JING HAO / 荆浩 (c. 880–940)
Lushan / 庐山 or Mount Lu (1,474m- 4,834ft)
China
In Mount Lu (c. 920-40), hanging scroll, ink on silk, 185.8 x 106.8 cm.
National Palace Museum, Taipei.
About this work
The piece most frequently held as a template of his style is Mount Lu (above), an ink painting on silk scroll which gives a rather fantastical rendering of one of Jiangxi's natural landmarks. The work is a tight, vertical composition, employing Jing's newly developed cun fa technique to compress the landscape into layers of jutting rock-pillars between chasms of mist. The enclosed space of the composition enhances the monumental characteristics of the mountain, which fills some 90% of the scroll. Humans and buildings, though drawn with remarkable realism in a manner that contrasts sharply against the atmospheric landscape surrounding, are reduced to an almost unnoticeable scale, clustered at the foot of the mountain at the very bottom of the scroll, further conveying the intimidating grandeur of the natural world over the transient activities of man. Scholars have noted, however, that the mist in Mount Lu plays only a minimal role compared with that seen in some of Jing's other works, being employed much more conservatively than is common for the artist—a fact which has led to some speculation among art historians that this particular work may represent a “reminiscence” during a later period in the artist's life. Aside from Mount Lu, only one other major surviving work bearing the signature of Jing Hao has survived into the present.
The artist
Jing Hao / 荆浩 (c. 880–940) began his artistic career during the later years of the Tang Dynasty. Initially he was influenced by the emphasis on monumental landscapes of Tang painters. Their goal to express the grandeur and harmony of nature was exemplified by the established masters such as Wang Wei. Following the collapse of the Tang, Northern China descended into a period of political chaos—the Five Dynasties—in which five separate ruling lines established themselves and were destroyed by factional infighting in rapid succession. An aversion to the turmoil of his era led Jing Hao to retire to seclusion in the northern Taihang Mountains. Here he spent the greater portion of his life in the pursuit of artistic development. Taihang is an isolated region of dense cloud forests punctuated by jagged peaks. These unique geographical characteristics made the region particularly suited to Jing's developing interest in ink wash techniques. Jing was one of the earliest Chinese artists to employ ink washes (yongmo) to simulate depth and atmospheric perspective. Building on the approach initially pioneered by Tang painters such as Xiang Rong, Jing wrote that the principal aim of the yongmo technique was to “distinguish higher and lower [parts of objects] with a gradation in ink tones, and represent clearly shallowness and depth, making them appear natural as if they had not been done with a brush.” Of Xiang himself, Jing wrote that the earlier artist had “attained the secret of mysterious truth only through the use of ink wash”, but criticized Xiang for his lack of definition, lamenting that Xiang had “no bone in his brushwork”. Jing departed from such an approach by employing in his landscapes a mixture of atmospheric ink washes and bold brush strokes to accurately transcribe the Shanxi landscapes in which he worked. This technique, called cun fa, would characterize all of his major works as well as those of other artists who would study his work in later years.
The mountain
Mount Lu or Lushan (庐山) is situated in the northern part of Jiangxi province in southeastern China, and is one of the most renowned mountains in the country. Mount Lushan is one of the spiritual centres of Chinese civilization. Buddhist and Taoist temples, along with landmarks of Confucianism, where the most eminent masters taught, blend effortlessly into a strikingly beautiful landscape which has inspired countless artists who developed the aesthetic approach to nature found in Chinese culture.
More about Lushan / Mount Lu
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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
