by Leys, Simon
10. Chateaubriand (who was no fool) gives us an eloquent sample of this national consciousness. During the retreat of the Armée des Princes (in whose ranks he had enlisted as a volunteer), wounded and sick, Chateaubriand collapsed by the side of the road near Namur; goodhearted Walloon peasant women took him up and cared for him. The Vicomte described this in the following terms: “I noticed that these women treated me with a kind of respect or deference: there is in the nature of the French something elevated and sensitive that other peoples recognise” (Mémoires d’outre-tombe, X, 2). It is hard to picture Plume abroad being led to voice a thought of that kind.
ON READERS’ REWARDS AND WRITERS’ AWARDS
1. These are the words of Joseph Conrad, in what remains the classic manifesto of the art of the novel—his famous preface to The Nigger of the “Narcissus.” The first sentence reads in full: “Art itself may be defined as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect.”
THE CHINESE ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE PAST
1. The civilisations of Egypt, the Middle East, Persia and ancient India are no less ancient, but their continuity has been broken. Only the Jewish tradition may present a significant parallel to the phenomenon of spiritual continuity which I am trying to study here.
2. “I have travelled a great deal in my life, and I should very much have liked to go to Rome, but I felt that I was not really up to the impression the city would have made upon me. Pompeii alone was more than enough; the impressions very nearly exceeded my powers of receptivity . . . In 1921 I was on a ship sailing from Genoa to Naples. As the vessel neared the latitude of Rome, I stood at the railing. Out there lay Rome, the still smoking and fiery hearth from which ancient cultures had spread, enclosed in the tangled root-work of the Christian and Occidental Middle Ages. There classical antiquity still lived in all its splendour and ruthlessness.
“I always wonder about people who go to Rome as they might go, for example, to Paris or to London. Certainly Rome as well as these other cities can be enjoyed aesthetically but if you are affected to the depths of your being at every step by the spirit that broods there, if a remnant of a wall here and a column there gaze upon you with a face instantly recognised, then it becomes another matter entirely. Even in Pompeii, unforeseen vistas opened, unexpected things became conscious, and questions were posed which were beyond my power to handle.
“In my old age—in 1949—I wished to repair this omission, but was stricken with a faint while I was buying tickets. After that, the plans for a trip to Rome were once and for all laid aside.” C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (London: Collins, 1973), pp. 318–19.
3. AUX DIX MILLE ANNÉES
Ces barbares écartant le bois, et la brique et la terre, bâtissent dans le roc afin de bâtir éternel!
Ils vénèrent des tombeaux dont la gloire est d’exister encore; des ponts renommés d’être vieux et des temples de pierre trop dure dont pas une assise ne joue.
Ils vantent que leur ciment durcit avec les soleils; les lunes meurent en polissant leurs dalles; rien ne disjoint la durée dont ils s’affublent, ces ignorants, ces barbares!
Vous! fils de Han, dont la sagesse atteint dix mille années et dix mille dix milliers d’années, gardez-vous de cette méprise.
Rien d’immobile n’échappe aux dents affamées des âges. La durée n’est point le sort du solide. L’immuable n’habite pas vos murs, mais en vous, hommes lents, hommes continuels.
Si le temps ne s’attaque à l’oeuvre, c’est l’ouvrier qu’il mord. Qu’on le rassasie: ces troncs pleins de sève, ces couleurs vivantes, ces ors que la pluie lave et que le soleil éteint.
Fondez sur le sable. Mouillez copieusement votre argile. Montez les bois pour le sacrifice; bientôt le sable cèdera, l’argile gonflera, le double toit criblera le sol de ses écailles:
Toute l’offrande est agréée!
Or, si vous devez subir la pierre insolente et le bronze orgueilleux, que la pierre et que le bronze subissent les contours du bois périssable et simulent son effort caduc:
Point de révolte: honorons les âges dans leurs chutes successives et le temps dans sa voracité.
V. Segalen, Stèles (Paris: Crès, 1922), pp. 29–31.
4. By “antiquarianism” I mean not only the taste and passion for all things antique but also their various corollaries: the development of archaeology, the activities of art collectors, dealers and forgers, the aesthetics of archaism (“ancient is beautiful,” the poetry of the past, meditation over ancient ruins as a literary theme, etc. etc.).
5. A telling illustration of this point can be found in Li Qingzhao’s moving memoir, Jin shi lu houxu (1132). After the fall of the Northern Song, as Li was fleeing south, she had to carry with her the precious collections of her husband. The latter, who was prevented by his official duties from accompanying her, gave her precise instructions concerning those parts of the collections that could be discarded, and those that should be retained at all costs, should the situation force her to reduce her luggage. The most dispensable possessions were the printed books (as opposed to handwritten copies); then the pictorial albums (as opposed to individual paintings); then the bronzes that carried no epigraphs; then the printed books published by the Imperial College; then the paintings of average quality . . . The most treasured items—besides the vessels and relics pertaining to the ancestors cult (under no conditions were these ever to be discarded)—were the antique bronzes with epigraphs, precious paintings and calligraphies and rare manuscripts. Li Qingzhao ji jiaozhu (Peking: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1979), pp. 179–81.
6. The classic study on art collecting in China is R. van Gulik, Chinese Pictorial Art as Viewed by the Connoisseur (Rome, 1958). (Reissued by Hacker Art Books: New York, 1981.) On the particular subject of the imperial collections, see L. Ledderose, “Some observations on the imperial art collection in China,” in Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society 43 (1978–1979): pp. 33–46.
7. The episode, which occurred in 818, involved Emperor Xianzong and the grandfather of the great art historian Zhang Yanyuan; the latter told it in his Lidai ming hua ji. See Zhang Yanyuan, Lidai ming hua ji (Peking: Renmin meishu chubanshe, 1963), Vol. 1, Chap. 2, pp. 10–11. See also W. Acker, Some T’ang and pre-T’ang texts on Chinese painting (Leiden: Brill, 1954), pp. 138–41.
8. It is at this time, for example, that The Night Revels of Han Xizai by Gu Hongzhong (tenth century) and Qingming Festival along the River by Zhang Zeduan (twelfth century) returned to China. (Both paintings are kept in the Ancient Palace Museum, Peking.)
9. The fact that an author describes in vivid terms the pictorial style of a given artist never implies that he actually saw any works by that artist; sometimes, in another passage of the same text, he may even explicitly acknowledge that he never had such an opportunity.
10. For example, Mi Fu (1051–1107), who was one of the most learned connoisseurs of his time, with privileged access to the best collections, confessed that, in his entire life, he only saw two authentic paintings by Li Cheng, the greatest and most influential landscape painter of the tenth century (Li Cheng died in 967, less than a century before Mi Fu’s birth). Mi Fu, Hua shi, in Meishu congkan (Taipei, 1956), Vol. 1, p. 88. See also N. Vandier-Nicolas, Le Houa-che de Mi Fou (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1964), pp. 32–33. Similar evidence can be found in abundance, it only remains to be systematically compiled.
11. Besides being an important business, art forgery also fulfilled very significant artistic and socio-cultural functions. Every scholarly family had to possess a collection of paintings and calligraphy; needless to say, not every scholarly family had the financial means to acquire ancient works of art, the supply of which was necessarily limited. Hence, forgers provided “imaginary” collections, which conformed to stylistic stereotypes and simultaneously popularised those stereotypes. In this respect, forgeries played a role not entirely di
ssimilar to the one which is taken now by cheap, popular prints and reproductions. This situation largely persists till today: I have seen eminent Chinese intellectuals living in narrow circumstances, who derived immense enjoyment and spiritual solace from an assortment of ludicrous fakes. (One is reminded of Balzac’s notorious collections of phony Titians and ridiculous Raphaels—these bizarre croûtes acted as a powerful stimulant on his visionary imagination.)
Finally, it should also be observed that Chinese forgeries could achieve very high standards of aesthetic and technical quality. In every period, including our own time, some of the greatest artists had no qualms about indulging in this activity.
12. Jorge Luis Borges, “Funes the Memorious,” Labyrinths (Harmonds-worth: Penguin, 1981), pp. 87–95.
13. On this subject see also Wang Gungwu, “Loving the Ancient in China,” in I. McBryde, ed., Who Owns the Past? (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1985).
14. Xun Zi’s journey to the totalitarian state of Qin, as its power was on the rise, calls irresistibly to mind the political pilgrimages that Western intellectuals undertook in the 1930s to the Soviet Union of Stalin. Xun Zi’s account of his visit (Xun Zi 16: “Qiang guo”) could in a way be summarised by Lincoln Steffens’s notorious utterance: “I have seen the future and it works.”
15. I am referring here to a famous passage of the Zuo zhuan (twenty-fourth year of Duke Xiang) which relates a dialogue that took place between Shusun Bao and Fan Xuanzi. Fan asked: “What is immortality? Could it be the continuous transmission of certain titles within a same family?” and he invoked the example of his own ancestors who had occupied high positions since the Xia dynasty. “No,” replied Shusun, “that is merely a case of hereditary privilege, which can be found everywhere and merely rests upon a continuity of the family clan. The true immortality consists in establishing virtue, in establishing deeds and in establishing words [that can continue to live in posterity], whereas the mere preservation of the greatest dignity cannot be called freedom from decay.” The philosophical interpretation which I present here comes from Qian Mu, Zhongguo lishi jingshen (Taipei: Guomin chubanshe, 1954), pp. 94–5.
16. The ancestors cult, which was the cornerstone of Chinese culture and society, should be studied in this connection.
17. On this subject, I am drawing heavily from L. Ledderose’s masterful study, Mi Fu and the Classical Tradition of Chinese Calligraphy (Princeton University Press, 1979).
18. It was suspected that the Orchid Pavilion was in the hands of a monk called Biancai, but the monk denied possessing it. Emperor Taizong then dispatched the censor Xiao Yi, disguised as an itinerant scholar, to visit Biancai. Xiao Yi gained the confidence of the monk and showed him various autographs of Wang Xizhi from the imperial collection, which he had brought along to be used as bait. Excited by this sight, Biancai told his visitor that he could show him even better stuff—and he picked from among the rafters of the roof where it was hidden the original scroll of the Orchid Pavilion. In front of this masterpiece, Xiao Yi pretended to be unmoved and even questioned its authenticity. Biancai, suffocating with indignation, stormed out of his hut. Xiao Yi grabbed the calligraphy, put on his court attire, and when Biancai returned, the visitor informed the monk that, from now on, the Orchid Pavilion would belong to the imperial collection. Struck with horror and grief, Biancai fainted. When he recovered, it was found that he could not swallow anymore—the emotional shock having resulted in a constriction of his gullet. Unable to absorb any solid food, he died a few months later. This arch-famous anecdote has provided the subject of many paintings.
19. L. Ledderose, op. cit., p. 20.
20. This is the positive aspect of the phenomenon—but it also has a negative side. Modern Chinese intellectuals, progressives and revolutionaries have increasingly felt strangled by the seeming invincibility and deadly pervasiveness of tradition. The outstanding exponent of the struggle to get rid of the past was of course Lu Xun, who analysed with unique clear-sightedness the desperate nature of the modernisers’ predicament: they can never pin the enemy down, for the enemy is a formless, invisible ghost, an indestructible shadow.
21. Liu Shilong, “Wuyou yuan ji,” in Wan Ming bai jia xiao pin, pp. 104–7. This delightful (and very Borgesian!) little essay was brought to my attention some years ago in a seminar given at the Australian National University by Dr. Tu Lien-che.
22. Holmes Welch, “The Chinese Art of Make-Believe,” Encounter (May, 1968).
23. Rice University Studies 59.4 (1973).
ONE MORE ART: CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY
1. The view that human beings, as sexual creatures, are essentially incomplete belongs to Western culture; the Chinese view is that every individual contains in himself both yin and yang elements, and therefore should be able to achieve his own perfection in isolation.
2. Confessions, Vol. 1, 3: “When Ambrose was reading, his eyes ran over the page and his heart perceived the sense, but his voice and tongue were silent. He did not restrict access to anyone coming in, nor was it customary even for a visitor to be announced. Very often, when we were there, we saw him silently reading and never otherwise . . . We wondered if he read silently perhaps to protect himself in case he had a hearer interested and intent on the matter, to whom he might have to expound the text being read if it contained difficulties . . . If his time were used up in that way, he would get through fewer books than he wished. Besides, the need to preserve his voice, which used easily to become hoarse, could have been a very fair reason for silent reading. Whatever motive he had for his habit, this man had a good reason for what he did.” (I am quoting here the beautiful translation by Henry Chadwick, Oxford University Press, 1991.)
3. Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, entry of 8 May 1778.
4. See “Arrêt, vision et language,” in Philosophies, No. 44 (December 1994).
5. In a book recording a series of dialogues with François Mitterrand, Mémoire à deux voix (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1995), which, for the rest, is unfortunately without interest.
AN INTRODUCTION TO CONFUCIUS
1. On these problems of chronology and textual analysis, see E. Bruce Brooks, The Original Analects (Columbia University Press, 1998).
2. Julien Gracq, Les carnets du grand chemin (Paris: José Corti, 1992), pp. 190–91.
3. The earliest images of the cross discovered by archaeology were anti-Christian graffiti, whereas the art of the Catacombs only used abstract symbols to represent Christ. The cross was a hideous instrument of torture, a reminder of abject humiliation and death; it is only in the time of Constantine that it began to be displayed as a triumphant symbol of victory over evil; and yet it still took nearly another thousand years before medieval artists dared to represent the dead Christ hanging on it.
4. Elias Canetti, The Conscience of Words (New York: Seabury Press, 1979), pp. 171–5.
POETRY AND PAINTING
1. Quoted by Monica Furlong, Merton: A Biography (London: Collins, 1980), p. 266.
2. Lie Zi (Peking: Wenxue guji kanxingshe, 1956), Book 8, pp. 10–11.
3. It may be amusing to note in passing that the latest discoveries of modern physics seem to verify the oldest notions of Chinese cosmology. Discarding the theory according to which the universe was the product of an explosion, some scientists are now propounding the theory of an original “bubble”; according to these views, as a cosmologist from MIT put it, “it is very tempting to assume that the universe emerged from nothing . . . Possibly the most far-reaching recent development . . . in cosmology is [the] realisation . . . that the universe is a free lunch.” (Newsweek, 7 June 1982, p. 83.)
4. On this question, one should read the masterful essay by A.C. Graham, “Being in Western Philosophy Compared with Shih/fei and Yu/wu,” Asia Major, VII (1959): pp. 79–112.
5. The best study on this subject is still Qian Zhongshu’s “Zhongguo shi yu Zhongguo hua” in Kaiming shudian ershi zhou nian jinian wenji (Shanghai: Kaiming Shudian, 1947). I have briefly outlined Qian’s the
ory in Les Propos sur la peinture de Shitao (Brussels: Institut belge des hautes études chinoises, 1970), pp. 98–9 (new edition: Les Propos sur la peinture du Moine Citrouille-amère, Paris: Plon, 2007). A new version of Qian’s essay can be found in Jiu wen si pian (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1979).
6. This phenomenon was analysed with great perception and subtlety by François Cheng in his book Chinese Poetic Writing (Indiana University Press, 1982)—an admirable work to which I shall never adequately acknowledge all my debts. Later on in this essay, I also borrow freely from James J.Y. Liu, The Art of Chinese Poetry (University of Chicago Press, 1962).
7. See Wai-lim Yip, Ezra Pound’s Cathay (Princeton University Press, 1969), and more specifically, the very important article by Y.K. Kao and T.L. Mei, “Syntax, Diction and Imagery in T’ang Poetry,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 31 (1971): pp. 51–136. Like François Cheng (mentioned earlier), Y.K. Kao provides us with fundamental insights on the nature of Chinese poetry. Without such guides, I would never have ventured to write this little essay. On the merits of Pound’s translations, see also some interesting examples in S.W. Durrant, “On Translating Lun Yü,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, 3, No. 1 (January 1981): pp. 109–19.
8. On the combination of discursive and imagist modes in Chinese poetry, see the article by Kao and Mei (cited above) and also the beautiful book by Kang-i Sun Chang, The Evolution of Chinese Tz’u Poetry from the late T’ang to the Northern Sung (Princeton University Press, 1980).
9. The expression “Creator” with a capital C is used here as a convenient shorthand for what would otherwise require a lengthy paraphrase: “The inner driving force that moves the entire process of cosmic creation.” The notion of a personal God, exterior to His creation, is utterly foreign to Chinese cosmology. (Classical Chinese treatises do sometimes speak of the Creator in a personified way, but this is a mere literary device—similar to our metaphors the “smiles” of Spring, the “anger” of the ocean, and so on.) Natura naturans would probably be a more appropriate term, but since I am trying to express myself in English, I am reluctant to use it.
