DOI Heft:
Nr. 332 (January 1925)
DOI Artikel:Eglington, Guy: China and the color print
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19984#0016
"squirrel in a vine tree"
chrysanthemum he says: "Le cbrysantheme est une
fleur dont le caractere est fier; dont la couleur est
belle; dont le parjum est tardij; celui qui peint cela
doit en posseder dans son coeur la forme complete,
alors seulement il peut exprimer son cbarme solitaire
et tardif." For an example of this teaching note
in the "Plumblossom with Narcissus and Ca-
mellia" (Marees IV) the essential difference in
the artist's approach to the three flowers, the
plumblossom frozen like a snowflake, the camellia
hot and passionate, the tinge of flamboyance in
the narcissus. But my favorite of the set is the
chaste "Magnolias" (Marees VI).
Such then are the two solitary masterpieces of
Chinese color printing, which thanks to the publi-
cation of the Marees portfolio, should now at last
come into their own. Here is, I think, an unique
case of a nation inventing a medium only to
despise it. Then, being in need of its services,
calling upon it to perform the seeming impossible.
The impossible achieved, letting it slide back into
obscurity. Put baldly, the facts seem almost in-
credible. Where and in what school had the wood-
print from "mustard seed garden" "
cutter gamed the technique to tackle such a task?
The history of Chinese art provides no answer. It
points laconically to the stone prints of the Han,
the black and white woodcut illustrators of the
T'ang, the commercial color printers of the late
Ming.
It is impossible to study the precepts of the
Mustard Seed Garden without being overwhelmed
by the conviction that, widely as the Chinese prac-
tise differs from ours, and still-born as any imita-
tion is certain to be, in his approach to nature the
Chinese artist holds a secret which must make us
finally his pupils. La consonnance de I'Esprit en-
gendre le mouvement. There are no dead things in
a Chinese painting. Life is related to life, the
mountain to the man. As the master says: "The
man looks at the mountain, the mountain looks
at the man. In such manner that the onlooker is
seized with regret that he can not spring into the
painting and fight the man for his place." But
before we can reach that point we must make it a
capital crime to paint a mountain "sans veine
d'aspiration."
On opposite page: "Blue Bamboo'' from" Ten Bamboo Hall"
two seventy-six
JANUARY 1925
chrysanthemum he says: "Le cbrysantheme est une
fleur dont le caractere est fier; dont la couleur est
belle; dont le parjum est tardij; celui qui peint cela
doit en posseder dans son coeur la forme complete,
alors seulement il peut exprimer son cbarme solitaire
et tardif." For an example of this teaching note
in the "Plumblossom with Narcissus and Ca-
mellia" (Marees IV) the essential difference in
the artist's approach to the three flowers, the
plumblossom frozen like a snowflake, the camellia
hot and passionate, the tinge of flamboyance in
the narcissus. But my favorite of the set is the
chaste "Magnolias" (Marees VI).
Such then are the two solitary masterpieces of
Chinese color printing, which thanks to the publi-
cation of the Marees portfolio, should now at last
come into their own. Here is, I think, an unique
case of a nation inventing a medium only to
despise it. Then, being in need of its services,
calling upon it to perform the seeming impossible.
The impossible achieved, letting it slide back into
obscurity. Put baldly, the facts seem almost in-
credible. Where and in what school had the wood-
print from "mustard seed garden" "
cutter gamed the technique to tackle such a task?
The history of Chinese art provides no answer. It
points laconically to the stone prints of the Han,
the black and white woodcut illustrators of the
T'ang, the commercial color printers of the late
Ming.
It is impossible to study the precepts of the
Mustard Seed Garden without being overwhelmed
by the conviction that, widely as the Chinese prac-
tise differs from ours, and still-born as any imita-
tion is certain to be, in his approach to nature the
Chinese artist holds a secret which must make us
finally his pupils. La consonnance de I'Esprit en-
gendre le mouvement. There are no dead things in
a Chinese painting. Life is related to life, the
mountain to the man. As the master says: "The
man looks at the mountain, the mountain looks
at the man. In such manner that the onlooker is
seized with regret that he can not spring into the
painting and fight the man for his place." But
before we can reach that point we must make it a
capital crime to paint a mountain "sans veine
d'aspiration."
On opposite page: "Blue Bamboo'' from" Ten Bamboo Hall"
two seventy-six
JANUARY 1925