These birds are alive! The two bigger ones are locked in a staring contest, with eye and beak, as if made of one piece, concentrating all the animosity directed at the Other. The dominant one enjoys the elevated position, ready to pounce. Against his wrath, the defensive one, head pushed back, seems to have deployed a battery of dark foliage and white lotus (symbol of purity of spirit). At the other end of the horizontal scroll, two smaller, meeker birds look at us, thus inverting the viewer/subject relationship. We are indeed looking at ourselves...
(By clicking on any image, you can enlarge it - often beyond the actual size - which will bring out dramatically the ink/paper relationship)
Bada Shanren (or a very talented and empathetic imitator) placed his signature on the right, at the beginning of the handscroll - which is unusual in a Chinese painting. Pushing even further the Chan master's trickiness, he ended his composition with just a few strokes depicting stems, at once recalling some sort of signature and triggering a faint echo of its absence! His work abounds in puns of all sorts, both in painting and in calligraphy. Here, after having read the scroll from right to left, we wonder if we should not read it now in the other direction, and then... if that matters at all.
Unique to the Chinese painting tradition, the handscroll format, which is 'read' from right to left as the viewer slowly unrolls the picture, allows sequential time in the viewing experience. To try and do justice to Zhu Da's masterful exploitation of this feature, the multiple and sometimes repetitive photographs presented here isolate different framings and close-ups available successively to the viewer. The 'modernity' of it all is quite stunning, with so much being achieved with so few brush strokes, each empowered with unequalled concentration, precision... and 'suchness'. As much as the birds are alive, these strokes are so deliberate that they seem to have obliterated the 'historical' time it has taken them to reach our eyes.
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6 comments:
I just came accross your blog and wanted to tell you that it is amazing. Thank you for putting these gorgeous images into the online world!
Thanks for your appreciation!
The blog receives about 200 visits every week, but comments or questions are very rare and that is surprising. There are so many interesting aspects in this particular area: issues of authenticity, intercultural aesthetic values,'modernity'in tradional arts, etc.
when i am looking for Tang dynasty paintingns,i find your blog.it is really not easy for paying so much interests and patience to ancient paintings of other country.i am chinese, the signiture of "ba da shan ren" can also be read as one word,some times read as "smile"(笑), sometimes as "cry"(哭). the painter always has much more to say than lines drawing on the picture.....
:) besides, i'd like to link your blog to mine.hope you don't mind... i love paingings and ancient things too:)
I am very happy to have your comment - the first from China!
About the "interest in art from another country"... Well, for me, Bada Shanren is not just a Chinese artist. He is there at the very top, among the greatest in the world. His art can "grab you" in a way that very few artists ever do. You are very welcome to link to my site.
Really rare these lovely images I follow your blog.yesss!
Welcome! Neon Cat meets Bada's birds...
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