Chinese Painters | Page 8

charm, closely
verging on the disquieting dreams of decadence.
[8] Interpretations of the Six Canons by five authorities are accessible
in a very convenient form for comparison in Mr. Laurence Binyon's
"Flight of the Dragon," p. 12.--TRANSLATOR.
[Illustration: PLATE VII. GEESE Sung Period. British Museum,
London.]

III. THE INTERVENTION OF BUDDHISM
Chinese books state that between the fourth and the eighth centuries
"the art of painting man and things underwent a vital change." By this
they alluded to the intervention of Buddhist art, which made its
appearance in China toward the fifth century in the form of the
Graeco-Indian art of Gandhara, already modified by its transit across
Eastern Turkestan. This by no means indicates that purely Indian
origins might not be found for it. At Sanchi, as well as in Central India
and at Ajantâ such characteristics are preserved. But the Greek
dynasties which had settled in northwestern India in the train of
Alexander, had carried with them the canons of Hellenistic art. The
technique and methods of this art were placed at the service of the new
religion. They gave to Buddhist art--which was just beginning to
appear in the Gandharian provinces--its outward form, its type of
figures, its range of personages and the greater part of its
ornamentation.[9]

[9] See Foucher, "L'Art gréco-bouddique du Gandhara." Paris, Leroux.
Buddhism found the expiring Hellenistic formula which had been
swept beyond its borders, ready at hand at the very moment the new
religion was gathering itself together for that prodigious journey which,
traversing the entire Far East, was to lead it to the shores of the Pacific.
Once outside of India, it came into contact with Sassanian Persia and
Bactria. With Hellenistic influences were mingled confused elements
springing from the scattered civilizations which had reigned over the
Near East. Thence it spread to the byways of Eastern Turkestan.
We know today, thanks to excavations of the German expeditions of
Grünwedel and von Lecoq, the two English expeditions of Sir Aurel
Stein and the French expedition of M. Pelliot, that in that long chain of
oases filled with busy cities, Buddhist art was gradually formed into the
likeness under which it was to appear as a finished product in the Far
East. Here it developed magnificently. The enormous frescoes of
Murtuq display imposing arrangements of those figures of Buddhas and
Bôdhisatvas which were to remain unchanged in the plastic formulas of
China and Japan. Meanwhile conflicting influences continued to be felt.
Sometimes the Indian types prevailed, as at Khotan, at others there
were Semitic types and elements originating in Asia Minor, such as
were found at Miran, and at length, as at Tun-huang, types that were
almost entirely Chinese appeared.
The paintings brought from Tun-huang by the Stein and Pelliot
expeditions enable us to realize the nature of the characteristics which
contact with China imposed upon Buddhist art. It had no choice but to
combine with the tendencies revealed in the painting of Ku K'ai-chih.
The painter trained in the school of Hellenistic technique drew with the
brush. He delighted in the rhythmic movement of the line and the
display of a transcendent harmony and elegance of proportion such as
are seen in the frescoes of Eastern Turkestan. Perhaps through contact
with China--herself searching for new expressions--but probably
through a combination of the two influences, Buddhist painting, at the
opening of the T'ang dynasty, gives us heavier types in which compact
and powerful figures take on a new character.

From then on we perceive the nature of the great change to which the
early books refer. Chinese painting had already known the genii and
fairies of Taoism, the Rishi or wizards living in mountain solitudes, the
Immortals dwelling in distant isles beyond the sea. It now knew gods
wrapped in the ecstatic contemplation of Nirvana, with smiling mouth
and half-closed eyes, revealing mystic symbols in a broad and apostolic
gesture. It had more life-like figures, attendants, benign and malignant,
terrifying demons. Before these impassive gods, in a fervor of devotion
it bent the figures of donors, men and women, sometimes veritable
portraits. With even greater breadth it portrayed the disciples of
Sakyamuni, those anchorites and hermits who under the name of
Lohan[10] have entered into Chinese Buddhist legend. Indian priests
with harsh, strongly marked features and wrinkled faces, preachers of a
foreign race, disfigured by scourging or else the calm full visage of the
ecstatic in contemplation,--such are the types that appeared. Chinese
painters took up the new subjects and treated them with a freedom, an
ease, and a vitality which at once added an admirable chapter to the
history of art.
[10] Indian Arhat; Japanese Rakan.--TRANSLATOR.

IV. THE T'ANG PERIOD--SEVENTH TO TENTH CENTURIES
The T'ang dynasty was the really vital period of Chinese Buddhism.
Among the painters who gave it