landscape of memory : mu xin

landscape of memory: the art of mu xin / june 10 through september 7, 2003 / asia society museum / curated by alexandra munroe and wu hung

conversations with the chinese literati: the work of mu xin (b. 1927) is, in part, a dialogue with the past masters of chinese painting and, thus, with chinese history in general. this dialogue is a key factor in connecting mu xin with the continuous tradition of chinese landscape painting, begun in the 10th century, which is embedded with meanings both personal and profound. emerging from his knowledge and interpretation of past masters, mu xin created paintings that responded to the past while criticizing the future. although in this regard mu xin could be compared with many chinese artists, perhaps the greatest connection can be made with the “yimin” painters of the early yuan period (1279 – 1368) and of the early qing (1644 – 1911).

the yimin painters, approximately translated to “leftover people,” worked in the wake of drastic upheaval and historical change (similar to the post-cultural revolution china of the late 1970s, when mu xin’s “tower within a tower” paintings were created—the series that comprises the exhibition at the asia society museum). these members of the chinese literati withdrew from politics and society in order to seek personal betterment through the creation of literary works and “silent poetry,” their name for painting. they gave their lives meaning, as well as subversively criticized the present, by creating paintings that celebrated the virtues of the past. although addressing issues on a grand scale, the images were still embedded with a deep sense of personal memory, creating a sense of loss of the idealized past. It is this tradition of the chinese literati that mu xin refers to as his “blood roots.”

The work of Mu Xin (b. 1927, fig.1) is, in part, a dialogue with the past masters of Chinese painting and, thus, with Chinese history in general. This dialogue is a key factor in connecting Mu Xin with the continuous tradition of Chinese landscape painting, begun in the 10th century, which is embedded with meanings both personal and profound. Emerging from his knowledge and interpretation of past masters, Mu Xin created paintings that responded to the past while criticizing the future. Although in this regard Mu Xin could be compared with many Chinese artists, perhaps the greatest connection can be made with the “yimin” painters of the early Yuan period (1279 – 1368) and of the early Qing (1644 – 1911).

The yimin painters, approximately translated to “leftover people,” worked in the wake of drastic upheaval and historical change (similar to the post-Cultural Revolution China of the late 1970s, when Mu Xin’s “Tower within a Tower” paintings were created—the series that comprises the exhibition at the Asia Society Museum). These members of the Chinese literati withdrew from politics and society in order to seek personal betterment through the creation of literary works and “silent poetry,” their name for painting. They gave their lives meaning, as well as subversively criticized the present, by creating paintings that celebrated the virtues of the past. Although addressing issues on a grand scale, the images were still embedded with a deep sense of personal memory, creating a sense of loss of the idealized past. It is this tradition of the Chinese literati that Mu Xin refers to as his “blood roots.”



Fig. 2 Mu Xin further expressed this connection to his blood roots in the naming of many of his paintings. The titles often include references to important people and places in Chinese history and, thus, the events surrounding them. Some references, such as in the title Reciting a Tang Poem on the Road to Shu (fig.2), are quite direct. For those familiar with Chinese history, the name instantly conjures up the tale of the death, in 755, of Emperor Minghuang’s (Xuanzong, r.712 – 756) concubine Yang Guifei and the near-destruction of the Tang dynasty by An Lushan.

Fig. 3 Other references are more subtle, such as many of those made to the Wei and Jin dynasties of the Six Dynasties period. The Wei and Jin dynasties ruled parts of Southern China in the turmoil-filled years of 220 to 419. It was a time, however, in which many of the great masters and cultural heroes, such as the poet Xie Lingyun (385 – 433) and the painter Gu Kaizhi (345 – 406), lived and worked. They established a Chinese elite humanistic tradition and are associated with an especially high level of culture and civilization. An example of this reference can be seen in Spring Brilliance at Kuaiji (fig. 3), which alludes to Wang Xizhi’s, “Preface to the Orchard Pavilion,” considered by some to be the greatest calligraphic work of all time. The connection lies in the fact that Wang Xizhi created the “Preface” at Shanyin in Kuanji in 353 and that the Orchard Pavilion takes place in the spring.

Fig. 4


Fig. 5

There are, also, many references to areas in the southeastern Zhejiang province, such as the Yellow Mountains (fig. 4) and the West Lake (fig. 5). Mu Xin was born in this area and the references could relate to his childhood, but it seems likely that they also serve to reference the traditional masters and imagery, since these were the areas the masters were known for painting. Few of these faded images, however, would be recognizable without their titles.

What is unique to Mu Xin is that, in contrast to the traditionally glorious images of the past, his images seem to present a past that is wasting away and becoming forgotten. In the words of the art historian Richard Barnhardt, the images seem to suggest that “everything that represents the great tradition of landscape painting in China for the past thousand years is in the final stages of a long illness.” The lack of the typical sages and pavilions further this suggestion (though the homes of peasants dot the landscape). Despite Mu Xin’s suggestion of loss, through it all there seems to shine the light of the soul or of hope.

Prison Notes and Humanism

It was in the library of a distant relative, Mao Dun, in the late 1930s and 1940s that Mu Xin first became aware of the great works of ancient, Renaissance, and modern Western thinkers. It was through these books, especially those related to Leonard da Vinci, that Mu Xin as a Chinese man of letters and self-taught Western humanist was born. In 1946 he began to study at the Shanghai Fine Art Institute, known for its Western-style art education, under teachers such as Liu Haisu. He became disgruntled, however, because he believed the concepts of the medium and style of Western art were emphasized, while there was no agreement on the issue of creative self-expression. As a result, Mu Xin transferred to the National Hangzhou Arts Academy, where he was a pupil of Lin Fengmian (1900 – 91) who taught there from 1928 to 1949. Mu Xin was inspired by Lin’s humanist emphasis on the artist’s feeling as the spiritual basis for modern art, but he eventually felt dissatisfaction once again as a result of Lin’s and other professors’ limited focus on Fauvist and Expressionist styles.

Mu Xin stands apart from his contemporaries in that he looked beyond the mere style of Western modernity and instead incorporated the morality and values of Renaissance humanism within himself. He made individual self-development a priority and considered virtue to be interconnected with good art, requiring a good artist to live as he sought to paint. It was this very philosophy and ideal that would sustain him through one of the most harrowing periods of modern Chinese history.



Fig. 6
During the midst of the Cultural Revolution forty-four year old Mu Xin was imprisoned for eighteen months between 1971 and 1972 in a Shanghai “people’s prison.” While imprisoned alone in the basement of an air raid shelter he composed a sixty-six page compilation, now known as the “prison notes,”(fig. 6) which he wrote on paper supplied for enforced “self-criticism.” He hid the notes in the cotton padding of his prison clothes. The notes are a testament to his humanistic ideals and many consist of imaginary conversations with men considered to be among the most creative minds of Western civilization. Those who make an appearance include Saint Anthony, Wagner, Rousseau, and Dostoyevsky. Through his conversations with these great minds, and the continued humanistic self-cultivation they brought about, Mu Xin was able to survive his solitary imprisonment mentally intact. This made the life-risking task worthwhile.



Fig. 7


Fig. 8

Mu Xin continued to express his self-defined identity among the Western humanists in the art he created while under house arrest from 1977 to 1979. The images reflect the affinity for da Vinci that was sparked in the youthful hours spent in Mao Dun’s library. Mu Xin echoes da Vinci through his creation of nature in an atmospheric way that is felt, not formed. In the works of both artists the forms that nature takes are not rigid, but instead melt into the world around them. This quality can been compared in the landscape portion of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (fig. 7 ) and Mu Xin’s painting Clear Ripples of a Waterfall (fig. 8). Interestingly, it is probable that Mu Xin’s only exposure to da Vinci’s work was through the intaglio prints, with their soft, monochromatic colors, that appeared in black-and-white art books. It is possible that this is a factor in Mu Xin’s predilection for using very little color in his images.

Technique

Mu Xin creates his art through a process that seems to blend techniques from both East and West. It is hard to be specific about the exact techniques he uses, because, other than characterizing his technique as “controlled coincidence,” he tends to be elusive when it comes to revealing his methods. He generally uses gouache and Chinese ink on xuan paper and his overall technique seems to consist of four elements: a prepared surface; an accidental or mechanical manipulation of inkwash and texture; a suffusing color or tonality (sometimes including opaque white); and an articulating use of brush and ink. Even though it is difficult to pin down what exactly it is that Mu Xin does, many different methods and inspiration for methods have been suggested. Primary among these are the experimental methods of ancient Chinese artists whose ways were not continued and the decalcomania and photogravure techniques of modern Western artists.

One possible inspiration for the development for Mu Xin’s technique is the experiments of the “yipin” painters of the 9th and 10th centuries who used a repertoire of techniques that included staining the surface of their works by rolling their paint-covered bodies over the paper, producing random marks. The marks reminded them of landscape imagery, which they then embellished and refined. In other cases they created the same effect by dipping their hair in paint and then splattering the paper. Later the artists Song Di (1015 – 1080) and Guo Xi (1000 – 1090) (and da Vinci) also embellished randomly produced marks from surface stains, but they produced the marks without the use of their body or hair. Additionally, Muqi (active 13th century) and other Buddhist painters of the Song and Yuan periods poured wet inkwash over paper before they darkened certain areas using densely fibrous or woody material.



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Fig. 10

Another suggestion for the source of Mu Xin’s technique is “decalcomania.” Decalcomania is an effect that is produced when gouache is applied between two sheets of paper, the papers are pressed together, and then the top sheet is removed to reveal a sponge-like effect. The technique became popular among the Surrealist painters of the 1930s because of the exotic and suggestive forms it produced. Max Ernst was credited with its mastery when he transferred the technique to oil paints and created apocalyptic landscapes. One such landscape, Europe After the Rain (fig. 9), seems to demonstrate this techniques as does Mu Xin’s Stone Cave in Desiccated Cliff (fig. 10). Mu Xin’s exposure to decalcomania, however, may have come through his professor Lin Fengmian, who developed the technique around gouache and ink in the 1940s.

Other scholars, however, have suggested a more unusual inspirational source for Mu Xin’s technique. It is thought that Mu Xin may have attempted to duplicate the appearance of photogravure that was commonly used in the art book reproductions he was exposed to. To make images conveying this sensibility he may have used the technique of burnishing, which consists of rubbing together multiple layers of ink to produce a silvery, graphite-like sheen on a paper’s surface.

Whatever the sources and inspirations Mu Xin has used, the thirty-three paintings that comprise his “Tower within a Tower” share, as the art historian Jonathan Hay states, “a fluid atmosphere in which memory, history, and pure imagination flow in and out of each other, crystallizing through the sense of place.”

This essay, by Ada Prieto, is drawn from the exhibition catalogue, “The Art of Mu Xin: Landscape Paintings and Prison Notes,” published by Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, and the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago.

Landscape of Memory: The Art of Mu Xin
The exhibition is co-organized and circulated by the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, and Yale University Art Gallery.