Chinese Landscape Painting as Western Art History - Artworlds.org

207 Pages·2013·5.07 MB·English

by  James Elkins

James Elkins
With a Foreword by Jennifer Purtle
Hong Kong University Press
14/F Hing Wai Centre
7 Tin Wan Praya Road
Aberdeen
Hong Kong
© Hong Kong University Press 2010
ISBN 978-962-209-000-2
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording,
or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Secure On-line Ordering
http://www.hkupress.org
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Printed and bound by Kings Time Printing Press Ltd., Hong Kong, China
Contents
List of Plates vii
Foreword: “Whose Hobbyhorse?” by Jennifer Purtle ix
Preface xxi
Abbreviations xxv
Iterated Introductions 1
I A Brace of Comparisons 13
II Tying Some Laces 49
III The Argument 67
IV The Endgame, and the Qing Eclipse 99
V Postscripts 133
Notes 147
Index 175

List of Plates
A Zhang Hongtu, Shitao–Van Gogh. 1998. x
B Shitao, Landscape from An Album for Daoist Yu. Album leaf, ink and color on x
paper. C.C. Wang Collection, New York.
C Vincent Van Gogh, The Starry Night. 1889. xi
1 Top: Vincent Van Gogh, View of Arles. Museum of Art, Rhode Islands School 25
of Design, Providence, RI. Bottom: Shen Zhou, Scenes at Tiger Hill, Oak and
Hummocks with Three Figures at a Wall. Cleveland Museum of Art.
2 Zhao Mengfu, Autumn Colors in the Qiao [Que] and Hua Mountains, detail. 26–27
Handscroll, 28.4 x 93.2 cm. Taipei, National Palace Museum.
3 Left: Michelangelo, Study for the Libyan Sybil. New York, Metropolitan 29
Museum of Art. Right: Copy after Wu Tao-tzu, Flying Devil. 8th c. Hopei
Province, Chü Yang. As reproduced in Benjamin Rowland, Art in East and
West, plates 7 and 8.
4 Top: John Marin, Maine Islands. Washington, Phillips Gallery. Bottom: Ying 32
Yujian, attr., Mountain Village in Clearing Mist, one of the Eight Views of
Hsiao and Hsiang. Handscroll. Tokyo, Matsudaira Collection. As reproduced
in Benjamin Rowland, Art in East and West, plates 41 and 42.
5 Left: Matthias Grünewald, The Temptation of St. Anthony, detail. c. 1510. 33
Germany, Colmar. Right: Li Cheng, Reading the Tablet. Sumiyoshi, Abe
Collection. As reproduced in Benjamin Rowland, Art in East and West, plates
31 and 32.
6 Left: Caspar David Friedrich, Two Men in Contemplation of the Moon. 34
Formerly Dresden, Gemäldegalerie. Right: Ma Yuan, Sage Contemplating the
Moon. Toyko, Kuroda Collection. As reproduced in Benjamin Rowland, Art
in East and West, plates 37 and 38.
7 Guo Xi, Early Spring. 1072. Hanging scroll, 158.3 x 108.1 cm. Taipei, 73
National Palace Museum.
viii List of Plates
8 Li Cheng, attr., [Temple Amid Snowy Peaks], detail. Boston, Museum of Fine 74
Arts.
9 Ma Yuan, Landscape with Willow and Bridge. Album leaf in fan shape, 24 x 76
24 cm. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
10 Zhao Mengfu, attr., Orchid Flowers, Bamboo, and Rocks, detail. 1302. 77
Shanghai Museum of Art.
11 Huang Gongwang, Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, detail. Taipei, Palace 80
Museum.
12 Ni Zan, The Jung-hsi Studio. 1372. Hanging scroll, 74.7 x 35.5 cm. Taipei, 81
National Palace Museum.
13 Wang Meng, The Forest Grotto at Chü-ch’ü. Hanging scroll, 68.7 x 42.5 cm. 81
Taipei, National Palace Museum.
14 Wen Zhengming, Cypress and Old Rock. 1550. Handscroll on mulberry bark 85
paper, 10 1/4 x 19 1/4 in. Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Gallery.
15 Dong Qichang, Landscape after Lu Hong’s “Ten Views of a Thatched Hut.” 89
1621–1624. Album leaf, ink and color on paper. Image: 56.2 x 36.2 cm.
Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Gallery.
16 Wang Hui, Pictorial Representation of the Poem by Yuweng, detail. 1686. 95
Shanghai Museum of Art.
17 Wang Shimin, Cloud Capped Mountains and Mists, Riverside, detail. 1658. 96
Shanghai Museum of Art.
18 Dong Qichang, Mountains in Autumn, detail. Shanghai Museum of Art. 100
19 Qian Du, The Bamboo Pavilion at Huang-Kang. Cleveland Museum of Art. 104–5
20 Dai Xi, Endless Range of Mountains with Dense Forest, detail. 1859. Shanghai 106
Museum of Art.
21 Fu Baoshi, Resting by the Deep Valley, detail. 1943. Shanghai Museum of 109
Art.
22 Yun Shouping, Album Leaf (one of five), detail. Shanghai Museum of Art. 112
23 Zha Shibiao, Searching for Secluded Scenery, detail. Nanjing, Cao Tian 119
Palace.
24 Gong Xian, Eight Views of Landscape, detail. 1684. Shanghai Museum of 120
Art.
25 Bada Shanren, Fish and Ducks, detail. 1689. Shanghai Museum of Art. 121
26 Shitao, Gathering in the Western Garden, detail. Shanghai Museum of Art. 123
Foreword:

Whose Hobbyhorse?
by Jennifer Purtle
I read the manuscript for this book expecting to hate it. Rumors about the manuscript
bemoaned a non-specialist author who presumed to tell specialists in the field of Chinese
painting history working to recover traditional Chinese ideas about painting that and how they
practiced Western art history. Moreover, the author allegedly did so in terms not interesting
to many specialists in the field of Chinese painting history, nor fully intelligible to some.
To propose the Westernness of the practice of art history in the field of Chinese painting
history—which has, since the middle of the twentieth century, sought means (including
rigorous sinology) to recover traditional Chinese ideas about painting—might be construed
by some as proposing the failure of that enterprise. For some, the manuscript thus proposed
the fundamental impossibility of thinking about Chinese landscape painting history in its
own terms.
What does it mean to consider the history of the art of non-Western cultures in their
own terms, especially when those cultures, despite the presence of sophisticated, indigenous
strategies for thinking and writing about images and things—and/or art—lack an enterprise
approximate to the Western discipline of art history? Can such a project be undertaken within
the discipline of art history? Is such a project better suited to anthropological approaches to
art, even though the question of what constitutes “art” outside the Western tradition remains
difficult to define? Or, does such a project, even as it closes the distance between non-
Western art and the Western scholar or viewer, necessarily transpose the object of inquiry
into Western epistemological frameworks and strategies of academic inquiry, thus leaving
an uncrossable, irreducible gap between the non-Western object and the Western practice of
art history?
Universal art histories and world art, both firmly grounded in Western practices of
art history (and often in the nomenclature of the nation-state), impose the epistemological
limitations of their creators and practitioners on the objects of their study. Objects, moving
within and beyond the conceptual borders of art history, problematize both the entry of