Wang Kai

FROM THE MUSTARD SEED GARDEN
MANUAL OF PAINTING

TRANSLATED BY HENRY W. WELLS

INTRODUCTION

SINCE the procedure in the following verses is by no means common, and may possibly be viewed with suspicion or even thought eccentrie, the translator may be allowed a few comments by way of apology. This brief anthology renders into English verse passages from the well-known guide to Chinese art, The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, compiled by Wang Kai and his associates, and first published in 1701. “Rendered” would, perhaps, be a more fitting word than “translated,” for these versions are undeniably free; but it is hoped that they are nonetheless essentially faithful to the meaning of the Chinese and at least not licentious from the literary point of view. The reader may well ask, to begin with, why render prose as verse? The question calls for comments on several of the broader issues at stake.

Among the innumerable fine arts assiduously cultivated by the Chinese through nearly two millennia, picture-making enjoyed the highest prestige, standing beside music and writing as virtually an essential accomplishment of “the complete gentleman.” Painting also engaged the efforts of professionals—as a class viewed at times rather superciliously by the amateurs—who were scholars, gentlemen, and frequently officials. Any commanding view of Chinese civilization requires close attention to the high status of pictorial art, the supreme discipline of the eye.

It must be acknowledged that literature occupies an unrivalled position from the strategic point of view. Within the trinity of major activities in the aesthetic life it stood in the center, music on one hand, painting on the other. The three arts were most intimately interrelated, each closely associated with the others. Thus poetry, which was held to be the finest flower of imaginative literature, was, of course, frequently sung, chanted or performed with instrumental accompaniment. Similarly, writing in various ways accompanied painting. Many pictures are attended by poems written beside them. More important, Chinese painting is intensely literary, just as much poetry is highly pictorial or descriptive. Painters are inspired by much the same sentiments and ideas as the writers. The subject-matter in the two arts clearly has much in common, both in terms of philosophy and of actual images. Moreover, a highly conscious and deliberate approach to all the arts produced an immense literature on painting from the Han Dynasty through the Ch’ing, equal in quantity and quality to that on literature and poetics. The scholar’s grasp of imaginative literature was greatly strengthened by his knowledge of the literature on painting just as his grasp of painting was strengthened by his knowledge of poetry and its critics.

The following verses are offered as a somewhat unusual gesture in support of these familiar observations. The writer hopes that they indicate anew how much that is essentially poetic resides in the literature on painting and how closely in Chinese ways of thinking the two arts are allied. The general topic may be considered from many angles. Here the approach is uncommon. Passages from one of the most famous critical works on painting are rendered in English verse.

So that the translator may at least stand frankly in open view, the source is, as already stated, an easily accessible book, The Chih Tzu Yüan, or Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, compiled by the seventeenth-century scholar, Wang Kai, assisted by Wang Shih and Wang Nieh and others. The work is eclectic in every sense of the word. It appeared in successive volumes over a period of several years. Its authors looked backward through the centuries in creating their commentary and in selecting their copious illustrations. Many schools of painting are represented. For over two centuries this became the most popular manual on the subject. It has been reprinted and republished many times. A marked distinction must be drawn between the publications giving the illustrations in wood-block cuts and those presenting them as brush work. The first printed edition using lithographic process and hence reproducing early hand-painted editions was published in Shanghai, 1887. The Bollingen Series has produced a superb facsimile. An abridgment in popular form includes an extensive Introduction by Mai-mai Sze.

The manual is both practical and theoretical, telling one how to mix paints and clarify thoughts. Chinese scholars at first tended to view it as popular and hence in some sense vulgar, a text for beginners, in short, a colossal handbook. Recently it has been more seriously regarded in its own country and widely consulted abroad. Fine copies are in many libraries and museums; to mention but one, an admirable example in the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City. The commentary deals with many types of subject-matter and problems in technique; among the areas conspicuously represented are landscape painting, trees, rocks, people, flowers, grasses, insects, birds, and beasts.

In testing the validity of my general thesis, I have compiled a considerable anthology of verses based on this and similar books; for example, from The Chinese on the Art of Painting, by Osvald Siren, I have versified over eighty passages to exemplify the poetic value of the original commentaries, while I have found well over a score of passages in The Mustard Seed Garden Manual inviting, as I thought, such treatment. Landscape is the outstanding topic but commentaries on flower and animal painting are often of considerable poetic value. Especially in the commentaries on the representation of persons, animals, and birds, even the important role of humor in Chinese painting is well illustrated. Rarely does Chinese descriptive prose rise to such distinguished heights.

In general it may be said that the Chinese do not write poems “about” paintings, as the Europeans have often done (witness Rilke and Browning) but write in a highly poetic manner on the identical subjects chosen by poets and painters and on the common grounds of their approach to art. It will be recalled that during the baroque period in Europe poems with titles such as “Advice to a Painter” were in vogue. These verses seem relatively prosaic when placed beside the analogous Chinese prose. It may also be worth mention that some of the Chinese commentaries, even in The Mustard Seed Garden Manual itself, are in verse, presumably to help beginners to memorize the good advice given them.

The following are a few books dealing in various ways with these matters: Li Tai Ming Hua Chih [Notes on Famous Painters of All Dynasties], 1922; Shio Sakanishi, The Spirit of the Brush, 2 vols., 1933; Osvald Siren, The Chinese on the Art of Painting, Peiping, 1936, New York, 1963; A. C. Soper, a translation of Kuo Jo-hsu’s Experiences in Painting, American Council of Learned Societies, Studies in Chinese and Related Civilizations, 6, 1951 ; Jan Tschichold (ed), Chinese Color Prints from The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, 1952; Wang Shih-chen (ed.), Wang Shih Hua Yüan, Collected Writings on Painting, Preface 1590, facsimile 1922.

WANG KAI/FROM THE MUSTARD SEED
GARDEN MANUAL OF PAINTING
[1679]

The character of trees lies in their roots.

When growing in the mountain forests, full

With deepest undergrowth, the roots are hid,

Mysterious, more than ever wonderful,

Stretching to unconscionable length,

Clinging with inviolable strength.

Trees that grow among the fallen rocks

Or those whose roots are washed by forest springs

Or cling to cliffs precipitous and steep

Have roots exposed that brave what winter brings.

They are like aged hermits gnarled and lean

Whose purity remains forever green.

In painting trees in groups it will be best

To make distinctions in the ways they grow,

Especially attending to their roots,

Knotted, gnarled and venerable, so

That all have character, not like a saw

With rows of teeth but souls evoking awe.

•

Pine trees are like men with noble minds

Whose quiet manner shows their hidden powers,

Like dragons coiled inside a misted gorge

Thriving equally in sun or showers.

They allure us more than other trees,

Yet none evokes such holy awe as these.

Pines should be painted with a look of iron,

Strong and irresistible yet kind

In heart, their needles soft as new-spun silk,

Their trunks well armored with a stubborn rind.

If you approach them with an awe-filled soul

Your painting speedily must reach its goal.

•

Spirit is no less basic than man’s flesh,

Determining his manner and his feature.

Rocks are the roots of clouds, the pith of earth,

No less alive than any living creature.

The slightest thought of any lifeless rock

Must give the cultivated soul a shock.

Rocks without vivifying souls are dead,

Mere dry and dusty bones, not worth a thought.

What painter would so paint them if he knew

The Universal Spirit as he ought?

Many are the ways that painters strive

To picture rocks. Think this: rocks are alive!

•

A range of mountains with a single peak

Above the rest denotes a social scene.

The monarch gathers to his noble breast

His courtiers, his counselors and queen,

Embracing all as each had been his guest.

Thus is perfect harmony expressed.

Another mountain is the emperor

Seated solitary and alone

Close to the sky. Above mankind he broods

In perfect solitude upon his throne.

Wang Wei in representing this was wise,

Deep in clear thought, one with the clouds and skies.

Rocks are the bones of mountains; waterfalls

Carve out the rocks. Some say, water is weak

But I say that all such are thoughtless men

Not knowing what they think or glibly speak.

Water holds the mountains in its thrall.

Chiao Kung declared it to be structural.

Is not water which is always flowing,

Trickling, splashing, foaming from its birth—

Whether in rushing rivers or the ocean—

Life-blood and marrow of the Heavens and Earth?

Blood nurses embryos and marrow, bones.

Who believes the earth composed of lifeless stones?

Marrowless bones are actually dust.

Mountains are living sinews, lords of all.

Since the ancients knew how mountains grow

They paid deep reverence to each waterfall.

Huang Kung-wang excelled in this demesne.

None better painted this most moving scene.

Wang Wei declared: in drawing waterfalls

Use many interruptions but no break;

Leave intervals within the rapid flow;

Where the brush stops your fancy must awake.

Thus a dragon, lord of sky-born powers,

Unites his tail and head in watery showers.

•

Clouds are the ornaments of earth and sky,

Embroidery of mountains, lakes and streams.

We hear them smite the mountains with such force

That thunder bellows and livid lightning gleams.

Such is the nature and the power of clouds,

Veiling the highest summits in their shrouds.

•

People in pictures are an audience

The landscape summons to enjoy the view,

Hinting at new pleasures and fresh thoughts

Interchanged between the scene and you.

Many animate figures there must be,

All paying tribute to the scenery.

These people should be drawn in moderate size,

Never elaborated in detail,

Turning vain attention to themselves;

Always the spell of the landscape should prevail.

Painters who observe a different course

Must find their pictures lacking aim and force.

A figure should be seen who contemplates

The mountain, while the mountain bends to him;

A player of the lute applauds the moon

Whose gracious radiance floods his face and limb. T

here must be continuity in all,

Nature and man in thoughts reciprocal.

•

Mountains in the distance should be graced

With towers or tall pagodas since so far

The mountains stand no figure can be seen.

Men and mountains in interaction are

The very essence of the Heavens and Earth,

From whose conjunction wisdom comes to birth.

The temple in the mountains is the sign

That man and Heaven actually are one.

Its graceful turret rises to the stars,

Minute itself though through it peace is won.

When hills gain grandeur and vitality

The viewer’s soul soars to Infinity.

Meaning ever must exceed the view,

Vision be within and not without.

So from the speck of this pagoda flows

An effluence like an echo tossed about

Between the hills. The far pagoda’s bell

Assures the painter he has painted well.

•

To paint a flower learn first to paint the bud

And this at its beginning, middle, end.

A bud half opened shows its tough peduncle

In profile on which all the petals depend.

When buds are opening from the green leaves’ husk

The flower is born full of its fragrant musk.

Issuing from its shroud it first extends

A single petal like a small bird’s tongue

Sipping nectar from a new-born flower,

Prelusive to the later petal throng,

Or like a finger issuing from a hand

That still is closed, saluting spring’s command.

Color appears first, the merest tint;

Lastly comes the fragrance of the flower,

Each like a pearl, each painted separately

In homage to the beauty of its hour.

Each is a star alighted on a stem,

Glory of a fleeting diadem.

To paint a bud first paint the hard peduncle,

Although each flower is different, yet the same

Form appears in each of these green wombs

Out of which leaps forth the blossom’s flame.

Chrysanthemum alone of flowers receives

Its birth from what seems layers of young leaves.

Different as the myriad blooms may be,

The essential form lies in this tough, round ball.

Variants are trivial, for the strength

Of the chrysanthemum is gathered all

Together in this quintessential form

Which painters should examine as their norm.

•

In painting most things paint the head the first

But painting butterflies first paint the wings.

The divine spirit harbors most in them,

The most celestial of aerial things.

In flight the heavenly wings provide a screen

For half the body; at rest the whole is seen.

The head has two antennae while between

A tubular mouth draws nectar. When in flight

This is withdrawn. The wings are stretched at dawn

But folded in the quiet hours of night.

It flutters among flowers, brightly arrayed,

Suggesting some fine lady with her maid.

•

Although the praying mantis may be small

It should be painted with true majesty,

Much like a tiger leaping on its prey,

Its two eyes flaming with ferocity.

Such rabid creatures have a true repute

In art, as war-songs on a peaceful lute.

•

To paint a bird first fix the upper part

That marks that section of the creature’s beak

Then sketch the upper of the lower half;

Finish that portion with a lusty streak.

Dot in the eye to center and behind,

Then have head, neck and upper body lined.

Proceed next to the breast and all below,

Curving stomach, sharply pointed tail;

Shade in the wings, as capable of flight;

Then, at the last, sketch lightly without fail

Each crocked, clinging claw and slender leg:

The whole should bear the aspect of an egg.