of literati-style painting could be from its ideologies and hagiographies.25 Nevertheless, the literati painting ideal prioritized self-expression over naturalism with an established lexicon of brushwork derived from calligraphy and a limited range of subjects (most notably landscape) represented in ink and perhaps light organic colors. The literati amateur painter sought to achieve “spirit resonance” (qiyun) in his painting, and belittled the spectacularly realistic but technical “formlikeness” (xingsi or xiangxing) used by trained professional painters (such as muralists) to appeal to the uncultured public. Painting theorist Xie He (act. c. 500) codified the preeminence of spirit resonance in his Six Laws of painting, which listed this indefinable quality as the most important, followed closely by brushwork. Formlikeness was third, barely above the mundane elements of color, composition, and copying. However complicated this polarization of brushwork and expression against detail and realism has been proven to be, Xie He’s laws had a profound effect on later centuries of discourse on pictorial illusionism.
Already during Xie He’s time, some early literati deemed illusionistic murals the worst of all paintings for their reliance on formlikeness, manipulated to an extreme by professional painters, and criticized muralists as merely wall painters—artisans rather than artists. The highest praise an early muralist other than Wu Daozi could generally hope to receive was what Xie He himself granted to the temple muralists Qu Daomin and Zhang Jibo (both later fifth century), noting that their skill in architectural painting “penetrated to the divine.”26 Even the highly respected muralist Zhang Sengyou (act. late fifth to mid- sixth centuries), of whom Wu Daozi was believed to be the reincarnation,27 only “strode
beyond the multitude of artisans.”28 At worst, the comparison of a literatus, who painted as an amateur for his own enjoyment and self-cultivation, to a muralist available for hire equaled unparalleled disgrace. Yan Zhitui (531–after 591) recorded the mortification of three educated but not terribly high-ranking officials blessed with brush skills who were forced to paint murals in the Liang dynasty (502–57): “To find amusement in looking at the art objects of all times is particularly valuable and enjoyable. But, if one’s official position is not high enough, one is frequently ordered to paint for the government or for private friends, and that is disgusting service.”29 Regardless of how highly their superiors valued their skills, these men, as well as the sympathetic peer who recorded their embarrassment so acutely, were humiliated because they did not consider themselves and their skills available to command, especially not to paint such large public works that must have prioritized formlikeness.
Despite the presence and magnificence of Song illusionistic murals as seen in the tombs, this criticism only became stronger in the Northern Song dynasty. The famous Northern Song literatus Su Shi (1037–1101) was principally responsible for beginning the late imperial literati discourse of negatively characterizing both realistic and illusionistic paintings, as well as the professional artists who produced them. Despite acknowledging Wu Daozi’s unrivaled skill and unprecedented style, Su qualified the muralist’s talents only within the limited range of an artisan painter.30 The scholar and painting theorist Deng Chun (fl. 1127–67) noted in his treatise Painting, Continued (Hua ji, preface dated 1167) that even the Northern Song imperial academy painters were constrained by their professional training as well as their lack of self-cultivation: “the majority of artists, being limited by their personal characters, were bogged down in rules and techniques in their work and could not rise above the commonplace.”31 Developing their painting style in contrast to the naturalistic and meticulous court style,32 the literati community increasingly rejected the role that trained technique played in painting, which in turn affected responses to illusionistic murals.
From the Song dynasty onward, the fact that murals were found mostly in tombs and temples made them functional rather than self-expressive images, and therefore a much lower class of paintings. The muralists themselves could even be considered malevolent magicians for their skills at deceptive illusionism. Su Shi’s contemporary Guo Ruoxu (fl. 1070–75), the most influential art critic of his day, concluded his treatise Experiences in Painting (Tuhua jianwen zhi) with a vitriolic assault on “magic paintings” (shuhua). He abruptly assessed the sort of illusionistic murals that Duan Chengshi admired as the irrelevant products of sorcerers, liars, and evildoers before bluntly refusing to even record the appearance of any such works because they were not “artistic paintings” (yihua).33 When the character shu is translated as “magic” it has a supernaturally malevolent connotation, such as when it is a component of the words “witchcraft” and “sorcery” (wushu and yaoshu). Shu can also connote a skill, as in the term denoting “technique” as well as
“technology” (jishu), which was the domain of the professionally trained muralist rather than the amateur literati painter. The magic of illusionistic murals was therefore inseparable from the techniques used to create them. Perhaps this rejection was also a means of demonstrating superior intellect: as was the case with European illusionistic paintings, the ignorant were prone to such credulousness, while the educated were less gullible, as “diffidence toward what is immediately perceived is the prerogative of the learned.”34 If scholars such as Guo Ruoxu and Su Shi wanted to distinguish their educated selves from the uneducated masses by what types of paintings they looked at and how they did so, then perhaps the Northern Song literati ability to differentiate reality from illusion in these paintings was also a key means of social differentiation.
Beginning in the late eleventh century, therefore, the importance and presence of murals were both in inexorable decline: muralists had become artisans at best and mere wall painters at worst. Growing through the Southern Song and Yuan dynasties, by the start of the Ming dynasty, connoisseurs were firmly against both murals and muralists.35 An anecdote about the literatus and painter Shen Zhou (1427–1509) reveals just how deep the divide had become. When, in order to humiliate him, one of Shen’s enemies submitted Shen’s name in response to a call for muralists to decorate the walls of a governor’s new public building, Shen’s friends encouraged him to use his connections to be excused from such “menial labor.” Shen graciously yet discreetly completed the task, but upon discovering just how large a faux pas had been committed, the governor apologized to the literatus. “You did not summon a [literatus like] Shen Zhou to paint a wall. Gentlemen did not do walls.36 What literati gentlemen like Shen Zhou did paint, and the style they used to do so, were later codified into a theory of artistic repossession of the past by painter and theorist Dong Qichang (1555–1636).37 Amid the factionalism that plagued the declining Ming court and its officials, Dong emphasized a return to brushwork doubly rooted in calligraphy and the works of certain ancient masters, thereby retroactively constructing a lineage of literati painting. Beginning with the Tang poet and painter Wang Wei (701–61), it ran through the tenth century “southern-style” landscape masters, paused during the Song emphasis on formlikeness, and picked up with Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322) to continue through the Yuan literati landscape masters and early Ming literati like Shen Zhou, and ended with Dong himself in the late Ming. The reintegration of Yuan calligraphic brushwork as ink texture strokes to model landscape forms (rather than using tone and shading) thereby produced paintings with “momentum” (shi), which was considered superior to mimesis. With calligraphy as the driving force, Dong sought a “Great Synthesis” (dacheng) of historical painting styles that privileged the calligraphic lineage of the Yuan literati over the realism of Song professional painters, all while emphasizing the contemporary Ming artist’s originality.38 This height of literati aesthetic theorization occurred at a time when elite ability to distinguish reality from illusion and true literati from those with merely literati trappings became a significant cultural practice for this same group, further linking painting practice with social differentiation.39
1.3Wang
