«——【Preamble】】 ——»
The "North-South Sect Theory" put forward by Dong Qichang is a special product of the special background of the times in which he lived. Always sensitive to the times, he borrowed the magic of Zen Buddhism to "convey the heart from the heart" and re-understood the purpose of painting from an open perspective. What are your thoughts on the North-South doctrine?
«——[Background of Dong Qichang's "North-South Sect Theory"·——
As for the "North-South Sect Theory", he does not divide the north and the south in terms of time, style and region, and the main difference lies in the emphasis on technique or subtlety. In a famous quotation on the "North-South Sect Theory", Dong Qichang mentions "shade".
The "Zhejiang School" headed by Dai Jin later has the same shadow of the Southern Song Dynasty courtyard as the court painting school, the difference is that the "Zhejiang School" pays more attention to combining the spirit of the times and is not completely rigid in education, and the successor Wu Wei founded the "Jiangxia School" with vigor and boldness and wantonness, which is really a tributary of the "Zhejiang School".
The "Zhejiang School" and the court painting school presented a "twin peaks" trend in the early Ming Dynasty, with many followers and a wide influence. However, after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, literati became the main force in art appreciation, and the "Zhejiang School" was replaced by the rapidly rising "Wumen School", which was mostly literati painters.
Xu Fuguan once commented on Dong Qichang's attitude: "On the one hand, he rejects the concept of geographical distribution. On the one hand, he was not satisfied with the Wu faction that followed the Zhejiang faction at that time. It can be seen that the "Wu School", "Zhejiang School" and other schools of landscape painting have risen one after another, forming different aesthetic tastes and competitive consciousness.
Dong Qichang's "Theory of the Sect of the North and the South" was put forward from the situation at that time, in line with the needs of the times, especially the development of the art world.
Dong Qichang was initially fascinated by Xinxue, but later had a deep complex for Zen Buddhism, and his "Northern and Southern Sects" emphasized "wonderful enlightenment", which was obviously influenced by Xinxue and Zen Buddhism. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Wang Yangming's psychology emphasized that "there is nothing outside the heart, and there is no reason outside the heart", which is reflected in the concept of painting.
The key gist of the painting is to emphasize that painting should start from the subject's spiritual world, and take the creator's own state of mind as the source of creation, and naturally present it in the picture. Dong Qichang was influenced by Wang Yangming's "everything from the heart".
Qi Yun is vivid and cannot be learned, and it should be felt and understood through the sexual and spiritual heart, rather than directly inheriting the relationship of teaching. This is obviously related to Zen Buddhism's emphasis on "not establishing words, but pointing directly to the heart", and the "pause" of Zen Buddhism is an intuitive experience that relies on external objective images but transcends images.
Dong Qichang was greatly influenced by Xinxue and Zen Buddhism at that time, and the two had similarities in the admiration of personal value and the experience of the individual soul. At that time, "Dong Qichang vigorously advocated painting with "enlightenment", while absorbing theoretical nutrients from psychology, and constructing a concept of understanding based on enlightenment"
«——【·“ Exploration of the "Shade" of the North-South Sect Theory·]——»
In Dong Qilu's aesthetic ideals, "shading" does not refer to skills, although he proposed in the "Treatise on the Sect of the North and South" the distinction between the creative methods of "freehand" in the south and "Seiko" in the north, but he believes that both Seiko and freehand have their own thinking and realization, and both have spiritual pursuits.
Although the painting creation of Li Zhaodao and his school is extremely exquisite, the "light and elegant xing" always runs through it, and it will also convey the author's ideological charm and inner experience in elegance. Later generations imitated it, but they only comprehended the surface painting that resembled ingenuity.
Dong Qichang's attitude towards the creation of the surface skills of curtain writing is "Yu Shen despises", although he emphasizes "copying the ancient", but from his own experience, whether it is writing or painting, he does not lose himself in extensive learning.
Reinvent oneself in repeated perceptions, emphasizing the importance of self-perception. Dong Qichang's creative concept of "shading" in "Treatise on the Sect of the North and the South" may have a lot in common with Su Shi's admiration of "naivety", and he regards this "shading" as the natural expression of the truth of his temperament.
Only by bringing this kind of "lightness" brought by the soul into the creative process can we bring the experience of "enlightenment". The "rendering" he proposed in the "Treatise on the Sect of the North and the South" is actually not a technique, but a guide for artists to pay attention to life experience and spiritual perception, remove traces of artificial carving, and pursue spiritual understanding.
For the discussion of the "shading" of the Northern and Southern Sects, we must first start with the method of "shading" of Ganwei. Wang Wei's method of "friendship and lightness" is a dividing factor of Dong Qichang's theoretical view of painting, and his origin is not his admiration for Wang Wei's innovative painting style of pure ink and no color.
Although Dong Qilu may not have seen the authentic works of Wang Wei's landscapes, and in his own words, he thinks that Wang Wei's light ink poems and landscapes give people an ethereal, quiet and elegant beauty.
This is a kind of realm of "harmony between man and nature", and swimming in this realm will naturally trigger the infinite reverie and thinking of the viewer, that is, the thinking of "enlightenment". Wang Wei believes that in the creation of calligraphy paintings, distractions should be eliminated.
According to the history of painting, Wang Wei was also a Buddhist and was deeply influenced by Zen Buddhism's "enlightenment". With the help of Zen Buddhism's "do not set up words, point directly to the heart" to realize their pursuit of artistic beauty, so that their own mind can be maximized and expressed in the creative process.
It can be seen that the "shading" mentioned by Dong Qilu may be essentially because Wang Wei's creative concept of "the enlightened person does not say much" is in line with the painting concept he advocates, rather than Yu Wei's original technique of "shading".
«——【·“ This "light" is the gateway to "enlightenment"]——»
Dong Qichang's "North-South Sect Theory" is a response to the times, and the aesthetic ideal of "shade" he put forward is closely related to the Juche spirit in the philosophy of the Ming Dynasty. "Shading" essentially refers to a kind of "light beauty", which has the meaning of returning to nature.
First of all, in classical Chinese art theory, natural mountains and rivers are often used to get in touch with the concept of wonderful enlightenment, to integrate nature with the heart, and to obtain the "wonderful enlightenment" of painting in the spiritual experience of the spiritual ontology and the natural world.
In the process of appreciating and painting nature, the creator's mood follows the creation of nature and fluctuates, and his thoughts drift into the distance, which is easy to produce a kind of free wine and otherworldly meaning, get rid of the shackles of desire, and return to his heart.
The way of nature can give birth to all things, seek the experience of enlightenment in nature, and finally become in harmony with nature, and achieve the realm of "unity between heaven and man", so returning to nature is the root of enlightenment. Dong Qichang proposed: "Every time you get up, look at the changes in the clouds, and when you see strange trees in the mountains and mountains in the painting, you must take them from all sides."
The tree has a left side that cannot be seen into the painting, and the right side is seen into the painting, before and after. It is familiar and naturally expressive. Those who convey the gods will forget each other with their hearts and hands in the form and form, and the trust of God will also be. He advocates the experience of being in nature, perhaps because the ever-changing nature can bring about "enlightening" experiences.
Throw away all distractions and devote yourself to nature, the wind and clouds are changing, the posture of the mountains and trees is sleepy, you can see that God has reached the point of forgetfulness, and the heart is also touched by it, so that the pen seems to have the sustenance of "God", and the emotions from the most real spiritual world will naturally be revealed.
He attaches great importance to the natural mountains and rivers, attaches importance to the return to nature, often visits the mountains and rivers, and devotes himself to the quiet and lonely scenery.
Dong Qichang's belief that "plain and innocent" is the manifestation of truth, which shows that Su Shi's pursuit of creation is to return to his original heart and take "innocence" as his teacher. "Innocent" is easier to find in unworldly children.
Even if they are not trained, most children have a lot of fun when they write, which comes from the unfettered spirit of the heart. The development of art will always be affected by the times, and Dong Qichang, as a member of the official federation, is facing the chaos of the current situation and the situation of the official statue and the main civilization fighting.
He has always maintained a textured attitude towards the times, cleansed the external resistance, kept his mind pure and natural and unrestrained in the intricate environment, and did not lose his original heart in the theoretical concept of painting, and put the "plain and naïve" concept of painting into practice.
From a microscopic point of view, Dong Qichang mentioned Wang Wei's "shading" in the "North-South Sect Theory", and his purpose was not to make this kind of "shading" become the fashion of the times that everyone in the painting world is trending.
From his exposition, it can also be seen that he does not emphasize the technique of "shading" of brush and ink, but pursues the life value and meaning behind this "shading" with a more open mind, and uses this "shading" to promote the artistic concept of "wonderful enlightenment" that he emphasized.
This kind of "lightness" is related to his decades of life experience, and it is also the trend of the times. Therefore, in the "North-South Sect Theory", "Shading" has become the "only way" to explore the true line of painting tradition and the roots of trend-chasing painting.
«——【·Conclusion·】——»
Dong Qichang's painting art first influenced the painting world in the late Ming Dynasty, and the "Songjiang School" in the late Ming Dynasty was his loyal follower. In the Qing Dynasty, he paid attention to feeling and experiencing life, starting from his own heart, not digging into the external resemblance or not, and attaching great importance to the connotation and depth of painting.
Information sources:
The Spirit of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy