Figures and Animals

 

 

Scholar painters were not necessarily amateur painters, and many scholars painted in highly polished styles.  This was particularly true in the case of paintings of people and animals, where scholar-painters developed the use of the thin line drawing but did not in any real sense avoid "form likeness" or strive for awkwardness, the way landscapists often did.

One of the first literati to excel as a painter of people and animals was Li Konglin in the late Northern Song.  A friend of Su Shi and other eminent men of the period, he also painted landscapes and collected both paintings and ancient bronzes and jades. 

 

Figures done with a thin line, rather than  a modulated one, were considered plainer and more suitable for scholar painters.

Li Gonglin, Five Tribute Horses, detail  

SOURCE:  Fu Xinian, ed., Zhongguo meishu quanji, Huihua bian 3: Liang Song huihua, shang (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1988), p. 63.   Location unknown.  Dimensions not given.

Horses were a popular subject for painters.  

From the picture above and those here and below, can you think of any reasons why horses attracted painters?

Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322), Horse and Groom in the Wind
SOURCE:  Zhao Mengfu, Horse and Groom in the Wind, in James Cahill, Ge jiang shan se - Hills Beyond A River: Chinese Painting of the Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368, Taiwan edition (Taipei: Shitou gufen youxian gongsi, 1994),  pl. 1.14, p. 38. Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taiwan.  
Album leaf, ink on paper, 22.7 x 49 cm
MORE:  Zhao Mengfu, the painter of this picture and the one below of a sheep and goat, was a descendant of the Song imperial family.  For ten years after the fall of Hangzhou he kept to himself and his circle of talented friends interested in poetry, painting, and calligraphy, but in 1286 he accepted an invitation to to serve the Yuan court.  He quickly gained favor with Khubilai (as a regular official, not a court painter) which enabled him to speak up for Confucian values at court.  In the North, he saw paintings not seen by southerners in a century and a half, and did much to revive Tang styles in his painting.  Besides paintings of animals, Zhao did landscapes, bamboo, old trees, and religious subjects.
Gong Kai, the painter of the painting below (and another later), was an extreme loyalist, who had held a minor post under the Song but lived in extreme poverty after the Mongol conquest, supporting his family by occasionally selling paintings or exchanging them for food.  By contrast, the painting below Gong's is by a slightly later painter, Ren Renfa, agreed to serve the Yuan court and even painted on official command, making him not that different from a court painter.

Gong Kai (1222-1307?), Emaciated Horse

SOURCE:  Gong Kai (1222-1307?), Emaciated Horse, in Genjidai no kaiga (Tokyo: Yamato Bunkakan, 1998), pl. 1, p. 26. Collection of the Osaka Municipal Museum.  
Handscroll, ink on paper, 29.9 x 56.9 cm.

What symbolism do you suppose an emaciated horse carried?

Why would it appeal both to scholars aloof from the court and scholars at court?

SOME THOUGHTS:  Scholars had long likened themselves to horses.  Mistreated horses are still noble animals, like the noble but maligned scholars.  Thin horses could represent the scholar who suffers poverty rather than work for a corrupt government, but could also represent the scholar-official who is so devoted to the welfare of the people that he grows poor in office.

Ren's painting is actually part of a larger composition, with a fat horse and this thin horse.  Ren's inscription says that the fat horse represents the prosperous official who uses his position to enrich himself, while the thin horse is the self-sacrificing official who grows thinner from serving in office.

Note the difference in the techniques used by Gong Kai and Ren Renfa to paint the horses.

Which is more in keeping with scholar painting styles?

Ren Renfa (1254-1357), Two Horses, detail

SOURCE:  Fu Xinian, ed., Zhongguo meishu quanji,  Huihua bian 5: Yuandai huihua (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1989), pl. 36, p. 53. Collection of the National Palace Museum, Beijing.  
Handscroll, ink and colors on silk, 28.8 x 143.7 cm

Gong Kai also painted a long handscroll of the demon-queller Zhong Kui, a popular topic.  

Can you think of a political interpretation of this choice of subject matter?

 

ANSWER:  Some scholars suspect that Gong Kai was implying that the country needed demon quellers to rid the land of the demon-like Mongol conquers.

Gong Kai (1222-1304), Zhong Kui Traveling with his Sister, detail
SOURCE:  Fu Xinian, ed., Zhongguo meishu quanji, Huihua bian 4: Liang Song huihua, xia (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1988), pl. 150, p. 204.  Collection of the Freer Gallery of Art.  Detail of handscroll, ink on paper, 33 cm x 1.6 m.
MORE:  The legend of Zhong Kui goes back to a Tang dynasty story of Emperor Xuanzong encountering first a small demon who stole his favorite concubine's embroidered perfume bag and his own jade flute and then a large demon who came to the emperor's aid by not only catching the small demon but gouging out his eyes and eating him.  When Xuanzong questioned this helpful demon, the demon introduced himself as Zhong Kui, a man who had committed suicide by dashing his head against the palace steps decades earlier on learning that he had failed the palace examination.  In gratitude for the posthumous honors the Tang emperor had then bestowed on him, Zhong Kui had vowed to rid the world of mischievous demons. 

Zhong Kui was often depicted in the company of the demons he had subjugated, as here.

To see the full scroll, click here [given below in Teacher's Guide].

                             Gong Kai (1222-1304), Zhong Kui Traveling with his Sister 

SOURCE:  Gong Kai (1222-1304 AD), Zhong Kui Traveling with his Sister, in Fu Xinian, ed., Zhongguo meishu quanji, huihua pian 4: Liang Song huihua, xia ( Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1988), pl. 150, p. 204.  Collection of the Freer Gallery of Art.  Handscroll, ink on paper, 33 cm x 1.6 m.
The inscription on the left, by the artist, Zhao Mengfu, does not give any symbolic significance to the subject of goats and sheep.  The Chinese word that covered both animals, however, was a homophone for "auspicious."

Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322), Sheep and Goat

SOURCE:   James Cahill, Ge jiang shan se - Hills Beyond A River: Chinese Painting of the Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368, Taiwan edition (Taipei: Shitou gufen youxian gongsi, 199), pl. 1.16, p. 40. Collection of the Freer Gallery of Art.  Handscroll, ink on paper, 25.2 x 48.4 cm.

Chen Lin (Yuan), Water fowl

SOURCE:   James Cahill, Ge jiang shan se - Hills Beyond a River: Chinese Painting of the Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368, Taiwan edition (Taipei: Shitou chubanshe fen youxian gongsi, 1994), pl. 4.13, p. 180. Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei.  Handscroll, ink and light colors on paper, 35.7 x 47.5 cm

Compare Chen's way of depicting a duck, below (above in detail), to that of the court artist whose painting we saw earlier.  

Besides the difference between the use of color in one and reliance on monochrome ink in the other, what other differences in technique do you see? 

HINT:  Consider the angle the duck is seen from and its posture.  It is easier to portray an animal in silhouette than to foreshorten it.   

Think also about the differences in the brushwork.  The brushwork in the painting on the right serves only to describe three-dimensional form, while the brushwork in the painting on the left seems to be there for its own expressive purposes.  

Move on to paintings of Plum, Bamboo, and Other Plants