, fundamentally, ancient Chinese flower-and-bird painting is a second nature, reconstructed by generations of painters on the basis of transcending natural beauty, derived from the metaphysical principles within natural beauty, and blending formal beauty with poetic imagery. This second nature is the "radiance of the Dao" that ancient Chinese painters sought after, representing the rich and varied manifestations of the Dao. Therefore, in terms of aesthetic essence, Chinese flower-and-bird painting points to a higher spiritual existence beyond the specific sensory images on the canvas. In this context, when examining the brushwork and texture of flower-and-bird painting, one realizes that the brushwork and texture themselves are a language symbol rich in thought, emotion, expression, and communication. Thus, through the study of flower-and-bird painting, one can discover that the Dao is formless yet must be represented through images, and tools must have a basis yet can be understood through principles. Therefore, the ancient practice of meticulously studying the nature of things to gain knowledge undoubtedly aimed to achieve a profound understanding of the principles and the Dao, thereby reaching a state of clarity in principles, openness to the Dao, and sincerity of intention and rectitude of heart. In other words, through painting practice, the ultimate goal is to illuminate virtue and clarify intentions. In short, through the study of flower-and-bird painting, we can understand that painting practice, in a certain sense, is the Chinese people's way of understanding and grasping the world, as well as a bridge for them to cultivate their character through artistic and scholarly pursuits. Therefore, in this sense, it can also be said that, in the minds of ancient Chinese scholars, there was never a unified religious belief with divine attributes, because the artistic aesthetics based on the "way between heaven and humanity" supported their life beliefs and guided their thoughts and ideas. The tools and materials used in traditional painting are the specially made brushes, ink, inkstones, paper, and silk from China. Modern Chinese painting has made significant breakthroughs and developments in inheriting traditional techniques and absorbing foreign methods, leading to innovations in the application of tools and materials and technical expression. However, the core concepts of Chinese painting—such as emphasizing form and spirit, valuing brushwork and ink, upholding artistic conception, employing metaphorical techniques, being rich in meaning, learning from nature, seeking the source within the heart, and adhering to the "Six Methods" and "Four Standards"—all contain principles related to life. Therefore, it can be said that the aesthetic essence pursued by the formal techniques of Chinese flower-and-bird painting—such as sinews, bones, flesh, blood, artistic conception, intention, momentum, and spirit—is, in essence, the temporal and spatial space where the higher spiritual existence the Chinese people in flower-and-bird painting is preserved. This is the fundamental prerequisite for the survival of traditional Chinese painting. Therefore, the most basic aesthetic concepts in Chinese painting must possess cultural gene stability characteristics. This is a crucial issue that we must pay close attention to when studying flower-and-bird painting, and our research on it starts from this point.