AN ESSAY ON LANDSCAPE PAINTING 681

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^ AN ESSAY ON LANDSCAPE PAINTING (LIN CH'UAN KAO CHIH).
By Kuo Hsi. Translated by SHIO SAKANISHI. Foreword
by L. CRANMEE-BYNG. The Wisdom of the East Series.
6f x 5, pp. 64. London: John Murray, 1935. Price
2s. Qd.
It is said that this little essay has had a tremendous influence
upon the course of development of Chinese landscape painting
ever since the eleventh century. Quotations from it are
familiar in the West, but this is the first time it has appeared
in separate form in complete and adequate translation. This
little volume is, therefore, most welcome to a large and ever
increasing circle of friends who are endeavouring to approach
closer to the mind of the Chinese in their art.
It is valuable because it is so direct and so lacking in self-
consciousness, being made up of Kuo Hsi's remarks and
instructions to his son, without thought of publication. After
his death the son edited and published them. " When I was
a little boy with pigtails," says Kuo Jo-hsii in his preface,
" I followed my late father on wanderings among springs and
rocks. Each time he put his brush to paper, he used to say :
' There is a method in landscape painting. How dare an artist
paint in a careless manner ? ' Whenever I had listened to one
of his opinions, I wrote it down immediately in my notebook."
This was in the middle of the eleventh century, about the
time of William the Conqueror, yet nearly nine hundred years
later we read these words of wisdom with the feeling that they
are thoroughly modern. The author was considered the
greatest painter of his time, but his ideas on painting were not
in any way revolutionary, they embodied the ideals of the
period. Our Boswell reveals his father as a keen observer, a
clear thinker, and an inspiring teacher as well as a psychologist
of no mean order. It is because of the fundamental truths
herein expressed, the mind of a great man of the past revealed,
that this essay will appeal to a great many persons who are
not interested primarily in art but in people.
Many of the father's statements appear to be direct answers

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 682 REVIEWS OF BOOKS

to the son's questions. With the complete translations before

us we are struck anew by the constant emphasis upon certain
principles. Never does Kuo Hsi forget that the object and
end of painting is to express the spirit of a scene. We can
almost hear the boy ask : " Papa, why do you paint land-
scapes ? " And the father answer that it is so that those who
love landscapes, but are shut into cities, may look upon
paintings instead and so imagine themselves in the midst of
mountains and forests; that the painter should work with the
idea of arousing in the superior man a yearning for forest and
stream ; but that all this can be accomplished only by catching
the spirit of a landscape. How can an artist do that ? Only
by concentrating his spirit upon the essentials in a scene.
" If he fails to get at the essentials he will fail to present the
soul of his theme," says Kuo Hsi. His insistence upon certain
conditions of mind and surroundings, an unworried state of
mind and a quiet spacious place to work, show his under-
standing of such psychological problems. His remarks upon
the immaturity and carelessness of young students might have
been made yesterday. " How can they ever hope to under-
stand the landscape of haze and mist or convey the impression
of streams and hills ? " he asks his son sarcastically. We can
profit to-day by what he says about selection, by his
observations on landscape as it appears at different seasons,
different times of day, or under varying weather conditions.
Cezanne would have approved his comment on mountains
that " rise from the heart of the earth and not from the
surface ". Even his technical instructions suggest surprising
ideas, such as the directions for representing the " colour of
wind ". Wind in China would stir up the yellow loess, of
course.
A few revelations await us in the newly translated passages.
We had thought that the Chinese took no notice of effects of
sunshine and shadow, what we call " chiaroscuro ". But here
is evidence that Kuo Hsi recognized it and gave rules for
representing it. Another theory of ours is shattered, that the

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 MITTELALTERLICHE CHINESISCHE PHILOSOPHIE 683

Chinese painter never " worked over " his lines. Also that the
painter made sketches out of doors on the spot is certainly
suggested by the first passage quoted above.
The translation of this essay is a far more difficult task
than would appear on the surface. It is often almost impossible
to get at the real meaning of those balanced phrases which
form such a telling literary style in Chinese. This accounts
for the varying interpretations given by experts, showing that
there is often room for a difference of opinion. The editors
are to be congratulated upon their selection of Dr. Sakanishi
as translator, for she has weighed carefully all possibilities
and maintained a natural and consistent interpretation. Her
command of the English language is no less remarkable than
her depth of scholarship. The easy rhythmic flow of her clear
and beautiful English makes her translation a work of art
in itself. Mr. Cranmer-Byng's remarks are always food for
thought and serve here to provide the essay with a back-
ground.
A. 524. HELEN E. FERNALD.

/ GESCHICHTE DER MITTELALTERLICHEN CHINESISCHEN

V PHILOSOPHIE. Von ALFRED FORKE. Hamburgische
^. ^ ^ Universitat: Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiet der Aus-
I landskunde, Band 41. \\\ x 7|, pp. xii + 410.
Hamburg: Friederichsen, De Gruyter and Co., 1934.
R.M. 25.
Professor Forke is one of the most industrious of living
sinologists, and unlike some of his confreres he does not fight
shy of direct translation from the Chinese. This second instal-
ment of his great history of Chinese philosophy is again full
of quotations and extracts, taken from some fifty writers of
the Middle Ages. It must be understood that this period does
not quite coincide with what we are accustomed to call the
Middle Ages in Europe, but stretches from the beginning of
the Han dynasty to the beginning of the Sung, thus covering

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