An Intellectuals’ Gathering on Spring of 1935 by Sun Jianping
In Chinese culture, there is an important tradition to stress on “Pin” and “Ge” of a painting and refer to the vision and personal character of its author. The Chinese character “Pin” with a pile of triple squares (literally “mouth” in Chinese character), indicating the degrees commented by various mouths from low to medium and to high degrees. From the degree of “Pin” of a painting, one might have an estimate of the painter’s disposition and characteristic. Its origin is said to have derived from the percussion instruments of music on which the right position of the strings to utter sound of varied frequency is called “Pin”. In that case, the position of artistic taste is the priority concerning traditional Chinese poetry, paintings and calligraphy. There prevailed a book tilted 24 Pins of Poetry in history, which was rumored to be complied by Sikong Tu in Tang Dynasty. Though its origin still remained to be a mystery without proof, this book enjoys a profound influence of excellent and meaningful study of the character and artistic position of poetry and artists in Chinese history. Describing various personalities and temperaments, this book revealed the versatility and subtlety in Chinese people’s characters.
“Ge” originally means framework for division, refers to formality as a style and qualification as a standard, and develops into identity or a style of an article, a person and even a country. With standard available, division is inevitable, so “Ge” changes into a verb that means “trying to put something onto the position it is supposed to be”. As one famous Chinese saying goes, knowledge comes out of a through study of an object and when you put it onto the right place, you will understand it completely.
Putting “Pin” and “Ge” together, the word indicates the individual special feature as well as lasting pursuit of perfection. In history, Qu Yuan, a minister abandoned far from his motherland, still held responsibility for the national fate, and then created “Nine Songs” with his mood of lamentation and indignation. Song Yu, another famous poet in Chu nation, signed over the passage of time in face of flowing stream and mourned for the neighborhood on top of peak of mountain, which showed his liberal and open manner. Zhang Han, an official in Jin Dynasty who resigned just for delicious food at home town, demonstrated his intellectual taste while Zhang Zai, a minister in Song Dynasty, expressed his ambition for working for his country and people. From above, we can see that Chinese poets of various dynasties put aside their personal feelings and unfair experiences but focus on those macro-things, which constituted unique confession in their perseverance. As is described in Listing to Rain by Jiang Jie of Song Dynasty, through the same act of listening to rain, a person’s growing experience from youth to elderly as well as his or her development and transition in world outlook are vividly illustrated.
Ancient Scent by Bai Di
In the book complied by Zhuang Zi, the fables vividly described many stories about spirits and personalities. Paoding’s anatomy of a bull indicates the spirit over mere technique while the hunchback elderly’s expertise in sticking insects by pool emphasizes the importance of extreme concentration of attention. The wooden wheels maker’s confidence implies the key role of personal practice while Ziqing’s habit of seclusion for inner peace in mind before making musical instruments stresses that any inspiration of arts comes only from people’s communications with nature instead of their own talent or knowledge. In conclusion, Zhuang Zi prefers free flow of inspiration from nature to pure technique or theory, and this legendary artistry and liberal creation can never be achieved from the material world, magic or future but from the artist’s heart. Only through self-denial, self-sacrifice and integration with nature can an artist come to realize the significance of life and universal principle for everything. All these theories are elaborated at purely spiritual level as Zhuang Zi’s core position.
This truth about “Pin” and “Ge” is relevant with poetry, skills and paintings. Today, with the rapid development of digital media, people can easily access a daily picture under their fingers at any electronic devices. Such seemingly easy access results in the disadvantage of a image-alienated world. In the process of painting, hands are moved through communications with the heart while in face of digital pictures people have nothing real to feel about and thus gradually lose their vivid experiences with the nature and surrounding world. So we need to realize that more than a technique, painting is a kind of experience of a person about the integration into the universe and a necessary approach to accomplish self-fulfillment in personality. In a word, it is exceedingly important to preserve “Pin” and “Ge” of painting in the current world because it is the key point to make a difference from those digital pictures as well as a crucial element for simultaneous advancement and perfection of painting in the accompaniment with the time.
