Art

There is no getting away from the fact that, wherever we look signs, walls, books and magazine covers are adorned with what look (to western eyes) like beautiful but meaningless squiggles. This is, of course, Mandarin writing but there is an advantage to seeing these images without the baggage of understanding their meaning. For me they are each perfectly composed little patterns. In this mode, it is possible see these patterns everywhere – not only in writing and I have formed a relatively uninformed view that this writing is key understanding virtually all artistic culture in China.

Whilst in the west our artistic culture has fragmented into competing styles and tastes, all pre-modern (1940s) Chinese art seems uniformly consistent, both across times and types. This is partly an unintended benefit thousands of years of powerful Emperor rule as cultures and races have been assimilated and where superstition has been wielded as a weapon of control. It also has to do with the context in which the art is made.

Despite, and perhaps because of, modern China's industrial skylines nature and its patterns are treated with reverence.

(Trees at the Big Goose Pagoda in Xi'an)

Even the patterns of tree branches can be treated with significance and natural forms are the basis, not only for representation (particularly in Chinese painting) but for the technique of representation. In other words, its not enough just to paint a tree but to paint using tools and techniques that allow the painter to adopt gestures that follow the trees own forms. This also seems to be the origin of the calligraphy tradition, but the letter forms which make up the Mandarin alphabet not only serve a representative purpose but are also symbolic. The patterns have, therefore, become refined into simple gestures but are still based on representations of nature so that a great writer in more ancient times is not simply a wordsmith but a skilled visual artist as he manipulates the appearance of letters as well as articulating words.

Taken to their abstract conclusion these natural forms are found in a highly stylised architecture particularly in the tree bow like roofs and in the formalised patterns adorning every surface. However, because ancient buildings often occupy extensive grounds and cultivate natural settings they seen to reconnect with their environment seamlessly. Buildings appear almost as pieces of calligraphy in the landscape.

This is, of course, a westerners simplified view of a complex set of art forms but I can't help but look with slight jealousy at what appears to be such a seamless and coherent artistic tradition.