>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C.
>> Jeffrey Wang:
I'm Jeffrey Wang.
Chinese reference librarian.
On behalf of Asian division,
welcome you all to
attend this talk.
Today's speaker is
Dr. Burkus-Chasson.
She is a professor of art
and east-Asian languages
and the cultures
at the University
of Illinois Urbana-Champagne.
She is currently a senior fellow
at the Center for Advanced Study
in the Visual Arts, National
Gallery of Arts, Washington,
D.C. So, for the last several
months she has been doing
research on Chinese classic
art [inaudible] Asian Division.
So, where I know here in the
Asian Division reading room.
So, I invited her
to give us a talk,
presenting her research
achievement.
So, the topic of today's talk
is sentimental history depicting
emotion in Chinese art.
I'm not going to say more.
Just welcome Professor
Burkus-Chasson.
[ Applause ]
>> Anne Burkus-Chasson: Thank
you, Jeffrey, very much,
for a generous introduction.
It is my honor here to
be here this afternoon,
in this splendid building.
And I hope you all take
this opportunity to tour --
to take a tour if
you haven't already.
I want to thank all the people
who helped make possible
my visit today.
As well as the librarians,
including Jeffrey
and many others, in the Asian
division, who made my stay
in Washington so profitable.
And so, I must add,
difficult to leave.
My subject today is emotion.
And its depiction
in Chinese art.
I have time to focus
only a few of the moments
in what I have called
a sentimental history.
Before I begin, let me tell
you what motivated me to look
into this history, for few
Chinese art historians have.
Since the 1980s anthropologists
and historians
of Europe have examined
the nature
of human of human emotion.
It was only in the early
years of the new millennium
that sinologists, especially
literary historians began
to look seriously
into the subject.
A number of these
scholars argued
that words are the
best means by which
to investigate how an
historical society understood
human emotion.
As an art historian, I took
note of this, of course,
wondering why the
pictorial representation
of emotion had been dismissed.
Moreover, during the past
eight months I've worked
at the National Gallery of
Art where I was immersed
in European art history.
My research in 17th
century Chinese painting
and illustrated books was
perceived as sharing a space
with that of early modernists.
But the many contrasts I
saw, between the visual arts
of early modern Europe and those
of late Imperial China were
simply too striking to ignore.
So, I was compelled
not only to look
into the pictorial
representation of emotion
in Chinese art but also
to use contrasting cases
and the visual arts
of early modern Europe
to highlight the distinguishing
features of the Chinese case.
The latter project may seem
hopelessly old fashioned.
But the work of an historian
in this age of global studies,
necessitates to my mind,
the acknowledgement
that a composite often fractures
and that distinctions
are still worth noticing.
For example, in this print
by the German artist Albrecht
Durer, two lovers strolling
in a filed are haunted
by the figure of death,
which lurks behind a tree.
Their solemnity is unsurprising.
For death hold an hour
glass above it's skull,
as if to remind us that
the joys of love are brief
and even pose a distraction
from the more serious
contemplation of mortality.
By contrast, these two lovers
exhibit only excitement
at the prospect of
their rendezvous.
In a scene taken from the
popular operatic play,
Story of the Western Wing,
or [foreign language].
The male lead student Zhang
[assumed spelling] hurls his
boots over a garden wall that
separated him from his lover,
Oriole [assumed spelling].
As he scrambles bare-footed
over the wall,
the female lead encourages
him with her fan.
And gestures toward a place out
of view where they may comingle.
Death does not preside
over their meeting.
Instead symbols of Daoist
transcendence practitioners
of the art of prolonging life,
surround the couple along
the plates in the rim.
But before I move beyond
this isolated example,
let me clarify what I mean when
I speak of sentiment or ching,
the Chinese word that
denotes feeling or emotion.
The emotions named in ancient
Confucian text and considered
to be inherent in all human
beings, that is delight, anger,
grief, and joy may seem
familiar to all of us.
None of the less, it is commonly
agreed that the expression
of feeling is condition by
cultural norms and beliefs,
as well as by social
expectations defined
by gender and class.
In general, emotions
are not conceived
as universal dispositions
or states of mind.
Nor are they seen
outside of history.
Indeed, we have learned that
the very meaning and usage
of the word ching
was not static.
Therefore, I do not conceive
of an emotion as a spontaneous
and natural expression
of feeling.
I assume that conscious
manipulation
and even deception
can play a role
in the embodiment of an emotion.
And that the power of
social institutions
and social relations inform the
discourse on emotion in China
as much as it did in Europe.
With all of this in mind,
let me begin my brief
sentimental history
of Chinese art.
My talk is divided
into three parts.
I begin with a pictorial
representation of grief.
Next, look at two different
traditions of secular painting
that emerged in 16th
century China, both of which,
nonetheless were concerned
with the dilemma of
depicting emotion.
I conclude in part 3 with
the work of Chen Hongshou.
A 17th century painter
and print designer
who transformed Chinese
figure painting, in part,
through his depiction
of emotion.
Part one, death and
the depiction of grief.
The contrast between a 15th
century Italian representation
of the death of Christ and a 9th
century Chinese representation
of the death of the Buddha
brings forward an issue
that I have already
acknowledged in my introduction,
that is the cultural specificity
of pictorial delineation
on emotion.
Here in Bellini's Pieta, Mary
embraces the dead Christ.
As she supports the corpse,
she peers into the ashen face
as though to comfort him.
But also to confirm the
absence of his breath.
By contrast, St. John is
discomforted looks away.
Moreover, the hand of the dead
Christ rests on a marble ledge,
from which hangs a small tablet.
The tablet bears an inscription,
when these swelling
eyes can produce groans,
the work of Giovanni
Bellini could have wept.
These words signify
not only that paintings
such as this were intended
to move viewers but also
that the interactions
between viewer
and image were highly
emotional and even magical.
Will Mary break down before us
when we notice her
tentative look?
Or will the painting itself,
shed tears when we, too,
grieve the death of Christ?
Mourners also attend Buddha's
death in this 9th century cave,
which was carved
out from the face
of a cliff [foreign
language] a site
in north western China situated
along trade routes that led
through central Asia and beyond.
Set against a wall of
the cave, the clay figure
of the reclining Buddha is
surrounded by mourners painted
onto the cave's whitewashed
walls.
The figures include weeping
r hots [phonetic spelling]
or wisemen, the early
followers of the Buddha.
They gnash their teeth,
open their mouths to wail,
shake their fists in the air,
or beat their chest, close,
shut their eyes and
knit their brows.
One desperate, darkened
figure appears ready
to throw itself upon the corpse.
Bodhisattvas stand
upright behind the grieving
and agitated r hots,
they are impassive.
The bodhisattvas,
enlightened beings dedicated
to the salvation of all sentient
beings instruct viewers how
to respond to the
Buddha's death.
Their serenity mirrors their
understanding that in death,
the teacher Shakyamuni
had escaped samsara,
the world of illusion, which
only brought suffering.
Thus we observe our cultural
and religious difference
affected a difference
in the understanding of emotion.
Whereas Mary encouraged
viewers to weep with her.
The enlightened among the
Buddha's followers encouraged
instead quietude in the face of
their teacher's transformation.
Part two. The dilemma of
representing an expressive body.
Although highly stylized in
schematic, the expression
of grief in the 9th century
cave painting was persuasive.
However, in the centuries that
succeeded, figure painting
of all genres gradually
lost favor among painters
and art writers in China.
Attention focused instead
on the genre of landscape,
how to render an
expressive body,
ultimately became a dilemma.
For example, the 16th century
scholars Xie Zhaozhe claimed
that only eunuchs and women
were curious about the stories
that painters illustrated.
For this they were ridiculed.
But their detractors,
[inaudible] pointed out,
were ignorant of the fact
that pictorial narratives
were traditionally held
in high regard if
only for the skill
and knowledge required
to produce them.
[inaudible] derided
the painters of his day
who merely followed a whim and
carelessly sketched an idea.
For this practice,
served not only
to highlight their
deficiencies but also
to demonstrate their
technical inability
to depict a human figure.
Thus, 16th century figure
painters faced a dilemma.
Under these circumstances
how could they reanimate
pictorial narratives.
The indifference to painted
stories among the cognoscenti is
surprising, for the popularity
of sentimental fiction among
contemporary readers has been
amply demonstrated and devotees
of operatic plays regularly
watched performances during
which skilled actors moved
their audiences to tears.
But the visual representation
of emotion
in narrative figure
painting had been stifled.
Why was that?
Can it be that the
problem lay merely
in the technical incompetence
of contemporary painters?
Or were other issues at play?
An illustrated treatise which
is in the Library of Congress,
by the way, on figure painting
from the late 16th century
and titled [inaudible]
or Shapes of Heaven,
Appearance of the Way,
illuminates several aspects
of the dilemma that confronted
painters at this time.
Here an illustrated
leaf from the treatise
which shows two men looking at
water flowing from a spring.
Written by the scholar
Zhou Lujing,
the treatise records
the prescriptions
that govern the representation
of the human figure
and in particular
the elite male.
Among the 40 illustrations
that accompanied the treatise,
only four were dedicated
to the female figure.
And only three among the four
sketches included laborers.
The rest portrayed
cultivated gentlemen in pursuit
of various activities,
especially drinking,
such as this one.
In prefatory remarks,
Zhou addressed diverse
issues relevant
to figure painting
pertinent to our discussion
about emotion is Zhou's emphasis
on the necessity to distinguish
between the appearance
of the high born
figure and the low born.
But he concentrated in his text
on identifying the
characteristics
of the aristocratic male figure.
Defining a range of activities
in which this figure
would be suitably engaged,
as well the emotions that the
activities would have aroused.
This is what Zhou had to
say, sometimes they step
in a leisurely manner along the
edge of a waterway or they look
into the distance
at rugged peaks.
In each case, it is necessary
that the figure be at ease
with itself, neither tangled
thoughts nor chaotic flourishes
are present.
Sometimes facing a great hall
in the mountains he will assume
an attitude of bitter struggle
or drinking in a relaxed
manner inside of a pavilion,
he will assume the appearance
of happy shouting
and tumbling over.
In this passage, Zhou thus
discouraged figure painters
from depicting a gentleman with
his arms waving about because
such a gesture might
suggest an agitated mind.
On the other hand he did not
hesitate to describe in words,
and I emphasize that, in
words he did not hesitate
to describe how a drunken
gentleman might fall
over himself in laughter.
Unsurprising, the figural images
that illustrate Zhou's treatise,
evidence no signs of emotion.
Impassive, unchanging, subdued.
The figures point to things
or bend toward one another
in conversation but their
faces show no feeling.
Why did such blandness
govern the betrayal
of the elite male figure?
First, I think it is
important to recognize
that the figural illustrations
of Tianxing daomao represented
paradigmatic models of behavior.
They possessed a
power of persuasion,
such as the power once
believed to have been exerted
by the imagined portraits of
sagely men and virtuous women
of the past, that customarily
embellished the walls
of royal palaces.
The late 16th century
writer [inaudible] confirmed
this point.
He once interpreted a portrait
as a laudatory art form
and chided his contemporaries
for refusing
to paint the portraits
of the men they admired
and sought to emulate.
Nonetheless, the
delineation of emotion itself,
seems to have played little
if any part in the power
of the portrait to
move a viewer.
As this portrait of the painter
Wang Shimin demonstrates.
Indeed, like Wang Shimin, the
virtuous figures of the past
in all likelihood were
pictured in accord
with Confucian rules of decorum.
These rules or disciplines
such as smoothing the face,
quieting the voice, measuring
the step, were all intended
to subdue the expression
of excessive emotions.
For strong feelings were
believed to cloud the mind,
making it impossible to
respond in a proper way
to situations in the world.
Moreover, a smooth impassive
face also enabled the viewer
of a portrait to scan the
features of its subject,
in particular the
nose, the brow,
the lips for physiognomic
signs of a subject's destiny.
These points are indisputable.
And I have no intention
of disputing these points
as being important
in the impassivity
of the elite male figure.
Nonetheless, I want to return
to the incongruence between word
and image in Tianxing
daomao as an additional way
to explain the bland,
unchanging features
of the elite male figure.
The illustrations in Zhou's
treatise were each labeled
with two-character phrases.
These phrases often
allude to other text --
I'm used to walking around, but
I'm not allowed to walk around.
So, anyway, I think you can
see that the Chinese characters
that are in the corner
of the picture.
In a scene [inaudible].
That is looking toward the moon.
Two men turn their
heads to look upward.
Unlabeled, the scene
would be curious.
Illustrating little more
than the articulation
of the figures heads
and shoulders.
But the two character labeled
brought to mind countless poems
about men admiring the moon.
The recollecting emotion
of their words imbued the
picture with sentiment.
The gentlemen in Zhou's
encyclopedia, I argue,
refrained from conveying
emotion in part
because it was unnecessary.
The figures were embedded
in the language of poetry.
Let me further demonstrate
this point with two paintings
that illustrate the well-known
narrative poem, Pipa xing,
The Ballad of the Pipa.
Here excerpts from the poem.
Very few excerpts.
Written in the early 9th century
by the renowned poet Bai Juyi,
The Ballad of the
Pipa recounts an event
that occurred during the
poet's exile in the south.
While parting with a
friend, Bai Juyi chanced
to hear a woman strumming
a pipa.
He invited her to play
for him and his companion.
They learned that she had
once studied and performed
in a norther capital and, like
the poet, was now stranded
in the south as the wife
of a traveling merchant.
In his poem, Bai describes
the sounds of the pipa.
They were like rain,
appropriate for today,
like pearls dropping on a plate.
He described his melancholy
response to the music
and his personal
identification with the forlorn
and aging pipa player.
For although they were
previously unacquainted
with one another, they
could still empathize
with one another's
distress in exile.
They were both strangers in
a place where the only music
that ordinarily could be heard
was the sound of wild animals.
Missing his life in the capital,
the poet wept while
the woman played.
That such an emotional
poem would become popular,
a very popular subject it was,
amongst certain 16th century
painter may come as a surprise,
for as a lead protagonist should
not have been shown unsettled
by sentiment.
But as we shall see,
painters tend to stray
from Bai Juyi's text,
shifting attention away
from the poem's tearful
conclusion.
Nonetheless for their viewers,
the painters were
still entangled
with the recollected
of the poem.
Obliquely, the painters thus
imbued their illustrations
with sorrow.
For example, the figure painter
Guo Xu inscribed the entire text
of Bai Juyi's poem at the
head of this hanging scroll.
The delicate figures of the poet
and the pipa player
appear beneath it.
But Guo portrayed neither
figure with the emotion
that Bai Juyi described
in his poem.
Indeed Guo portrayed an event
that does not even
occur in the poem.
Here the poet, pictured
as a gentleman at leisure,
looks down upon the musician.
The performer lavishly dressed
bows her head as though prepared
to answer a command to take
her instrument out of its bag.
The poet does not identify
with the performer.
Rather he is the master
and she the servant.
The story about an emotional
encounter that took place
under the extraordinary
circumstances
of exile is set right
and made proper
through a pictorial
representation
of what their encounter
would have been
under ordinary circumstances.
In his illustration
of Bai Juyi's poem,
Wen Boren shifter attention to
the farewell between the poet
and his friend, which is
indicated in the title,
in the far left part
of the painting.
This he made explicit
through the title,
Saying, Farewell at Xunyang.
The full moon, the moored boats,
these elements elude
to Bai's poem.
The desolate landscape enveloped
in mist evokes the
isolation of exile.
Bai's poem recollected
by viewers may have
conjured the presence
of the forlorn pipa player
but Wen Boren refrained
from depicting either her
or the poet's sleeves
wet with his tears.
By contrast other 16th century
painters, unlike [inaudible]
and Wen Boren, did not depend
upon elusions to poetry
to convey sentiments that
were deemed inappropriate
to be seen or visualized.
A group of painters, many
of whom were associated
with the Imperial Court
of Nanjing chose not only
to represent a range of
emotion in their work but also
to depict the low born.
In this example, an exorcism
occurs at New Year with the help
of an iconic image of Jong
Qua [assumed spelling] the
demon caller.
The owners of the house
from which malevolent spirits
are chased exhibit a variety
of emotions.
A fearful woman covers
her eyes but looks partway
through at the same time.
One solemn man prays.
Another looks on in wonder
with his mouth agape,
while he constrains
one excited child
and tries to protect another.
Thus it appears that the
pictorial representation
of emotion was determined
in part by social class.
Rustics and illiterate men
and women could be shown
with emotion on their faces.
Elite men should not.
In this work, Studying
a Painting, Zhang Lu,
a highly regarded painter
who gave up a career
in the government slyly
demonstrated how the
expectations of class and
gender determine the pictorial
depictions of emotion.
A group of rustics have
unrolled a handscroll.
Aping elite connoisseurs,
each man
and child exhibits a
solemnity not expected of them.
The highborn owner
of the painting,
just waking from a drunken
sleep is indifferent
to the marvel of the painting.
But his wife stops working at
her loom to lean in for a look.
In this very unusual painting,
Zhang Lu turned the
social world upside down.
The peasants, merchants,
and artisans, foolish woman
and eunuchs whom his
contemporaries derided
for copying the pictures and
illustrated books, or for asking
about the stories in a painting,
these figures he positioned
on a par with an elite male.
Indeed, considered from
Zhang Lu's perspective,
we might consider that the
norm for emotional restraint
in figure painting established
in the 16th century
was a response
to the increasingly
diverse audiences
that painting attracted
at that time.
Money had come to define
the value of things,
including esteemed
collectibles such as paintings.
But money was promiscuous.
It could be had by anyone.
To distinguish clearly
between the common
and the refined acquired
an urgency
that it did not have
in previous eras.
In figure painting quietude
identified therefore a specific
social distinction.
Now, this ideological bias
would change in the work
of the innovative 17th
century figure painter
and print designer [foreign
name] to whom I now turn.
Part three, Chen
Hongshou laments.
Early in his career, Chen
Hongshou dedicated himself
to the portrayal of
the human figure.
His dedication was both
stimulated and shaped
by the media revolution
of his time.
This revolution saw
the final ascendency
of the woodblock printed
book over the manuscript.
Along with an unprecedented
increase
in the production of
illustrated books.
The consequences of book
illustration were manifold.
I focus on only one, that is how
it sparked artistic experiments
at the intersection
of print and painting.
Few artists worked
in these two mediums
with as much wit
as Chen Hongshou.
Indeed, the unusual and
startling compositions
for which he was noted during
his lifetime derived largely
from the calculated
juxtaposition
of disparate genres
and manners of drawing
in a single pictorial space.
His appropriation
of the conventions
of narrative print was
just one of several ways
by which Chen unsettled
his paintings.
In this instance, Chen's
depiction of scenes
from the life of the
renowned poet Tao Yuanming,
exemplifies his propensity
to disguise his paintings
as prints.
Signs of print encompass
the poet's emphatic gesture
of refusal, the hand.
And the presence of a
collateral figure not engaged
in the narrative.
The collateral figure in this
case a woman witnesses the
actions of the poet
who adamantly preferred
to use stored rice to make wine
rather than to use if for food.
Similarly, emphatic gestures
appear in illustrations
from an early 17th
century imprint
of [foreign language] The
Tales of the Water Margin.
Here the illustration that opens
the first chapter shows people
fleeing the violent escape
of malevolent star spirits
that would transform into
the rebellious protagonist
of the fictive narrative.
As bystanders shout, tumble,
and fall they raise their
arms in defense or alarm.
In a later chapter, a
female warrior puts a stop
to the rumblings among her
guests who question the contents
of her dumplings and
indeed they should.
They were composed of
human meat in the story.
But she does so with
an outstretched arm,
palm held upright.
Collateral figures that
peer from behind screens
or curtains appear in the
following two illustrations,
witnesses to private or
clandestine meetings.
Now, an important part of my
argument is that the demands
of the book market,
which favored illustration had
transformed readers expectations
of pictorial story telling.
For an inspiring figure
painter such as Chen Hongshou,
illustrated books
presented a way
to reanimate figure painting.
And yet, as we shall
see, Chen also depended
on his viewers recollection
of poetic and prose text
to sanction the unusual way in
which he resolved the dilemma
of representing an
expressive body.
Let me explain.
This work appears in an
early album of paintings
that Chen produced
between 1618 and 1622.
Each pictorial leaf
faces an inscribed leaf
which contains commentary on the
painting that it accompanies.
Chen Hongshou wrote six
of the inscriptions,
in this case the famous and
erudite write Chen Jiru,
an acquaintance of
Hongshou's father wrote the
supplementary inscription.
I shall return to its
contents in a moment.
In this painting, Chen portrays
a solitary woman at the edge
of a wood under a full moon.
Seated at a stone table, where
a wooden mallet lies she pauses
from the labor of pounding silk.
Women pounded raw silk
to soften its fibers
and to loosen the gummy
substance that adhered to them,
thus preparing the silk to
be spun and woven into cloth.
An established poetic
subject scenes
of women pounding cloth
-- pounding silk, rather,
tended to highlight the erotic
connotations of the act,
which are clear enough.
Enhancing its sensuality many
poets observed the sweet sweat
that showed on a women's face
while she pounded the silk.
But Chen, I think,
concentrated instead
on portraying the
woman's sorrow.
She looks up through tangled
branches of bamboo to glance
at desiccated leaves rendered
large which fall to the ground.
It is autumn, a season that
was traditionally identified
with feelings of sorrow.
A full moon shows itself
through wisps of cloud.
It, too, identified the season.
Uncharacteristically,
Chen supplemented this
painting with a poem.
The first two lines of the
quatrain read as follows,
pressing this silk cloth
in residence with autumn,
sister pinched and drew
together her moth eyebrows.
In the last two lines Chen
abruptly changed the subject.
He described the rapidity with
which soldiers had gathered
and then traveled north
to outlying garrisons.
Thereby identifying the
cause of the women's sorrow.
Her husband had been
conscripted into the army.
What is striking about Chen's
illustration is his portrayal
of the woman's face.
Both in the inscribed
poem and in the painting,
Chen delineated the upward
tilt of the woman's eyebrows,
which in his words were
pinched and drawn together.
In contemporary fiction, sorrow
was most often manifested
on a character's face,
especially through its eyebrows,
which were portrayed
as tilting upward.
This sign appears as well
in 16th century printed
illustration.
For instance in this
scene from Ti hong ji.
Story about inscribing
a red a leaf,
the print designer showed
each of the female figures
at the right, with their
eyebrows gathered together
and tilted upward.
Their sorrow at parting is
further enhanced by the gesture
of lifting their arms, covered
in their sleeves
toward their faces.
Admittedly, this graphic
sign of sorrow is subtle.
It took me a long time to
admit this, so bear with me.
Nonetheless, the face of Chen's
character evidences more feeling
than other 16th century
depictions
of women pounding silk.
Qiu Ying figures evidences no
sign of feeling on her face.
And a scene of pounding
cloth included
in Tianxing daomao shows an
old woman bent over her work,
her face is wrinkled
but she has no --
she has not pinched
her brow in sorrow.
By contrast Chen
followed the example
of contemporary print
designer rendering emotion
in a small sign on the
surface of the face.
Nonetheless, I am compelled
to wonder why the delineation
of sorrow was so subtle.
Why it was created with a simple
mark on the surface of the face?
Why this mark was
rarely accompanied
by other facial markings?
The superficiality of
the Chinese technique
of delineating emotion becomes
yet more apparent in contrast
with the techniques demonstrated
in Charles Le Brun's
famous book on the passions.
Here a woman's face
demonstrates sadness.
In the caption beneath
the image,
Le Brun described
how the muscles
of the face move
the brows upward
and turned the mouth downward.
Similarly, muscular
contractions cause the neck
to bend onto the shoulder.
It has been noted
that the preoccupation
with the musculature of the body
in European medical
theory was inseparable
from the preoccupation with
the conception of selfhood
that encompassed the
agency of the self.
In traditional Chinese
medical theory, however,
there was no distinction
drawn among muscle,
flesh, tendon, and sinew.
Hence, I want to suggest
the pictorial representation
of emotion in late
Imperial China was based
on a limited repertoire
of graphic marks,
signs that manifested only
on the surface of the face.
The slanted brow was not
conceived as the result
of a contraction of a
facial muscle in response
to an intangible feeling.
Before leaving this
painting, let me return
to Chen Jiru's commentary.
He praised Chen Hongshou's
rendition
of the familiar composition,
which he traced back
to a 12th century prototype.
He observed the emaciation
of the female figure,
which had moved him
to feel pity for her.
In this way, Chen Jiru brought
other images and other text
to bear on his response
to Hongshou's painting.
What else can explain why
he saw an emaciated figure
in Chen Hongshou's painting
where there is none.
And yet, Chen Jiru overlooked
the figure's pinched brow,
a sign of print through
which Chen Hongshou, I argue,
had conveyed the woman's sorrow.
A question thus arises.
Did Chen anticipate
that his daring,
and I'll repeat daring
innovation in the depiction
of emotion would be sanctioned.
And the print conventioncy
[phonetic spelling] appropriated
overlooked if they were
embedded in a poetic subject.
I think the answer to
this question is yes.
In the last painting I want
to show this afternoon,
some of you will be
familiar with this.
A drunkard who rests
on overlapped banana palms has
toppled a cup with his arm.
The lid of the wine jug
was precariously replaced,
voluminous folds of drapery
undulate in different directions
to enhance the discord
of this composition.
But it is the figure's
face, in particular,
to which I want to
draw attention.
The sharply tilted eyebrows
and the furrowed brow,
the frown just visible beneath
the mustache, all betray
and inconsolable distress.
Comparable faces
expressive a distress appear
in illustrated books
such as this one.
Here under fierce attack,
a man tries to protect
himself with his arm.
His fear and distress
vividly marked on his face.
However, Chen's drunkard is
not under any obvious threat.
Indeed, ordinarily drinkers
rather delineated in paint
or in print were
portrayed unconscious
or in a state of undress.
Two drinkers that appear in
Tianxing daomao are typical.
The picture labeled,
Helplessly Drunk, shows a figure
that appears to be unconscious.
Another illustration
labeled, Extremely Drunk,
presents the drunkard stretching
his arms as his robe falls open.
So, the question then is
what did Chen gain then
by drawing instead upon printed
images of men in distress?
To answer this question let me
turn to Chen's illustration --
I'm sorry, to his inscription.
It reads in part as
follows, "once again,
we have lost several
thousand miles of land.
Shall we have to speak
of this business again?
I feel lucky to have some
land to farm as an outsider,
unconnected with this situation.
But I worry that armed
rebels rising up in the Wu
and Yue regions will
plunder my granaries.
In the meanwhile, there
is still time to drink
to our heart's content.
. . to my learned
brotherly friend Ping,
I am Hongshou, younger brother."
This inscription
is highly unusual.
For it was written in
the form of a letter
by [foreign language]
was first to point out.
Letter writing constituted a
daily preoccupation of members
of the elite in 17th
century China.
Letters were collected
for publication,
fragmentary letters written
by famous calligraphers
had circulated
in rubbing collections
for centuries
to be copied by students.
The first audience for Chen's
painting could not have
discounted the epistolary
form of his inscription.
The rhetoric of Chen's inscribed
letter compliments the drunkards
emotional appeal as
a figure in distress.
Furthermore, the contents of the
letter alter the significance
of the drunkard's
expressive body.
Through it's focus on the
deteriorating military situation
of the country in the 1630s,
the Manchus were invading parts
of China at this time.
And the threat of
internal uprisings.
The inscribed letter is not
merely about personal distress.
It is about the drunkard's
concern for the country.
The letter calls to mind
a revered text entitled,
Yueyang lou ji, Record of
the Pavilion at Yueyang,
written in 1046 by the scholar
and distinguished
official Fan Zhongyan.
Fan's essay commemorated the
renovation of the pavilion
at Yueyang, which was
accomplished by a man
who had been slandered
at court and demoted
to a remote area,
Southcentral China.
There in the face of
adversity he devoted himself
to the citizens of his district
and renovated the pavilion.
At the end of his essay,
Fan admonished his readers
to follow ancient paragons,
who like his acquaintance,
"first feel concern, or you,
for the concerns of the world.
Defer pleasure until the
world can take pleasure."
So, first feel concern or you
for the concerns of the world,
defer pleasure until the
world can take pleasure.
This, I argue, is the melancholy
that afflicts Chen's drunkard,
a worry or concern for
the state of the country.
Within this remarkable
album leaf, diverse
and contending genres
and manners
of representation are at play.
Perhaps most striking to Chen's
original audience was the
drunkard's facial expression,
appropriated from the repertoire
of print illustrators.
Surely it upset the expectation
that gentleman be shown
indecorous impassivity.
But Chen embedded his
picture into a story
about the hallowed Confucian
tradition of public service,
which to all accounts sanctioned
his irreverent painting
of an emotionally
distressed gentleman.
And this brings me to
the end of my brief,
but sentimental history.
Thank you for listening.
[ Applause ]
>> Jeffrey Wang:
Thank you, Professor.
>> Anne Burkus-Chasson:
Thank you.
>> Jeffrey Wang: Your
questions please.
>> In some way this is
a predictable question.
>> Anne Burkus-Chasson:
That's okay.
>> But, so you started out your
talk mentioning the difference
that you noticed between
European expression of emotions
and the Chinese in this
moments 16th and 17th century.
I wonder if you had thought
about, if it's just come
up in your [inaudible]
because the idea of affect
and emotion is like, you
can't get away from it
in contemporary writing
American-European,
not just painting but
[inaudible] maybe.
I was just wondering
if you're like --
if you thought about
mythologically,
like how those concerns
of affect, will they too
or don't play to, how you're
viewing emotion and [inaudible]?
>> Anne Burkus-Chasson: In
truth, I have read affect theory
but I have not -- this is a
recent discovery, frankly.
I only in the last month
connected Chen Hongshou's
drunkard with that
very famous prose text.
And so, I in fact, no.
In short. No I have
not connected it
with other writings on affect.
I was very behind in
the readings on emotion.
And there has been just
recently, as I mentioned,
quite a bit of work on
emotion on Chinese literature.
And it was actually through
that reading that I, of course,
it's text of Fan Zhongyan
is extremely famous.
So, there've been
multiple essays written
about how melancholy
is defined in China.
And it was always
referred to that text.
And then when I thought
about Chen's the letter
and his concern about the
bandits and the invasions,
incursions into the
Chinese territory,
I went in that direction.
But affect theory, no.
I haven't gone there, yet.
I may. But I'm most
familiar with affect theory,
having written a review
of Jonathan Hayes book
on the sensualist surface
-- what is it called?
Some of you would know that.
You two would know.
[Laughs, inaudible response].
The Sensuist Serf [assumed
spelling] -- [laughs].
They had to read it, I know.
So, that was more about
wanting to touch and wanting
to touch the ceramics.
That is how he uses it.
And the theorists whom he
cites are engaged with that.
So, this is not where
I was going.
In terms of going
to touch something.
Is that -- did I
answer your question?
Okay. Good.
Yes.
[ Inaudible question ]
Yes. You're absolutely right.
In fact, just the other day,
in a wild hurry to return books
to the National Gallery of Art
Library, I read parts of a book
on British art that
you're referring to.
And indeed, there were
very strong feelings
about not showing feeling
and especially in men.
So, this is not unusual.
It's the reasons for not
doing it differ, I suspect.
I'm not familiar enough
with the European situation
but I think the Chinese
situation is also very complex.
And most people will argue it's
because of Confucian decorum.
Smoothing the face.
You know, you find these in text
that date back to
the 6th century.
But my question was, well,
certainly surely things
[inaudible] change when you get
into the 16th century
and that they were --
it was more complex and there
were other issues involved.
But you're absolutely right.
The thing that really struck
me as being so different,
though, was the La Brun.
And his book -- or based on
a lecture about the passions
that he gave to the
Academy in the 17th century
where he was talking
about muscular, I mean,
focused on muscular contractions
in every face that he described.
And that is what's
missing -- or not missing.
Is not relevant to
the Chinese case.
Because of the completely
different notion
of how a face moves
and how a body moves.
But your point was
absolutely correct.
Yes. Absolutely taken,
well taken.
That class distinction
determines --
will determine pictorial
representation of emotion.
Any other questions?
So, did convince you all that
Hongshou was incorporating --
or appropriating
print convention?
I'd really love to know
from you, other historians
in the audience, actually.
Oh, dear, I hope I did.
[Laughs].
[ Inaudible response ]
I'm sorry, I didn't catch.
[Inaudible response].
Oh, this one of the
drunkard on the banana palms,
which by the way, for decades
and decades was identified
as a self-portrait of Hongshou.
And I disagree entirely.
And the Met has recently
overturned that --
has removed that label from
[inaudible] from the leaf.
This comes from the
Metropolitan.
You can -- the Met
is very generous
in their -- don't touch that.
Very generous in their -- at
their site, their website.
You just type in
Hongshou and you can get
to this and download it.
[Inaudible response].
It's an album.
It's an album.
So, like this.
You -- yes.
And it's -- this is
an interesting one
in that it also has pictures,
paintings by his son.
So, I think the album was put
together by somebody else.
I don't think Chen
Hongshou put it together.
Most people date it
to about the 1630s.
But it was actually
assembled after that time.
I'm sorry, I misunderstood
your question.
Yes.
[ Inaudible question ]
Because, when gentleman were
not supposed to be shown
with any kind of
distress or emotion.
I mean, even if they were
worried -- you got that part.
So, how did he reanimate this?
How did he go about doing this?
I'm arguing that it's because
-- he was a print designer.
So, he did make illustrations
for printed books in the 1630s.
And at first I thought, well,
it must have come
from that experience.
But this picture is often
dated prior to that time.
So, I think he may have
been inspired by books
with which he was familiar.
Which often were illustrated.
This was the prime time
for printed illustration.
The -- no one else did it.
Is what's so extraordinary
about Hongshou.
And I think that -- you
know, he's -- I've said it.
There's only one
sentence in which I --
or phrase that I said he
was noted for being weird.
His contemporaries said
he's strange and startling.
There was one collector
who claimed that he had
to put his paintings in a box
because he could only look
at them for so much --
for so long and he had
to keep them hidden.
And there are many,
many commentators write
about the oddity
of Chen Hongshou.
In fact, most contemporary --
people who are writing today,
will focus, he's weird.
But I began to wonder, well,
what exactly did they think
was weird about Chen Hongshou.
I mean people in
the 17th century.
And because not very many
art writers will say, well,
it's because of this
or because of that.
They'll just say, it's odd.
Some -- there's one
person I know who wrote
about the distortion of form.
But they don't use that word.
That is a word that
modern scholars use.
So, my thought about
what was odd
for contemporary viewers
was the juxtaposition
of disparate genres.
Print was not considered
as important as painting.
I mean, it was a -- I was
questioned about this at CASVA.
And it didn't really occur
to me how really radically
different China is.
I can count on one hand,
and I would be hard
to finish my fingers, with
the number of painters
who also were print makers.
Now in the 17th century
in Europe, you know,
hundreds and hundreds.
Right? So, it's a totally
different engagement with print.
Most of the print designers, we
don't even know who they are.
We know the engravers.
What's curious, we
know the block cutters.
But we don't the people
who designed the pictures.
Except in the case of
really famous painters
such as Chen Hongshou,
[foreign name].
But again, two, and then.
Not too many.
So, that's a really
major difference.
So, incorporating print into
this very esteemed genre
or painting or thing, painting,
was I'm beginning to think
or that was my theory, anyway.
It's what made him
weird to his audience.
His first audience.
Yes. It doesn't seem
so weird to us.
But I think it may have been.
And he's juxtaposing other very
incongruous manners of drawing
in this particular picture.
We get -- let's see
if I can go backward.
I think I have the [inaudible].
Somewhere back here.
There. He -- sorry.
He's trying to give
the sense of illusion.
Of three-dimensionality
in the robe.
With the stripes of the dark
gray, and then the white.
Which was an antique
manner of drawing.
How he came to know
about this, I don't know.
Many people have argued that
he was looking at forgeries
and the oddity of his
representation was
because he was looking
at fake paintings
that were popular at this time.
But the flatness of the
face and those signs
of sorrow are not
three -dimensional.
So, you've got the
three-dimensional,
you've got the flat.
You've got different things
that are clashing
against one another.
So, it's not just the
print and the painting.
It's other things, I think,
that are at work here, clashing.
And that is what, I think,
was discomforting and unusual
to his contemporaries, in my
opinion now, today, anyway.
[Laughs]. Yes.
>> I have a question
that -- about emotion.
[inaudible] for the --
language of [inaudible].
Looking at the fine
lines of Chen Hongshou,
he was a great artist
[inaudible] craft.
I was thinking about
his contemporaries,
[inaudible] who expressed
his emotions
through the brushstrokes.
Do you consider including,
in your [inaudible] emotions
in Chinese paintings emoted
through the brush language --
>> Anne Burkus-Chasson: Through
the body or gesture, you mean?
Or actually the stroke, itself?
>> The strokes.
Because two ways of painting
the [inaudible] the psychology
of artist.
Maybe it's fair to say the
same about [inaudible].
Brushstrokes are very
nervous, direct --
>> Anne Burkus-Chasson: Mm-hmm.
Indeed. I have not -- this
is a work in progress.
And this is actually just very
recent work that I've done.
So, no, I can't say that
I've gone in that direction
but thank you for reminding
me though, of the more --
Chen Hongshou is extremely
restrained as you point out.
Even when he's working
with dry ink on paper.
It's still restrained
and very quiet
in the way he uses his brush.
And extremely disciplined.
Tight and controlled.
Whereas [inaudible] is a
different kind of control
but nonetheless, it's --
one seems to respond
kinesthetically, I think.
Is that what you're
kind of getting at?
No, I have not explored that.
But that would certainly
be worth exploring.
Indeed, as another form of
emotion in Chinese painting.
Which I confess, I -- my
husband is a Europeanist
and I often tease him
about one thing or another.
Of course, assuming the
Chinese art is superior.
But I had to confess, I
had not really admitted
to myself how subtle
these signs of emotion are
in Chinese figure painting.
So, this was actually revelatory
to me, to do this work
and to look so closely
at this things.
I mean just the little eyes
going -- and that's it.
You know. So, that's why
I was really interested
in the [foreign language] works.
[Foreign language] work on the
musculature and medical theory.
Found really useful for that.
Anyway, that's going off your
subject of [foreign language].
>> I'm going to look over to
the subject to the spirit of --
to the areas of the theater.
>> Anne Burkus-Chasson:
Indeed, yes.
That's a huge question.
For those of you
who are unfamiliar.
There's been quite a bit
of work on the relationship
between printed illustration
and the theater.
And a number of scholars,
both Chinese and also people
who are trained in this country
have argued that the drama
of printed illustration came
from the print designers
seeing plays.
And that it was a
memetic exchange.
So, that they copied the
gestures that they saw in a play
and put it in their
illustrations.
I personally have generally
been opposed to that.
I can't see a designer
needing to go to a play
to actually -- and to copy it.
I mean, I know that
there are copies.
There actually are
representations of plays
in the prints and
they don't really look
like the emotional pict --
so, I think there's
actually a distinction
between the way a play is
represented in a print.
And then the way emotion
is represented in a print.
And so, I'm not -- I think it's
much more indebted to painting.
Conventions of painting rather
than to opera, operatic
gestures.
We also don't know very
much about the gestures.
And nonetheless, someone
at CASVA reminded me
of Bassano [phonetic
spelling] painting experience
in 15th century Italy?
Right? Okay.
And he was interested in
gesture as well in that book.
Not a large part of it.
But there is a small
part of it on gesture.
Where he emphasized that we need
to know what these
gestures mean.
So, how do we find out?
And he went to --
instead of suggesting this
from a memetic relationship,
with drama,
he went to -- where did he go?
Now it's slipping my brain.
He -- oh, I know.
He -- when monks had to
take vows of silence,
what were their hand gestures?
And so he found text that
described the gestures of monks.
That's another -- that's one of
my things on my to-do list here.
because I think that kind
of approach might be --
would suit my intellectual
inclinations more than the idea
of copying the way a gesture
was performed on stage.
But there is no question on
the other hand, I don't think
that this gesture of the hand
to the face, meant sorrow.
And it could be that there
was just general knowledge,
as Bassano would say --
I'm causing trouble here.
General knowledge that
this gesture meant sorrow.
So, I'm still working
on that issue.
But it's a very important
one, I think, actually.
His opera was so important
during that period.
>> You just mentioned
that you seem
to prefer the Chinese painting
because the [inaudible] you
think is a little bit superior
in your opinion?
I understand that --
>> Anne Burkus-Chasson:
Oh, I just tease --
this is a source of
teasing for my husband.
I shouldn't even have
mentioned something so bold.
But it's true.
[Laughing, inaudible response].
Sorry. Would you
repeat your question?
I was overwhelmed with
feeling embarrassed.
>> You just mentioned
that something is more
superior in your mind.
Could you elaborate that?
Because --
>> Anne Burkus-Chasson: You
know, to tell you the truth I --
the time I've spent at CASVA
I have a new appreciation
of even Italian art.
And I have never
loved Italian art.
And you have to love
Italian art at CASVA.
And another thing that I
must say, I was really moved
by the Bellini and the
Piata, and the words that --
those swelling eyes
will bring groans.
And there is something that is
so moving, so very beautiful.
So, I confess -- I
confess this to my husband.
I was simply ignorant.
There you have it.
They're just really,
really different.
And that's where I
guess my interest
in drawing contrast now,
which I was frankly,
never interested in doing.
Is to highlight how really
different the Chinese situation
is or case.
I don't -- I'm less interested
in comparative studies that try
to -- well, most recently a
book on [foreign language]
in the same book with
[foreign language].
It's a brilliant book
and beautifully written.
But, you know, I question is
she trying to go too far to try
to create this early modern
spirit in China and Europe.
I'm not entirely
convinced by that.
But the -- I take
back everything I said
about [laughs].
Actually, I love
European art a lot.
There were just certain
periods that I was biased about.
No more.
>> Jeffrey Wang: Alright.
I get right on.
>> Anne Burkus-Chasson: Okay.
[Laughs].
>> Jeffrey Wang:
Thank you for coming.
>> Anne Burkus-Chasson:
Thank you, very much.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.
