Can westerners really appreciate Chinese Art Works

http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=10083

Janissary

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Posted: 28-Jul-2006 at 11:43

to flyingzone, as to Chinese traditional music, I'm afraid I cannot give you any specific ideas of my own, for I'm a layman in that area.

I've tried your link and saw your statements, they are already very profesional, as i see it. What I know about, you already have mentioned.

But your question of "Did Confucianism limit the potential of Chinese music?" according to my knowledge, cannot have a definite yes or no answer. Because when you said "limit", that was compared with seven agents of the western music. If there were a kind of music that contained more than seven agents, would you say that it would be more harmonic because of it's philosophy?

As for partly yes, because Confuciansim as a major philosophy did have great influence on Chinese culture, and of course on traditional Chinese music, and that leads to the pentagonic nature of it. I've listened to many, though as you perceive lack of harmonic density, I feel quite natural and smooth with them. Maybe I was born to accept this harmonic because I'm a Chinese.

But that doesn't matter with my fond of modern music whether east or west with seven agents. In other words, when I listen to traditional Chinese music, I love the way it is. And perhaps, harmonic or perfect music is not that absolute.

After all, tomorrow is another day.:)

flyingzone View Drop Down

Caliph

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Posted: 25-Jul-2006 at 15:01

Parthenon, you seem to be quite knowledgeable in traditional Chinese art. Are you equally knowledgeable in traditional Chinese music? Long time ago, I started a thread entitled "Did Confucianism limit the potential of Chinese music?" on the East Asian forum but did not get any response from anyone.

I was wondering if you have any opinion on this subject. Perhaps when talking about Chinese music, I could have asked the same question you're asking here: "Can Westerners really appreciate Chinese music?" My answer to this question, as implied in the post that I made on that thread, is a tentative "no" due to the intrinsic difference in the nature of Chinese and Western (for Western I mean "European") music.

parthenon

Janissary

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Posted: 25-Jul-2006 at 08:06

What you said is a point, but as a matter of fact, stamps are used as a part of calligraphy artwork, for they themselves are types of Chinese characters, most of which are more ancient types of calligraphy than that of the brush written ones.

Also, it depends on in which respect you perceive a piece of calligraphy work. As a calligraphy-lover, one's eyes will first focus on the majority of a piece------that is the brush written characters, and then move on to the stamps, their shapes, their contents, and their artistic tastes.

As you said that too many stamps may made calligraphy itself obscure to us, I think that might happen when a beginner uses too many stamps of his or her own and impresses them everywhere. However in most cases, this will not happen, as stamps have their regular places in a piece of work.

If you see some recent or contemporary works, you will find the rules of how to use stamps, like on the top left(where an article begins) between the first and second Chinese characters, on the right side below the writer's name,etc.

Although Lan Ting Xu does have many stamps, we don't consider it is being obscured by them, because those collectors followed the rules of stamping. You can see most of the stamps are on the margins of both left and right sides, where there is no Chinese characters, these places are allow to stamp. Secondly, you will find a few stamps are impressed at the beginning lines (left 2 to3) and ending lines (right 3 to 4), that's also reasonable for a long piece. Thirdly, you may find in the middle of the piece there are five stamps impressed on the linkage of two pieces of paper(for in ancient times there were no such long piece of paper to write such a long article, so they pasted two pieces of paper together), that's also necessary to convince us of the integrity of it, sometimes the writer him or herself will stamp there instead of the collectors.

I wish my answer will satisfy you.

Edited by parthenon - 25-Jul-2006 at 08:12

After all, tomorrow is another day.:)

red clay

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Posted: 24-Jul-2006 at 18:20

The Japanese adopted this device also, each owner of the piece adding his stamp, in that culture added to the value as it was a running provenance [history] I have seen several works, [can't remember Chinese or Japanese] where the artwork has become secondary to the history preserved in the stampings, the original work being almost obscured by the stamps.

"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.

parthenon

Janissary

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Posted: 24-Jul-2006 at 09:35

This Chinese painting was done by Wen Zhengming in Ming Dynasty, one of the four most renowed artists and intellectuals at that time. It describle the gathering of the intellectuals in Lan Ting(Gloriette) in Jin Dynasty(353 A.D.).

The painter read Lan Ting Xu and also other poems and essays of the writers in Lan Ting Gathering, and used his imagination to recreate a picture of that scene for us.

There are other paintings about Lan Ting Gathering, but this one is more popular and more specificly done. It is also a representative piece of Wen Zhenming.

You may find there is a creek in this picture, and people were sitting around it, doing a ritual. Yes, it is a traditional custom of China. When in March of Chinese rural calendar, peple will play with the water to make wishes and get rid of bad fortunes. However, when this ritual came to those intellectuals, they made it even nobler, like putting a cup of drink into the water and let it flow from high to low level, and it passed by one person, that man should make a poem or essay, otherwise he must drink up.

So now you can see, in what kind of situation that essay of Lan Ting Xu was written. It was full of spirit and of high mood, when people sitting in the mountains and rivers , and enjoying gathering with friends, one must be very delighted.

(明)文征明《兰亭修禊图》

Gathering In Lan Gloriette, by Wen Zhengming (1470-1559), Ming Dynasty

Edited by parthenon - 24-Jul-2006 at 09:41

After all, tomorrow is another day.:)

parthenon