2.1 Chinese aesthetics
2.1.2 The origins of Chinese aesthetics
How is the discussion of the origin of aesthetic tradition possible? When an art historian tries to begin from the prehistoric age, it is always an issue how the content, the objects the art historian research, is relevant to the national art history. For example, French archeology has a tendency to unite in a succession the Gaul culture, the Roman province of Gallia and the Frank kingdom in the single line of evolution. Are they the same aesthetic tradition or not? The three, Celtic Gallia, Roman Gallia and Frank kingdom, speak different languages, worship different gods, have distinct art style.
The same can be said of China, although Chinese history is much more in one line without such radical changes as Roman conquest and Barbarian invasion in the history of France. Buddhism has entered China, but has not radically changed the society as it happens with Christianity in Europe. The worship of the heaven and of the ancestors continues in China after Buddhism, while pre-Christian gods of Europe have disappeared. No ancient conqueror has ever changed the Chinese way of life in the same manner, as Romans have changed the way of life in Gallia. Usually conquerors of China become Chinese.140 But there is an important exception. Western Zhou (1045—771 BC141) is established by a group, which is tentatively named 'Zhou people' and who is most possibly a foreign invader into China. Although, ''[o]ver the past fifteen years, this
140 Joseph R. Levenson (1968), Confucian China and its Modern Fate: Volume One: The Problem of Intellectual Continuity, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, pp. 62-63.
141 Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy (1999), ‘Introduction’ in The Cambridge History of Ancient China From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C., (eds) Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy, New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 15.
has been one of the most hotly contested issues in studies of Zhou history.''142 But even in the traditional view, Zhou people came from what is modern Shaanxi, which in comparison to the central plain of previous Shang dynasty (ca. 1570-1045 BC143) is a foreign western region.144 Moreover, Shang did not worship heaven Tian (天), it is the god of Zhou people.145 So that pre-Zhou art is under the same question, the art of the Gauls is in the relation to the French art.
The beginning of Chinese art goes back to a deep prehistoric age. The objects of Neolithic ceramics from China could never have been meant for aesthetic appreciation by creators, but they have incredible aesthetic potential. But it is not easy to determine which objects are relevant to Taiwanese Avant-garde art through Chinese aesthetic tradition. Some objects seem to be disconnected, like images of shaman faces from Banpo culture (半坡, ca. 5000-3500 BC146) decorated with fish. This motif of a face with fish does not survive, while another art element from Banpo, the image of a lizard-like creature, greatly proliferates: according to some scholars it can be a prototype of the Chinese dragon long (龍).147 Some Neolithic objects on the contrary share many features with later Chinese art. Some animals and flowers from stone and early bronze age have the same or close semantics as in traditional Chinese art. For example calabash or bottle gourd (Chinese hulu, 葫 蘆 ). The bottle gourd is related to immortality in traditional
142 Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy (1999), The Cambridge History of Ancient China From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C., New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 302.
143 Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy (1999), ‘Introduction’ in The Cambridge History of Ancient China From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C., (eds) Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy, New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 2.
144 Edward L. Shaughnessy (1999), ‘Western Zhou History’ in The Cambridge History of Ancient China From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C., (eds) Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy, New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 302.
145 See entry ‘tiān’ in ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese, (ed) Axel Schuessler (2006), Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, p. 495.
146 Marina E. Kravtsova (2004), History of Chinese art, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Krasnodar: Lan' Publishing House, p. 20.
147 Ibid., pp. 42-43.
China148 and images of bottle gourd are present in burial art.149
The Kantian notion of aesthetic ideas can help to define relevant part of (proto-)Chinese prehistoric aesthetics. Kant believes that some images are special because they provoke a lot of thought. In the section 49, he defines such images as aesthetic ideas (ästhetische Ideen). The example of aesthetic idea Kant uses, that of the eagle of Jupiter (5: 315), is quite helpful here. The eagle in the Indo-European world has a special meaning, which can be traced back for millennia, to the origin of Western aesthetics. The same can be found in some of Chinese symbols.
Kant introduces aesthetic ideas in the discussion on genius (§§ 46-49). The aesthetic idea is a special kind of idea which can be created by human imagination: ''[t]he imagination (as a productive cognitive faculty) is, namely, very powerful in creating, as it were, another nature, out of the material which the real one gives it. We entertain ourselves with it when experience seems too mundane to us.'' (5: 314 ). The genius for Kant uses and creates aesthetic ideas. But Kant does not say that genius is the only source of aesthetic ideas. In fact, he gives examples for which no genius can be named:
the above mentioned eagle of Jupiter is not created by a known genius. It is a part of Roman religion.
It seems there are two types of aesthetic ideas: (1) traditional (like the eagle of Jupiter) and (2) invented by a genius. Maybe every traditional aesthetic idea (2) is a result of work by a prehistoric genius (1), or of different geniuses separated by centuries, who modified and edited such traditional aesthetic idea. These geniuses can even create new aesthetic ideas unconsciously, thinking they transmit rather than create. But in any case, some traditional aesthetic ideas (2) are different from the aesthetic ideas invented by the historical geniuses (1), because they have deeper cultural and religious
148 Robert F. Campany (2002), To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth A Translation and Study of Ge Hong's Traditions of Divine Transcendents, Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 164.
149 Marina E. Kravtsova (2004), History of Chinese art, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Krasnodar: Lan' Publishing House, p. 48.
connotations. For an ancient Roman, an eagle was not just a way to think about god, it was a manifestation of the god, a good omen. The Ancient Romans believe that lightning, another symbol of Jupiter, ''does not strike the eagle among birds; this is why the eagle is represented as armed with a thunderbolt as a weapon.''150 Pliny the Elder (CE 23–79) writes that two eagles show every time a legion create a winter camp: ''there was scarcely ever a legion's winter camp without a pair of eagles being in the neighborhood.''151 An Aquila, a silver sculpture of an eagle used as a flag for a Roman legion, symbolizes the legion, the loss of it could lead to the dissolution of the legion. In fact, these birds where ''totems, reflecting the religious beliefs of an agricultural society.''152
The reason why some images are aesthetic ideas is not very clear. Kant believes that aesthetic ideas are indirectly linked (as 'pendants') to ideas of reason (5: 314). But can this connection be the reason why some images are aesthetic ideas and other images are not? It can be also only an effect: some images are linked to ideas of reason because they are aesthetic ideas. They are widespread in a culture and constitute the milieu in which a representative of this culture becomes an adult and thus forms his or her way of thinking.
Chinese tradition has a lot of objects which can be researched as aesthetic ideas:
mythical creatures, like the dragon and phoenix; local flora, like bamboo and a bottle gourd; and even the mineral world, like jade. Because Kant's examples are from the natural world, let us take a look at the flora. Moreover, it is a logical choice because the bamboo plays the central role in Chinese art of the literati.153
150 Pliny the Elder (1967), Natural History, vol. 1, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, p. 283.
151 Ibid., p. 303.
152 Lawrence J. F. Keppie (2005), The Making of the Roman Army: From Republic to Empire, London: Routledge, p. 46.
153 Susan Bush (2012), The Chinese literati on painting: Su Shih (1037-1101) to Tung Ch'i-ch'ang (1555-1636), Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, p. 102.
The fruit of a bottle gourd is a Chinese traditional aesthetic idea because of its practical usefulness and symbolic meaning. The bottle gourd can serve as a natural container for liquids due to its thick watertight skin. It is still used as a bottle today, as it was used in traditional and in prehistoric China. The bottle gourd has influenced some of forms of prehistoric ceramics154 and it is present as a symbol (what is called 'gourd‐like outlines',155 etc.) in burial art.156 The bottle gourd is a symbol of immortality in Daoism, so that the link to human finitute in time survives. Daoist immortal masters often hold staffs with bottle gourds. The bottle gourd in Daoism is also ''a Chinese symbol of self-contained, self-sufficient cave retreats, or 'grotto-heavens,' and other hidden paradisal realms.''157 Some sinologists view the source of such significance of the gourds in the ability of these vegetables to preserve seeds inside.158 No less significant seems to be its usage in folk medical practices, as mirrored in Chinese tales, where doctors often use bottle gourd to store drugs and elixirs. Ge Hong ( 葛 洪 , 283-343) records a history in
Biographies of the immortals ( 神 仙 傳 ) which is very illustrative for that meaning of
bottle gourd. It is a hagiography of Hu Gong ( 壺159公 , 'Sire Gourd' in translation by Robert F. Campany) and Fei Changfang (費長房), in which Fei Changfang finds out that Sire Gourd is not an ordinary man. Sire Gourd is a famous doctor who is always seen with a gourd, but only Fei Changfang manages to spot that at night Fei Changfang hides154 For example, some of the ping type, like one attributed this way and represented in color in Han Zhongmin, Delahaye, Hubert (1985), A Journey Through Ancient China From the Neolithic to the Ming, Belgrad: Jugoslovenska Revija and Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, p. 19.
155 Hung Ling-yu (2011), Pottery Production, Mortuary Practice and Social Complexity in the Majiayao Culture, NW China (ca. 5300-4000 BP), PhD thesis, Washington University in St. Louis, p. 106.
156 Marina E. Kravtsova (2004), History of Chinese art, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Krasnodar: Lan' Publishing House, p. 48.
157 Robert F. Campany (2002), To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth A Translation and Study of Ge Hong's Traditions of Divine Transcendents. Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 164.
158 Norman J. Girardot (1974), Myth and Meaning in Early Taoism: The Theme of Chaos (hun-tun), Berkley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, p. 226.
159 However here 壺 means not a fruit but a vessel made out of the fruit.
in his gourd. In fact the whole paradise realm exists in Sire Gourd's calabash. Later Fei Changfang becomes a follower of the doctor and learns a lot of his secret ways.
Marina Kravtsova believes that the symbolic meaning of immortality, associated with bottle gourd can be a result of its presence in burial ritual artifacts of the prehistoric period.160 The same rather civilizational than cultural continuity can be seen in the persistent significance of the pig as a domestic animal and a symbol in Chinese art and cultural semantics. Pigs are important in the geographic vicinity of sinosphare from the examples of the pig's mandibles and skulls of the Neolithic burials of the 3th millennium b.c.161 to the celebration of the God pig in modern Sanxia (Taiwan).
The bamboo is another Chinese traditional aesthetic idea, probably the main such idea. Bamboo is a central subject of Literati paintings, Su Shi ( 蘇軾, 1037-1101)162 and others numerously paint bamboos. Bamboo is also present in Chinese Neolithic art. The pottery from Hemudu culture ( 河姆渡, ca. 5000/4500-3400 BC163), for instance, has a bamboo pattern decoration.164 Wolfram Eberhard draws a parallel between the Western hobby horse ('Steckenpferdchen') and Chinese bamboo horse (zhuma 竹馬) to show the fundamental meaning of bamboo for China.165 It is indeed a plant and material which is intimately connected with Chinese civilization. As an old cultural symbol, the bamboo penetrates modern concrete jungle of glass and iron.
A lot of pottery from Majiayao culture ( 馬 家 窯 ca. 3300-2050 BC166) uses geometrical decorations to imitate the texture of woven baskets, which until now are
160 Marina E. Kravtsova (2004), History of Chinese art, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Krasnodar: Lan' Publishing House, p. 48.
161 Li Liu (1996), ‘Mortuary Ritual and Social Hierarchy in the Longshan Culture’ in Early China, vol. 21, p. 16.
162 Susan Bush (2012), The Chinese literati on painting: Su Shih (1037-1101) to Tung Ch'i-ch'ang (1555-1636), Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, p. 9.
163 Marina E. Kravtsova (2004), History of Chinese art, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Krasnodar: Lan' Publishing House, p. 22.
164 Ibid., p. 65.
165 See the entry on bamboo in Wolfram Eberhard (1983), Lexikon chinesicher Symbole, Köln and Taipei: Eugen Diederichs Verlag and Lucky book, pp. 31-32.
166 Marina E. Kravtsova (2004), History of Chinese art, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Krasnodar: Lan' Publishing House, p. 21.
made of bamboo. Such an imitation of an older technological object (woven baskets) in the form of a newer object of the same function (pottery vessel for grain) is called skeuomorphism (from the Greek 'skeuos' – 'vessel' or 'tool' and 'morphe' – 'shape'167).
Skeuomorphism is not unique to China. Thus, all ceramic forms at Knossos ''show signs of skeuomorphism that links them to containers manufactured within well-developed traditions of wood or basket-making.''168 Due to the more isolated and endemic nature of Chinese civilization, skeuomorphic objects in China often have a specific feature of organicism. Greek skeuomorphic objects are often used in the landscape where the living originals cannot survive. The skeuomorphism in the West is weakened because of the dislocation of the Western civilization.
As a result of the coexistence of the skeuomorph and its original natural object, Chinese aesthetics of skeuomorphism preserves a special link to nature. With a calabash it is almost a direct move from a natural object to an artistic style: from using it as a water vessel to using a pottery copy of it.169 This is as if nature gives art to humans to appreciate nature. Natural forms are not only purposive for themselves (survivability of the organisms), but also for humans (a bamboo stick for walking, a bottle gourd for preservation of water). The teleology of nature and as-if teleology of nature's aesthetic appreciation finds in the Chinese archaic age a hybrid form. It is nor a pure nor an adherent beauty, but one of a successful overlapping of reason, human manual capacities and environment. Humanity not only appreciates and uses such hybrids, humans build their identity upon such mixed beauties. The Chinese bamboo, heather of the Western Europe (German 'Heidekraut' and enduring tradition of Heather queen's elections), all can be examples of this archaic hybridity. Or horses of different nations of the nomadic
167 David M. Berry (2014), Critical Theory and the Digital, New York and London: Bloomsbury, p. 63.
168 Christopher Mee and Josette Renard (2007), Cooking Up the Past: Food and Culinary Practices in the Neolithic and Bronze Age Aegean, Oxford: Oxbow, p. 186.
169 Han Zhongmin and Hubert Delahaye (1985), A Journey Through Ancient China From the Neolithic to the Ming, Belgrad: Jugoslovenska Revija and Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, p. 19.
past, Mongolian pony as well as Mongolian crocked bow, useless in war without a pony.
The same kind of the hybridity of art and nature are cowrie shells printed on the Neolithic ceramics170 (Gaomiao culture, 高廟, ca. 7400-5300 BC171) or color mark of a human hand on the wall of the cave. Such instances can be compared to a stone, taken home by a child. Nature is manipulated and appropriated (the stone was chosen, it is a child's stone now), but in exchange humans try to give themselves to nature, like in case of totemism: worshiping something in nature, as an ancestor and also as a designator of the group.172 If some ancient (proto-)Chinese group has taken cowrie as its totem (possibly the ancient dwellers of Gaomiao), the members of the group would have to believe that the cowrie is their ancestor, they are cowries or cowrie's now. A child can choose his or her stones only according to the random selection of stones around him, the options of hunter-gatherers are limited in the same way. It is cowrie if there are cowries, if there is a lake or a river. If there are steppes, it maybe be a deer, as Scythian art shows. The prehistorical hunters worship animals they hunt, they are often chosen to be totems, and in their art these hunters are deeply indebted to these animals. In other words, there is not only culture and nature (or, in Kantian terms, art, which is 'as if nature', and nature), but also the trace of nature in art inside of the culture. The trace is stronger in Chinese art because of its endemic nature. Because of the uninterrupted sequence of Chinese history back to the Neolithic Zhou dynasty. This feature can deeply influence the link of nature, beauty and morality, mutual formation of which is tentatively shown in critical philosophy. What is so special about bamboo for Chinese and for many close cultures? It is the beauty of us fitting in our landscape, but also the beauty of orienting oneself in the masses of the human species.
The forms of the past have a power to become the symbols of the present, in a
170 Marina E. Kravtsova (2004), History of Chinese art, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Krasnodar: Lan' Publishing House, p. 55.
171 Ibid., p. 21.
172 See Roy Wagner (2004), ‘Totemism’ in Encyclopedia of Religion, (ed) Lindsay Jones, vol. 13, Detroit and New York:
Thomson Gale, pp. 9250-9253.
feature of skeuomorphism. Even in the digital age interfaces of the text editors have a symbol of scissors for the procedure of removing part of the text to the operative memory. The name of this command is 'cut', but nothing is cut through this process. No paper or blade is involved. Why we need them? Why do interfaces need aesthetics in the visual milieu for human beings to dwell while working? It is not adherent beauty, because perfection is actually reduced through such nostalgic choice of forms: a computer is supposed to be more perfect than a typewriter using which text must be 'edited' with scissors. The same holds for ancient ceramics from the burials. The decorations do not serve in a tomb.
The beauty of burial art and of the interface are not pure, because there are no indications of these objects being meant for aesthetic appreciation. A burial vase, as well as contemporary interface aesthetics, are meant to be fleetingly experienced during particular interested moments of life. In case of the former it is burial rite, where they hardly will be the main moment. In case of the latter, it is the usage of one or another element of interface, often without any conscious attention how things which are used look like. In these hybridities there is a moment of beauty as a natural human need.
There is also a link with the past. Forms of these objects, say a vase in form of a bottle gourd, is a 'when' of culture. They indicate the stage of cultural development.
Such vases point also in the direction from where the culture comes, as if it were a reversed trace of progress. The vase occupies the place where the bottle gourd was before the invention of ceramics. The real bottle gourd and the real bamboo are replaced with ceramic or metal ones. Nature is replaced, but the replacement of nature lacks form, so that previous, more 'natural' form is preserved. The technology relocated to other regions will take this form with it. Where bamboo could not grow it would exist symbolically through the cultural dissemination, as a painting, for example. The inward
Such vases point also in the direction from where the culture comes, as if it were a reversed trace of progress. The vase occupies the place where the bottle gourd was before the invention of ceramics. The real bottle gourd and the real bamboo are replaced with ceramic or metal ones. Nature is replaced, but the replacement of nature lacks form, so that previous, more 'natural' form is preserved. The technology relocated to other regions will take this form with it. Where bamboo could not grow it would exist symbolically through the cultural dissemination, as a painting, for example. The inward