Bifaji 筆法記 by Jing Hao 荊浩 is one of the most critical writings on painting in the Chinese art tradition. It reflects the shifting artistic trends of the late Tang and the Five Dynasties periods from portraits to landscapes and from color to ink and wa ...
Bifaji 筆法記 by Jing Hao 荊浩 is one of the most critical writings on painting in the Chinese art tradition. It reflects the shifting artistic trends of the late Tang and the Five Dynasties periods from portraits to landscapes and from color to ink and wash. The emphasis on zhen 眞 (genuineness) as an aesthetic goal in Bifaji is an essential feature in its discourse on the nature of painting. This essay explores the concept of zhen as an ideal state of pictorial reality in Bifaji. Illuminating the meaning of zhen is vital to understanding Jing Hao’s and his contemporaries’ artistic aspirations. Considering its aesthetic connotations reveals zhen in Bifaji to be multivalent, involving a number of qualities required for the creation of a landscape painting from the observation of nature to the method of brush technique. To elucidate the aesthetics ideals of Bifaji, the relationship between the concept of zhen and other key terms such as qiyun 氣韻 (character), qishi 氣勢 (dynamic configuration) and xiang 象 (image) as well as another conceptual layer of qi applied in the Six Essentials (Liuyao 六要) and the Four Forces (Sishi 四勢) will be examined.
In exploring the meaning of zhen in Bifaji, various terms and concepts involved in achieving genuineness (zhen) in pictorial reality have been discussed. Delineating the principles of landscape painting Bifaji is not only about manual skill and technique, but also, and more significantly, about the intellectual learning and self-cultivation of the painter. Genuineness (zhen) as advanced in Bifaji is an aesthetic concept in which the view of nature and the cultural values of painting are integrated through the method of brush and ink.
Bifaji marks the transition of the meaning of zhen applied in painting, from visual verisimilitude to the ideal state of pictorial construction. The significance of zhen as an aesthetic term is multi-faceted. Above all, it suggests new aims of landscape painting in which the interplay between immaterial quality and the invisible form plays an important role. In Bifaji the contrast between the substance (shi 實) and superficiality (hua 華) is presented to emphasize that painting genuineness (zhen) can be achieved only when it succeeds to convey the intangible aspects of reality through visible forms.
Bifaji offers conceptual and technical prerequisites for attaining genuineness (zhen), encompassing various elements and stages in the painting process: what to observe in nature in order to capture the essence of the landscape, how to construct an image that effectively represents the essentials, as well as how to use brush and ink to best create an image conveying the essence. What the painter should capture by observing a landscape is inner character (qiyun) and dynamic configuration (qishi), the substance (shi 實) underlying the visual phenomena hua 華; the mind of a painter should then construct an image (xiang 象) to convey this substance (shi); finally, this image should be rendered in ink and wash in the state of complete immersion in which one forgets (wang 忘) or lets go of the technique itself.
Therefore, it takes a painter’s capability at different levels to achieve the goal of zhen – the power of observation to perceive qiyun and qishi of a landscape not merely its superficial appearance; the ability to grasp the most essentials to construct an image (xiang 象) that can effectively convey them; and the perfection of brush technique to effortlessly render that image in ink and wash. These processes require a trained sensibility, mental rigor as well as technical skills. Zhen (genuineness) in Bifaji is the ideal state of pictorial representation that can be achieved when these processes have been fulfilled harmoniously.
Also, the conceptual expansion of zhen should be understood in conjunction with the implications of qi 氣 as it pertains to the process of creating a landscape painting. Reflecting the worldview of the time, qi in Bifaji plays an essential role in establishing the relationship between the world and the painter, between the painter and artistic practice, between the art work and the viewer. From the qiyun and qishi of a landscape, to the painter’s qi represented as Qi of the Six Essentials, and the qi of the image rendered in ink and wash as reflected in Qi of the Four Forces, the connectivity between these different dimensions of qi underlie the meaning of zhen in Bifaji. Interwoven with the meaning of xiang and qi in painting, zhen, eventually, is a concept that enables a landscape painting as an aesthetic medium which represents the worldview of the time.