Art historians may be amazed that while landscape painting did not become an important category in Europe until the nineteenth century, it developed greatly in China as early as the eighth century. To answer the question why, one Chinese character may be enough :yi 逸,or the reclusive spirit. However, it will take a fair-sized paper to explain yi and how it entered into art.

1. Yi and its History

Yi is an idea with a very long history in ancient China. It appeared much earlier than yi painters or painting. Earliest were men of yi, from at least the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Men of yi were somewhat similar to Western hermits, who withdrew from society and lived in reclusion. At first they were forced to be reclusive because of political trouble with kings or noblemen, or, like refugees, escaped from wars. But in the long course of history, these hermits began to develop theories or beliefs to justify their life style. They came to think it was morally exemplary to retreat from politics in certain situations, for example, when society was in disorder under an incompetent king whose favour intellectuals could gain only by flattery, or when people lost their own land but refused to collaborate with new rulers. In such situations, the reclusive life was considered a good and moral choice.

Stories about hermits abound in classical Chinese texts, both in the Confucian and in the Taoist traditions. For simplicity""s sake, I limit my examples to two most important books, one Confucian and one Taoist.

Confucius seems to have held a mixed attitude towards hermits. He himself was deeply involved in politics. He served for a period as Minister of Justice (sikou 司寇) in the State of Lu. After leaving the post, he taught students (it was said he had as many as three thousand) qualifying for the civil service. He travelled to many states to persuade kings or vassals to accept his political plan. These activities show that he was by no means a hermit. However, in the Analects, three groups of records attract attention.

The first group concerned famous hermits who were said to have lived long before Confucius. King Zhou, the last monarch of the Shang Dynasty, led a dissolute life and the country was in danger. Three noblemen- Weizi, Jizi and Bigan- chose three different ways to deal with the situation. Weizi fled, Jizi pretended to be mad and was put in bondage, while Bigan, trying to give advice but only offending the king, was killed. Confucius said: "There were three benevolent men [ men of ren 仁 ] in the Yin [ the Shang was called the Yin because its capital was Yin]. "[2]Thus all the three men were regarded as virtuous. Weizi was obviously a man of yi, who deserted his king and chose to live reclusively. Xu Gan, one of Confucius"" followers towards the end of the Han Dynasty, said, "Weizi""s choice was the best, Jizi""s the second, Bigan""s the worst. Thus in the The Spring and Autumn Annals, those dafu 大夫[a rank of officials in the archaic period who served as advisers to monarchs or in other key positions] who were put to death were often recorded in derision, as being not clever enough to save themselves. "[3] Xu Gan designed a value system much more in favour of yi. People might argue that Xu Gan""s idea is not necessarily the same as Confucius"", but from Confucius"" words, "men who shun the world come first; those who shun a particular place come next; those who shun a hostile look come next; those who shun hostile words come last"[4], we can see that Xu Gan""s idea differs little from that of Confucius.

When the notion "people of yi"(yimin 逸民)was explained in the Analects, seven persons were taken as examples, among them Boyi and Shuqi, sons of a vassal at the end of the Shang Dynasty. When the king(then a vassal of the Shang) of Zhou embarked on an expedition against the King of Shang, Boyi and Shuqi stood in his way and said that it was not virtuous for a vassal to fight against the King. When the Shang had been conquered and a new dynasty had been established, Boyi and Shuqi, thinking that all places under heaven now belonged to the Zhou, decided to live reclusively in the Shouyang Mountains. They felt that it was no longer moral to eat any rice for it now belonged to the Zhou. Instead they had to eat herbs, and, in the end, they starved to death. Boyi and Shuqi were considered by Confucius to be of high virtue because they elected" not to lower their purpose or to allow themselves to be humiliated. "[5]

The second group was those contemporaries of Confucius who seem not to have agreed with his way of life. The Analects recorded many hermits who ridiculed Confucius. For example, Jieyu, a pretended madman from the State of Chu, sang as he walked past Confucius:

Phoenix, oh phoenix!

How thy virtue has declined!

What is past is beyond help,

What is to come is not yet lost.

Give up, give up!

Perilous is the lot of those in office today. [6]

As well as Jieyu, changju, Jieni and some anonymous hermits are recorded in the Analects. It appears that Confucius did not agree with the life these hermits led, but in fact, these records precisely reflect the other side of Confucius"" mind. In response to Changju""s and Jieni""s criticism, Confucius said, "If the Way prevailed in the world, there would be no need for me to change it. "[7] By this, he expressed that he was unwilling to engage in politics, but had to.

The third group revealed more about the other side of Confucius. Confucius once said, "If the Way fails to be implemented, I will float out to sea on a raft. "[8]In another place, when he asked his followers to express their wills, he showed his agreement:

In the late spring, after the spring clothes have been newly made, I should like, together with five or six adult friends and six or seven boys, to go bathing in the River Yi and enjoy the breeze on the Rain Altar, and then to go home chanting poetry. [9]

It seems that he preferred retirement, but the social situation forced him to be involved in politics. His uneasy conscience would not let him leave the world in this disorder, so he tried his best to "save" it. He even said that his was an impossible goal, but still he was willing to seek it. From an ethical point of view, he should not give up, although he really wanted to live freely and without care.

Zhuang Zi, on the other hand, held a quite different idea on this. A story in the Zhuang Zi runs:

Once, when Zhuang Zi was fishing in the Pu River, the king of Chu sent two officials to go and announce to him: "I would like to trouble you with the ad-ministration of my realm. "

Zhuang Zi held on to the fishing pole and, without turning his head, said, "I have heard that there is a sacred tortoise in Chu that has been dead for three thousand years. The king keeps it wrapped in cloth and boxed, and stores it in the ancestral temple. Now would this tortoise rather be dead and have its bones left behind and honored? Or would it rather be alive and dragging its tail in the mud?"

"It would rather be alive and dragging its tail in the mud", said the two officials.

Zhuang Zi said, "Go away!" I""ll drag my tail in the mud!"[10]

Here we see a hermit""s ideal: to retreat from public affairs and hide in nature in order to survive the dirty and dangerous politics of the day. The Zhuang Zi records more stories of how Zhuang Zi refused to serve as an official. For example, he is described as a phoenix, "it will rest on nothing but a Chinese parasol tree, eat nothing but bamboo seeds and drink only from springs of sweet water" ,[11] while those who were interested in official positions were like owls holding putrid rats.

The Zhuang Zi has a characteristic expression of the reclusive idea. The sages in the texts of the Confucian School are usually paralleled by some figures in the Taoist texts. The Confucian School worshipped the Yellow Emperor. The Zhuang Zi says that Guangcheng Zi once taught the Yellow Emperor about Dao (the Way), but when the Yellow Emperor offered Guangcheng Zi the position of emperor, the latter refused. The Confucian School praised Yao, but in the Zhuang Zi, Yao suggested abdicating and letting Xu You take his position. Xu You said that these words contaminated his ears and immediately went to a river to wash them. In the Zhuang Zi, there is even a counterpart of Confucius - Lao Zi who is said to be Confucius"" teacher, though the Lao Zi was actually written much later than Confucius"" time. By conceiving of some imaginative figures or stories, the Zhuang Zi implies that Taoism is better than Confucianism, and that the reclusive spirit is an ideal morality.

The practice of Taoism brought about a great transformation. People were no longer forced to withdraw from public affairs but did so willingly. Now retreat itself became a demonstration of morality. To be involved in politics was seen as pursuing social position and wealth, thus to withdraw signified giving up all these things. It was immoral for a citizen to give up the responsibilities of citizenship in some societies, for instance, ancient Greece; but in ancient China, people were not citizens but subjects, and thus it was much easier for them to justify such a choice. It was a kind of escapism, but it was more than bare escapism, since it was not just a refusal, but a pursuit. To live in reclusion was not the goal, but a means to purify the spirit, to cultivate taste, and to establish spiritual communication with Nature.

During the pre-Qin period, yi was only an idea concerned with human attitudes towards life and politics. Neither the Confucian School not the Taoist talked of the art of yi, or of a reclusive spirit in art. To the Confucian School, art was used as an instrument for politics; no reclusive spirit was allowed to enter. To the Taoist School, the arts should be totally abandoned, for they confused people, or encouraged people to live in luxury. However, this spirit later entered art in the name of ancient teachings, especially Taoism and later Buddhism. This happened in the fourth to the fifth centuries, almost 800 years after the appearance of the Confucian and Taoist Schools.

The first hermit to be interested in painting was probably Zong Bing(375 - 443). Zong refused to be involved in politics and preferred to travel in the mountains and by the waters. According to Zhang Yanyuan, Zong Bing was invited by a king to serve as prime minister, but he declined. [12] He wrote a paper" Introduction to Painting Landscapes", in which he explained why he painted landscapes:

When I was deeply attached to the Lu and Heng mountains, and roamed with abandon the peaks of Ching and Wu, I did not realize that old age was approaching. Ashamed of being unable to concentrate my vital breath and attune my body, I am afraid of limping among those [who climb Mount Lu""s] Stone Gate. Therefore, I paint images and spread colors, constructing cloudy peaks. [13].

He painted landscapes because he loved mountains and water, but had no energy to travel, thus taking painting as a substitute. He also indicated that his love of Nature came from the tradition of the reclusive spirit.

But Zong Bing was not considered a very good painter of his age. The Classification of Painters by Xie He puts Zong Bing in the sixth class, that is, the lowest. We may conclude that in the fifth and the sixth centuries, the reclusive spirit was entering painting, but was not yet considered important in this genre.

Since none of Zong Bing""s paintings are available, it is impossible for us to evaluate his artistic achievement. However, his comment on landscape painting is signifcant and meaningful, since it is among the earliest concerning landscape painting, and implies that the reclusive spirit might have a connection with this form of art.

In the Tang Dynasty, things began to change. In the early Tang period, especially under Emperor Tai Zong(Li Shimin, 599 - 649; ruled 627 - 649), there was a political ideal of putting all good and capable men in office. Confucius had wished to "raise the people of yi"(ju yimin 举逸民);now Tai Zong was seemingly doing this. It is a universal political ideal to have talented and capable persons in the right positions, though this ideal is expressed in different terms and practised in different ways. Tai Zong did it by developing the imperial examination system. Every educated man could participate in the imperial examinations, and if he did well he would be promoted from a common, perhaps poor, student to a high-ranking official. The practice was obviously contrary to the reclusive spirit, which was to encourage withdrawal from society and politics. Tai Zong tried to bring more educated and talented persons into public affairs, and he did establish a kingdom with a strong civic and military administration and a flourishing culture. In this kingdom, the reclusive spirit suffered a setback.

However, the examination system had another side. It stimulated education, especially in humanistic fields, such as history, philosophy and literature, which produced many more intellectuals than before. The word hermit in Chinese is yinshi隐士,a kind of shi 士.Shi means "intellectual". More intellectuals probably meant more hermits.

The philosophical and religious policies of the Tang rulers also provided opportunities for the development of the reclusive spirit: Taoism and Buddhism flourished during this period.

The family name of the monarchs of the Tang Dynasty was Li, the same as Li Dan 李聃(Lao Zi), the founder of Taoism. Thus emperors and the royal families took Taoism as a family religion. Taoism also attracted those who were not willing to accepted Buddhism because it was not a native religion of China. Therefore, Taoism flourished under the Tang Dynasty.

Imported from India more than 600 years earlier, Buddhism experienced a new flowering in the Tang Dynasty. A well-known example is that of Xuan Zang(604 - 664), a monk who is said to have brought back the Mahayana Classics from his expedition to India. At that time or a little later, a typical Chinese Buddhist sect, the Chan (Zen in Japanese) was established and came to gain influence.

Both Taoism and Buddhism played a key role in the development of the reclusive spirit. If Confucianism appeared to have rejected the reclusive spirit but actually showed sympathy to it, Taoism would justify it as an ideal life style and thus not only advocate withdrawal from politics or public affairs, but from the whole of society so as to be close to Nature, while Chan would push it more deeply into the human heart or soul.

Therefore, although the reclusive spirit was receding under Tai Zong, it gained more ground. When the golden age of the Tang Dynasty was followed by political instability, the reclusive spirit got a new chance to develop.

Political corruption during the Tianbao era(742 - 756) and the Rebellion of An Lushan and Shi Siming (755 - 763), drew the Tang Kingdom into decline, while the reclusive spirit re-emerged among intellectuals.

Wang Wei(701 - 761) was one of the most outstanding representatives of the reclusive spirit. Wang was a good painter as well as a great poet. He described himself in the following two lines:

  Although in this life I became a poet by mistake,

  In my last life I might have been a painting master.

This shows that although he was considered a poet he actually preferred painting. The history of the evaluation of Wang Wei""s paintings and poems is interesting. Wang was a contemporary of the two great poets Li Bai (701 - 762) and Du Fu(712 - 770), and of the great painter Wu Daozi (685?-758?). From the Tang Dynasty through the Song, the Yuan, the Ming and the Qing Dynasties, even to modern times, people have kept comparing Wang with them. During the Tang Dynasty it was generally considered that Wang""s positions in poetry and in painting were both lower than those of the great masters mentioned above. But since the Song Dynasty, their positions have been changing. For example, Su Shi said that he saw Wu Daozi""s paintings, and felt they were wonderful, but saw Wang Wei""s paintings, and found they were so fascinating that he had no words to express his feelings. However, this judgement only applied to painting. In the 1000-plus years since Wang""s day, no one has said his poetry is better than Li Bai""s or Du Fu""s.

Modern scholars have tried to explain the change in the ancient evaluation. For example, Qiang Zhongshu explained that "the criteria for painting and poetry in ancient China differed. " Citing Wang Wei, he pointed out that Wang Wei was placed lower than Du Fu in poetry but higher than Wu Daozi in painting, not because his artistic achievements in these two spheres differed, but because they were judged by two different sets of critical criteria. [14]

Wang Wei was deeply influenced by Buddhism and tried to express in his art a feeling of emptiness and a will to withdraw. This shows both in his poems and his painting; from historical records and his statement that "in this life I became a poet",[15] we might conclude that he was first a poet and then a painter. Few of Wang Wei""s paintings have come down to us, but his poetry is still available. His poems, especially those written after the Rebellion of An and Shi, are really beautiful, yet by the traditional evaluation he was only a small-great poet (un piccolo-grande poeta);[16] his position was much lower than that of Du Fu. Chinese literature, as Qian Zhongshu and Xu Fuguan have pointed out, originates from the Five Classics, or ideological textbooks in archaic China. [17] Although literature later became an independent art form, traces of the Five Classics were still retained, and literature for the sake of society and politics was still an influential idea. In such a context, Wang Wei could not be regarded as a first-class poet, not because he lacked artistic achievement, but because the criteria were not in his favour.

He was much luckier in the field of painting. In the Tang Dynasty, he was considered a good painter, but not as famous as Wu Daozi. But in the Song Dynasty, Su Shi began to put him above Wu Daozi. In the Ming Dynasty, Dong Qichang praised him as the ancestor of the Southern School, while Wu Daozi was only considered a good craftsman. The tradition of the Five Classics was less strong in painting than in literature. Ancient Chinese viewed painting as inkplay, more remote from social and political ideology than literature was, and of little significance for political edification. Therefore, they had a more tolerant attitude towards painting, admitting more spontaneous expression of personal feelings, thus providing more room for the reclusive spirit. Here Wang Wei was regarded as a firstclass painter though he was primarily a poet.

Progress from Zhuang Zi through Zong Bing to Wang Wei can be regarded as three steps in the development of the reclusive spirit. Zhuang Zi put forward the reclusive idea, but mainly in terms of political and social withdrawal. Zong Bing began to turn to the arts, especially landscape painting. Though he wrote a paper on landscape painting, and produced some landscape paintings, his work was not yet regarded as good art. In Zong""s time, figure painting was still regarded as most important, its position higher than that of landscape painting. [18]Thus we might say that Zong was a man of yi, but not yet a good painter of yi. A painter of yi should be one of the best of his time. Since Zong was a painter of the sixth class, if no more evidence is uncovered, it would be difficult for us to promote him to yi. None of Zong""s paintings now exists. Judged from some other painting of his age, we may conclude that landscape painting was then still in its infancy. Wang Wei was the symbol of the next step: he was both a man of yi and a painter of yi. He retreated to his Wang Chuan villa and concentrated on writing and painting. He was one of the earliest painters to execute ink-and-wash landscape paintings, and was said to have reached high artistic achievement. Therefore it might be said that in Wang Wei the painting of yi appeared.

2. Several Sets of Criteria for Painting

As mentioned above, Xie He classified painters into six classes. In the early Tang Dynasty, Li Sizhen was said to have divided painters into nine classes, that is, three major divisions: the upper, the middle, the lower, each with three sub-divisions.

Zhang Huaiguan, another art critic and historian of the early Tang Dynasty, also classified painters into three classes, but, unlike Li Sizhen, he provided his three classes with particular names shen 神 was the best, miao 妙 the second and neng 能 the third. This can be regarded as progress in art criticism, since the meanings of these three words imply a set of criteria for his classification. Shen means "spirit"or "soul", thus the painters in this class were by implication capable of conveying the soul or spirit of the object; miao means "miraculous" or "skillful"; neng means "competent" or "capable".

Although Zhang Huaiguan provided no further explanations, these three terms were later interpreted by many art critics. Shen was said to have a spiritual representation of motifs; thus not only to represent an object""s external appearance, but its spiritual characteristics. This referred mainly to figure painting, the most important form until the Song Dynasty. A figure painting was supposed not only to represent a person""s appearance, but to characterize him, his temper and emotions as well; thus the key was to paint the eyes. Gu Kaizhi said that it was not relevant whether the four limbs were perfect, but the eyes were crucial in conveying the soul of a person. [19] This idea was of great consequence to many generations to come, and was taken as a principle for figure painting. Shen was also used to refer to animal painting, since dogs, horses, dragons, etc. could also be thought of as having souls. One of the most famous stories about this was that Zhang Zengyou, a great painter before the Tang Dynasty, once painted four dragons on the walls of a temple, but left their eyes unpainted. He insisted that, if he finished their eyes, they would fly away. His words were thought ridiculous, and people persistently asked him to finish the eyes. When he was compelled to paint eyes for two of the dragons, they immediately flew away. The two dragons with their eyes unpainted remained where they were. [20] In the Song Dynasty, some art critics even considered that trees, flowers and landscape had shen ,[21] but they only used the term in an extended sense, which we need not discuss here.

Miao means to show the wonderful capabilities and skills of a painter. There were rules or canons in painting, as in every art or craft. Miao means not only to have knowledge of these rules, but to apply them freely and spontaneously. A painter of miao would paint in unconscious accordance with the rules, having practised them so much that when he was painting, they had now become second nature. A famous story from the Zhuang Zi was often quoted to illustrate this. In "The Secret of Caring for Life" (the third chapter of the Zhuang Zi), a story was told of how a cook was to butcher an ox for the king:

At every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee - zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shou music. [22]

In reply to the question how he could do so, he said:

When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now - now I go at it by spirit and don""t look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. [23]

This should be regarded as the highest skill, but the cook said, "What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill,"[24] for it no longer needed the use of the senses. However, this was obviously the outcome of long practice.

Neng literally means "able" or "ability". A painter of neng was a competent painter, or his paintings qualified him as a painter. He was supposed to be able to paint in accordance with traditional rules or canons, and to represent a motif faithfully, or even vividly. A painter of neng was usually a hard working craftsman, with the patience to make a painting resemble the motif down to every detail. Many art critics in ancient China criticized the style, yet it was praised as a way of learning painting. They thought that a pupil should first carefully and patiently follow rules and imitate ancient paintings before going in for free creation.

Neng, miao, and shen may also be seen as three stages for the historical development of Chinese painting. During the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods, people began to see the world with realist eyes, tried to imitate the external appearance of objects. [25] Han Fei Zi put forward the idea that it was easy to paint ghosts and demons, but difficult to paint dogs and horses, since people had never seen ghosts or demons, but saw dogs and horses every day. [26] We also see the tendency in the terra-cotta warriors and horses in the tomb of the First Emperor of Qin, and other works of art of that period. After the collapse of the Han Dynasty, the idea of shen emerged in the paintings and remarks of Gu Kaizhi. Eventually, this idea was widely accepted by painters in the Tang Dynasty.

Neng, miao and shen may also be seen as levels a painter has reached. An apprentice should first endeavour to become neng, a competent painter. He should be trained under instruction to master various rules for painting. To attain miao, he should have practised so much that he could implement the rules without noticing them. The next step is shen. It is probable that only persons of talent could be called painters of shen, but shen must be based on neng and miao. Neng, miao and shen have been translated into English as "competent", "excellent" and "inspired". [27] No translations could precisely show their meanings in ancient Chinese, but these translations perhaps show one aspect of the relevant meanings.

The three-class set for evaluating painters, the three-stage way of describing historical development, and the three-step way of learning painting were now challenged by the appearance of a new class: yi.

In the late Tang Dynasty, Zhu Jingxuan put forward a class called yi outside of the three classes discussed above. Zhu did not say that yi paintings were the best or better than other paintings, but that some strange painting could not be included in any of the three classes. Thus, he had to create a new class.

In the early Song Dynasty, Huang Xiuyi, a critic from southwest China, wrote his Record of Famous Paintings in Yizhou, which introduced a four-class order :yi, shen, miao and neng. Huang was the first to put yi as the highest class. He classified all the painters in Yizhou (now Sichuan Province in Southwest China) into the four classes, offering detailed explanations as follows:

The untrammeled class of painting is the most difficult to group. [These painters consider that] it is inept to draw the lines of squares or circles [in a painting] with L-squares or compasses, and disdain minute thoroughness in colouring. Its brushwork is simple, yet its forms are complete and attain naturalness. None can take it as a model, for it goes beyond expectations. Hence we designate it the "Untrammeled Class".

In general, the art of painting is "to depict forms in correspondence to objects". But when inspiration soars on high, thought joins with spirit. [The painter] creates concepts and establishes forms, and the painting is so wonderful that it may echo natural transformations. The cabinet was said not to have been opened, and yet [paintings] disppeared, or paintings could leave a wall and fly away. Hence we designate it "the Inpsired Class".

Painting is done by men, and each man has his own nature. Brushwork may be refined and ink may be subtle without one""s knowing how this came about. It is like [the expert butcher""s] handling of a blade to cut up an ox, or like [the skillful artisan""s] whirling an ax to clean [plaster] off a nose. From conception to execution, one completely exhausts all mysterious subtleties. Hence we designate it "the Excellent Class".

[Some] paintings have characteristic which encompass the entirety of animals and plants, and artistry which vies with the achievements of heaven. As for[their] interconnecting peaks and flowing streams, diving fish and soaring birds, the images are so vivid. . . . Hence we designate it " the Competent Class. "[28]

The "Untrammeled Class" here is a good English translation of yi, but it cannot exhaust its meaning, nor show its history or its association with the meaning of yi as a life style. Therefore, while accepting the translation, we should keep in mind the history and association discussed above.

Huang was the first to take yi as the first class. Paintings so designated were considered in the Tang Dynasty to be unusual and eccentric; thus Zhu Jingxuan put them outside the three classes shen, miao and neng. Such an attitude meant that Zhu only wanted people to be aware of this kind of painting, but not to consider it important. Now Huang Xiuyi placed yi first: in the new framework of aesthetic values, the eccentric had turned out to be the best.

Yi, shen, miao and neng were later regarded as different styles of painting by different kinds of painters. A painter of yi was generally considered as a literati painter, a painter of shen a court painter, and a painter of miao or neng a professional painter or craftsman.

Literati painters were also writers, poets, and some served as officials. They did not have much time to practise painting and had not been trained in workshops, so they knew little about the rules or canons. Nevertheless, they had broad knowledge of literature, history and philosophy, and enjoyed good contacts with those versed in the arts. Therefore they could paint in good taste, although were not flawless from a technical point of view.

Court painters were chosen from among professional painters and trained in the Court Painting Academy. They were expected not only to be able to paint "in correspondence to object" -- true to life and precisely following the rules and canons, but also to experience the spirit or soul of the object and represent it in their painting.

Professional painters were regarded as painting for commercial purposes, following market requirements. This meant making their paintings lifelike, rich in colours, and in accordance with the rules.

By elevating yi to the first class, Huang set criteria in favour of literati painting. This set of criteria signified a fundamental change of aesthetic orientation in painting. Previously, as we have seen, a student was supposed first to reach neng, then to try to arrive at miao, and eventually approach shen. Now the best painter was that of yi. Those who took pains to progress from neng through miao to shen were making a hopeless effort. The best painters were thought to be those with a good humanistic education, who had read thousands of books and travelled thousands of miles.

But after Huang, still in the Song Dynasty, another set of criteria was forged under the emperor Zhao Ji, who led a painting academy at court. According to Zhao, paintings should be divided into four classes: shen, yi, miao and neng -- the first was shen rather than yi. This set of criteria shows the tendencies of academic painting at court. The yi style was actually rejected by the academy, but since some yi painters were so famous that it was difficult to reject their works completely, Zhao retained a second position for them.

Placing shen first means accepting the progress from neng through miao to shen; while yi was only a kind of painting which might be appreciated or respected, but not the best, and sould not be learned or followed, for it was not a classical model for painting, but somewhat unusual. When yi was put first, things would be quite different. Now yi became the highest model: a professional painter might progress from neng through miao to shen, but still not attain the best. To become a painter of yi, people should read thousands of books and travel thousands of miles, that is, have plenty of book knowledge, cultivate delicate taste, and have seen many beautiful landscapes, an impossibility for professional or court painters.

3. Yi and Its Rival Shen

The controversy between yi and shen was actually a struggle between two kinds of painters: literati and court painters. Literati painters were for yi, while court painters endorsed shen.

According to Zhang Yanyuan, there were two kinds of "best painter": one was "scholars in official clothes and hats, descendants of aristocrats "(yi guan gui zhou 衣冠贵胄);the other was "hermits or eminent men"(yi shi gao ren 逸士高人). [29]The former embraces all the ruling classes: the royal family, the noblemen and the scholar-officials; but the latter indicates those who were not in the monarch""s service but lived reclusively. Zhang Yanyuan""s idea was influential in ancient China, and was set against the arts of the craftsmen, the "professional" arts. Zhang""s notion was followed by Guo Ruoxu, a Song Dynasty historian, although Guo used his own words to express it. Guo said that the best ancient paintings were by "men in official carriages and hats"(xuan mian cai xian轩冕才贤 )and "eminent men living in cave"(yan xue shang shi 严穴上士).Guo""s "men in official carriages and hats " is equal to Zhang""s "scholars in official clothes and hats, descendants of aristocrats", and "eminent men living in caves" is equal to "hermits or eminent men. " Both mention two kinds of men when speaking of the best painters. They both exclude professionals, or craftsmen.

However, in the Song Dynasty, a new idea emerged, first put forth by Su Shi(1037-1101) and some of his followers, that the best painters were not both "scholars in official clothes and hats, descendants of aristocrats" and "hermits or eminent men" but only the latter. For Su Shi, ordinary painters could imitate the form of the subject, but few of them could represent its principle. " The craftsmen were perhaps able to thoroughly exhaust its form, but only ""eminent and excellent men""(gao ren yi cai高人逸才)were able to identify its principe. "[30]

Su Shi himself was not a hermit, but served as an official at the Song Court or in the provinces almost all his life. However, he kept on praising the reclusive spirit, probably for two reasons: the first was that he was not fortunate in his political life, almost always in trouble with monarchs and his superiors. The second, perhaps more critical, reason was that, in the Song Dynasty, Chinese philosophical and religious thought had developed to such a point that it combined Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Su Shi was a typical representative of this tendency. He was an active participant in politics. He passed the imperial examination at the early age of 21, and became a jinshi进士. He then entered the civil service and was promoted quickly. But after 30 or so, he ran into political trouble because he did not agree with the reforms led by Wang Anshi, another politician, writer and scholar. Subsequently, for more than 30 years, he served in the provinces except for a short period when the reform was in abeyance. His political activities displayed the Confucian aspect of his mind, but the trouble led him to cultivate Taoist and Buddhist tendencies.

One of Su""s favorite poets was Tao Yuanming, who wrote the verses:

I built my hut beside a travelled road

Yet hear no noise of passing carts and horses.

You would like to know how it is done?

With the mind detached, one""s place becomes remote. [31]

Such a concept of "detached mind"(xin yuan 心远) exerted a strong influence on Su, who appreciated Tao""s poetry very much and, as someone said, "Tao Yuanming would not have been so famous if Su Shi had not highly praised him. "

Su Shi lived in a period when Buddhism had been in China for more than a thousand years. Under the Tang Dynasty, China experienced a period of freedom of religion. But from the middle to the end of the dynasty, with the country declining and Neo-Confucianism gaining force, most schools of Buddhism were on the wane. However, one school, the Chan sect, found a way to develop. Chan mixed some Taoist ideas with Buddhism, and declared that one could become Buddha through meditation and suddenly attain enlightenment. This belief strengthened the reclusive spirit. If the reclusive spirit was originally a political idea and Taoism turned it into a social idea and life style. Buddhism conferred on it a religious sense and established it more firmly in the hearts of intellectuals.

Su got the idea of the "detached mind" from Taoism and, supported by Chan Buddhism, found that he could both participate in politics and simultaneously retain a reclusive spirit in his mind. This is evident in his poems and in his comments on painting.

Su once wrote a comment on Zhu Xiangxian""s paintings, in which he mentioned some ancients, e. g. Yan Liben, Wang Zijing and Ruan Qianli. He quoted the story that Yan Liben felt ashamed to be called master painter,[32] and compared Yan with Wang and Ruan. Wang refused to write calligraphy on the wall of a palace for a monarch, and indirectly implied that it was not honourable for a monarch to ask an educated man to engage in such a toil. Ruan, on the other hand, would play the qin琴(a traditional Chinese musical instrument) for anyone, no matter his age and social status; thus nothing could make him ashamed. Since Yan Liben tried to curry favour with the emperor using painting skill, he lowered his status and was not pure in his art. Here Su pushed the art of elitism a step further. It seemed to him that only those who possessed the reclusive spirit and lived in accordance with it could possibly become the best painters.

Su""s idea was followed by many intellectuals of his time and exerted a significant influence on the development of painting in later generations. However, in the Song Dynasty, as we have seen, another view of painting represented by Zhao Ji was more influential. At the Song court, there were many painters chosen from professionals and then trained by recognized masters. These painters enjoyed an honourable position compared with professionals, and were even granted certain official ranks. They actually constituted a special painters"" group with characteristic features. I have mentioned the "scholars in official clothes and hats, descendants of aristocrats", a kind of painters different from "hermits or eminent men" in the Tang Dynasty. Now in the Song Dynasty, a great change was taking place. "Scholars in official clothes and hats, descendants of aristocrats" were civil officials and noblemen, and in the autocratic system in ancient China, their social position would depend on the attitude of the monarchs towards them. However, a monarch could be fond of them for their capabilities in politics, warfare, etc. , but not only for their capabilities in painting. As Yan Liben""s story showed, it was shameful to be promoted because of skill in painting. Therefore, "scholars in official clothes and hats, descendants of aristocrats" still maintained some freedom in the field of painting. In the Song Dynasty, a special Court Painting Academy was established. Court painters were imperial servants, and their positions merely depended on what the emperor thought of their work. Their tastes were the same as the emperor""s, and their style was that which the emperor appreciated. Therefore, the establishment of the Academy oriented the evolution of this branch of Chinese painting towards a radical point. According to Deng Chun""s The Continuation of the History of Painting, court painting was special in two aspects: one was that it was lifelike:

The "ruled-line paintings" of the Painting Academy were very skillful, and new concepts in them were particularly appreciated. I once saw a scroll that was really lovable and delightful. It depicted the verandah of a palace, in dazzling gold and green. A scarlet door was half open, and a palace lady was partially revealed outside the door in an attitude of throwing away nutshells contained in a dustpan. Such varieties as gingko nuts, lichee nuts, walnuts, yew-nuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts, and water chestnuts could each be distinguished, and each was separate from the other. There exist [Academy paintings] of this sort, in which brushwork is refined and ink subtle. [33]

These painters tried to see life with sharp eyes, to find interesting details, and to represent them accurately. The other aspect was strict adherence to the rules or canons. Deng Chun again:

In the Painting Academy those summoned from all areas for examination came incessantly. Many of them were unsuitable and were rejected. What was esteemed at that time was formal likeness alone. If anyone had personal attainments and sould not avoid being expressive or free, then it would be said that he was not in accordance with the rules or that he lacked a paster""s instruction. [34]

The Academy set strict rules for painting, and accepted only painters who painted in accordance with the rules. Such a practice was despised by artists who preferred free expression.

The rivalry between literati painting and court painting was displayed in the two sets of criteria; one put yi first, the other put shen first. We have seen that, in the Song Dynasty, court painting -- i. e. shen -- got the upper hand. But after the Song Kingdom was conquered by the Mongolian and a new dynasty established, things started to change.

In the Yuan Dynasty, many Han intellectuals felt that the country was not their own. They could still choose: to serve as officials or to withdraw from politics or even from all secular affairs. But the former was a much more difficult choice. On the one hand, the Mongolians needed few Han intellectuals, and did not trust them; on the other hand, Han intellectuals felt that it was shameful to be in Mongolian service. Zhao Mengfu(1254 -1322), a great calligrapher and painter, chose the former. As a member of the Song royal family, Zhao was part invited and part forced to serve as an official in the Yuan court. His writings show that he deeply regretted his choice, and he was blamed by many scholars. The life experience showed in his painting, where a style with ingredients mixed from both court painting and literati painting appeared.

Other famous painters contemporary with or a little later than Zhao, such as Qian Xuan, Huang Gongwang, Ni Zan and Wang Meng, stayed away from politics and concentrated on painting, and, by their efforts, the reclusive spirit came to predominate in painting.

To take Ni Zan(1301-1374) as an example, in the Ming History he was included in "the stories of hermits". Ni Zan was indeed a hermit. He led a reclusive life and concentrated on writing and painting all his life. Such away of life cultivated his art style and made him an important representative of yi painting. The following paragraph might be a good summary of his views on painting:

What I call painting does not exceed the joy of careless sketching with the brush (yi bi cao cao逸笔草草). I do not seek formal likeness but do it simply for my own amusement. Recently I was rambling about and came to a town. The people asked for my pictures, but wanted them exactly according to their own intentions and to represent a specific occasion. [When I could not satisfy them, ]they went away insulting, scolding, and cursing in every possible way. What a shame! But, how can one scold a eunuch for not growing a beard?[35]

With these words he expressed a typical attitude of yi painters towards art. They just acted according to their will, for their own amusement, caring nothing for public opinion. They thought it unnecessary to study and follow rules or canons for painting, or to "seek formal likeness". They did not patiently paint a picture in detail, but with "careless sketching". From such a way of using the brush, they developed a new aesthetic principle, a principle of scriptology, with which to show human activities in painting. [36]

Ni Zan was but one of many yi painters in the Yuan Dynasty, a dynasty significant in many aspects in the development of Chinese culture, literature and arts, among which painting was an obvious one. We can even say that the painting of yi began in the Tang Dynasty, developed in the Song Dynasty, and reached a turning point in the Yuan Dynasty. It subsequently became the most important painting. Historically, when Huang Xiuyi put yi as the first class, this was only a bold pose or act of will. It was not until the Yuan Dynasty that such a will was realized.

4. Behind Yi

The idea of yi, or the reclusive spirit, in fact, highly emphasizes individual expression. It seems unusual that such an idea developed in a despotic society in ancient China, but it is precisely the product of this society.

In his The Sociology of Art, Arnold Hauser put forward the idea that there are at least three kinds of art: folk art, popular art and élite art. Folk art is what uneducated people create for uneducuted people; popular art is what educated people create for uneducated or half- educated people; élite art is what educated people create for educated people. [37] Hauser did not extend his idea to a historical examination, but it seems possible for us to do so.

As we know, in medieval Europe, social life was completely religionized. A legitimate king must have been crowned by a monk, to symbolize that his power was vested by God. The ruling class was dual: the Christian clergy and the nobility. The powers of culture and education were in the hands of the clergy, who bore religious propaganda in mind whenever they engaged in these enterprises. The nobility was mostly uneducated and their cultural and artistic knowledge only echoes of the clergy""s. Therefore, almost all the paintings of the period served religious ends. Such painting was more or less of a popular inclination in the sense defined by Hauser. People of that time declared that the educated could read the Bible, while the uneducated could experience the existence of God through his portraits. They said so to defend art against iconoclasm, but these words simultaneously revealed its popular tendency. The major task of artists was then to make portraits of God. Ban this task and artists would have little work to do.

During and after the Renaissance, the secular nobility became more powerful. Thus monarchs and noblemen became predominant in the arts. However, these noblemen were seldom engaged in art creation themselves. They were not so much artists as connoisseurs, and under them the systems of patronage and workshop were developed. These systems could only cultivate more professionalism in painting.

By contrast, ancient China was not a heavily religionized country. Confucianism was by no means a religion, while Taoism was mainly a philosophical idea, taken by many intellectuals as a complement to Confucianism. A religious Taoism had evolved since the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, but it spread mainly among uneducated people, especially in the countryside. Buddhism once exerted a very strong influence on intellectuals and common people alike, but it never became a national religion. Chinese emperors never ruled the country in the name of any religion, nor were they pronounced to be the representatives of any god on earth (except in the archaic period of the Shang Dynasty). Chinese emperors were called the Sons of Heaven, but Heaven was not so much a god as a natural force.

China had an imperial examination system for selection of officials. To pass examinations, historical, philosophical and literary knowledge was required, but religious knowledge meant nothing here. Such a system produced a large and growing number of non-religious intellectuals, or shi in Chinese. When these intellectuals served as officials and took charge of political and public affairs, they did not, as the European Christian clergy or nobility did, think that it was their responsibility, but they had to do so only for certain special reasons. To return to Confucius: "If the Way prevailed in the world, there would be no need for me to change it. "[38] The country belonged to the monarchs and royal families; intellectuals were only employed as officials. Politics was only a job to them. But on the other hand, politics was not merely a job and the country did not merely belong to the monarchs. If the country was in disorder, everyone would suffer. Thus an ideal attitude was that "on should retire after the country is at peace" (gongcheng shentui 功成身退).There was always a moral dilemma for Chinese intellectuals: whenever they sought political achievement, they were afraid of being seen as pursuing reputation, power, and wealth. Political life lacked religious connotations, and religious feelings could not be experienced in it. Therefore, these intellectuals sought compensation in quasi-religious Taoism and religious but more philosophized Chansect Buddhism. This is why the reclusive spirit was so strong in ancient China.

As I have said, in ancient China, there were several kinds of painters. There were professionals, who organized workshops. There were also academic painters, who served the monarchs and royal families. But eventually, literati painting became the most influential, just because the Chinese had such a large number of secular intellectuals, because ancient China was a non-religionized society in which intellectuals nevertheless had a special quasi-religious pursuits, and because China had a special ideological tradition.

Chinese literati painting, or painting of yi, was a kind of élite art, in the sense that it was created by the educated and for the educated. In this kind of painting, there were more expressions of personal and individual feeling or emotion, which, like landscape painting, appeared much earlier than in Europe.

Gao Jianping(高建平), Ph. D. of aesthetics from Uppsala University, Sweden, associate professor of aesthetics and literary theory of CASS. He has published 20 papers in English or in Chinese, and 2 books, one in English, one in Chinese. His English book The Expressive Act in Chinese Painting - From Calligraphy to Painting is among the first English books on Chinese aesthetics and has challenged certain influential visual theories in the Western world.

Notes

[1]. This paper was prepared for the International Conference on State, Society and Individual in Contemporary Chinese Thought held in Stockholm, 11 - 14 June 1993. The Chinese version of it was published in Xueren 学人(The Scholar),no. 5,1994, pp. 151 -198 and was included in my book Huajing tanyou 画境探幽  (Secrets in painiting - a study of the aesthetics of Chinese painting), Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 1995. I am grateful to Torbj■rn Lodén, Li Zehou, Liu Zaifu and Wang Hui for valuable comments on the draft of this paper and to Tim Crosfield for polishing my English.

[2]. The Analects, XVIII: 1. Translation by D. C. Lau, Confucius, The Analects, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979, p. 149. The words in square brackets are my additions.

[3]. Xu Gan 徐干(170 - 217) Zhong lun 中论, ""Zhi xing""智行篇. The author made the English translation.

[4]. The Analects, Book XIV:37. Translation by D. C. Lau, op. cit. ,p. 130.

[5]. The Analects, Book XVIII: 8. Translation by D. C. Lau, op. cit. ,p. 151.

[6]. Ibid.

[7]. The Analects, Book XVIII: tianxia you dao, qiu bu yu yi ye 天下有道，丘不与 易也。Here I quote Wing-Tsit Chan""s translation. See A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969, p. 48.

[8]. The Analects, Book V:7. The author made the English translation.

[9]. The Analects, Book XI: 26. Translation by D. C. Lau, p. 111.

[10]. Zhuang Zi 庄子, ""Qiushui""秋水. English translation cited from The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu. Translated by Burton Watson, New York: Columbia University Press, 1968, pp. 187-8, with some modifications.

[11]. Based on Watson""s translation, p. 188, modified.

[12]. See Zhang Yanyuan, 张彦远,Lidai minghua ji 历代名画记(Record of famous painters of all dynasties), Book 6.

[13]. Susan Bush and Hsio-yen Shih, eds, Early Chinese Texts on Painting, Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1985, pp. 36-37.

[14]. See Qian Zhongshu 钱钟书 Jiuwen sipian 旧文四篇(Four old papers), Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1979, pp. 1-25.

[15]. Wang Wei adopted here the samsara idea from Buddhism, which held that a person had many lives: his soul would be in an eternal cycle of birth, suffering, death, and rebirth.

[16]. Qian, op. cit. , quoting Walter Binni, I Classici italiani nella Storia della Critica.

[17]. See Qian, op. cit. , and Xu Fuguan, 徐复观 Zhongguo yishu jingshen 中国艺术精神 (The spirit of Chinese art), Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe,1987.

[18]. According to Gu Kaizhi 顾恺之, one of the most important painters before the Tang Dynasty, the first was figure painting, the second was landscape, the third creatures, and the fourth architecture painting. See Zhang,op. cit. ,Book 5.

[19]. See Zhang, op. cit.

[20]. Ibid. , Book 7.

[21]. See Deng Chun 邓椿,Huaji 画继(The continuation of the history of painting).

[22]. English translation cited from Watson, op. cit. , p. 50. There is a footnote on this paragraph in Watson""s translation which I agree with, so I quote it here: "The Mulberry Grove is identified as a rain dance from the time of King T""ang of the Shang Dynasty, and the Ching-shou music as part of a longer composition from the time of Yao. "

[23]. Ibid, pp. 50-51.

[24]. Ibid, p. 50.

[25]. Before these periods, there was an age of bronze art which, in Li zehou""s words, communicated "an overwhelming feeling of mystery, power, terror, and ferocity. "(Li Zehou, The Path of Beauty - A Study of Chinese Aesthetics. English translation by Gong Lizeng, Beijing: Morning Glory Publishers,1988, p. 49). This transformation in art style parallels what E. H. Gombrich called" the Greek Revolution" in his famous Art and Illusion, London: Phaidon, 1962, pp. 99-125.

[26]. Han Fei Zi韩非子,"Waichu shuo zuoshang"外储说左上。

[27]. Bush and Shin, op. cit. , pp. 100-1.

[28]. Huang Xiufu黄休复, Yizhou minghualu益州名画录. English translation based on Bush and Shih, op. cit. , pp. 100 -1, with modifications.

[29]. Zhang, op. cit. , Book 1.

[30]. Su Shi 苏轼,"Jingyinyuan huaji" 净因院画记。

[31]. Tao Yuanming陶渊明(365-427)"Yin Jiu"饮酒. Translayed by James Robert Higthtower. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970, p. 130.

[32]. The story of Yan Liben 阎立本was recorded in Zhang, op. cit. , Book 9.

[33]. Bush and Shih, op. cit. , p. 137.

[34]. Ibid. , p. 138

[35]. Ibid. ,p. 270, with some modifications.

[36]. See my book The Expressive Act in Chinese Painting - From Calligraphy to Painting, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell Internationl, 1996.

[37]. Arnold Hauser, The Sociology of Art, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 198,. pp. 547-97.

[38]. The Analects, Book XVIII. Translation by Chan, p. 48.