Forewords

Chinese Painting on Tea presents a collection of paintings relating to the Chinese tea heritage throughout eras and dynasties. As reflections of contemporaneous thoughts and emotions, these artworks illustrate values and virtues rooted deeply in the traditional Chinese culture. The author of this book discusses them along four aspects: the poetic connotations in paintings, the contemplation of retreat, the state of mind and the perspectives of ancient Chinese.

For the five thousand years spanning its culture, the Chinese has embraced their penchant for poetic allegories tracing back to The Classic of Poetry. Often in optimistic spirits, ancient Chinese expressed emotions through lyrical verses, describing their ascended ideals in life. As goes by the saying, Emotions from poems, connotations in paintings, Chinese poetry has been intrinsically connected to Chinese painting. Between painting and poetry, however, tea served as an essential medium for its ability to bring peace and clarity to minds, and thus was indispensable in the daily life of ancient Chinese.

The affinity between tea and painting began to incubate in Wei and Jin Dynasties. Tea drinking popularized as a means of stimulating minds, illuminating thoughts and comprehending the Tao, and since more than fifteen centuries ago people have expressed their enjoyment of tea drinking in their paintings. During that time painting also evolved into a more versatile, entertaining form of art, outgrowing its traditional role of spreading social morals. The appreciation of painting and the fashion of tea drinking quickly became widely popular pursuits among the cultured social classes, from celebrities who replaced liquor with the more elegant tea to monks favoring the use of tea to treat guests. The brewing and drinking of tea was the culmination of the many delights in scent, color, shape and taste, all carefully considered during cultivation and processing. The drink became a catalyst for creation of artworks, gradually becoming the subject of painting. By Tang Dynasty, tea was already ubiquitously found in Chinese life, being regarded as one of the seven necessities of life, among the ranks of Guqin, Go, calligraphy, painting, poetry and liquor.

A first drink washes my sleepiness away / bright thoughts and emotions fill between heaven and earth / A second drink cleanses my spirit / as if sudden flight of rain fell over thin dust / A third drink reveals the path / why to bother brooding over the worries of life (Monk Jiaoran, Tang Dynasty).

To contemplate one’s retreat is to achieve beyond moderate perfection, a central tenant of the doctrine of the mean; it is to pursue a peaceful, harmonious destiny within one’s internal spirit. This subliminal philosophy underlaid the Chinese enjoyment of tea along with many activities – from games of Go, appreciations of Guqin, composition of poetry, appreciation of paintings or calligraphy works – oftentimes during sight-seeing trips to remote mountains and gardens, by river or spring. Tea brought ancient Chinese closer to this tranquility, channeling between the worlds of human and nature.

Three main categories of paintings have been included in this book: the figure paintings, highlighting values in beings; the landscape paintings, displaying harmonious relationships between human and nature; and the bird-and-flower paintings, reflecting in purity the life enjoyments. These paintings depict the various activities tied with tea.

Within the figure painting category, there are the story paintings, folk custom paintings, portraits, and paintings of maids. Story paintings, such as Lotus Community, The Scholarly Gathering of the Western Garden, usually illustrate religious or scholarly gatherings, which were popular subjects for painters. The scenes of brewing and drinking tea were very frequently reproduced in the ambience, as in the paintings Xiao Yi Scheming to Gain Wang Xizhi’s Famous Calligraphy Preface to the Orchid Pavillion, Literary Gathering, and Antiques Appreciation. The folk custom paintings vividly described the customs, trends and lives of ordinary people. Among countless others, examples include Tea Brewing Competition in Song Dynasty and Life along the Bian River at the Chingming Festival in Ming Dynasty. Portraits recorded the actual individuals with their real names, often of great historic values. Figures in the portraits were often placed in landscape settings, where tea service was included to hint at elements of elegance in the temperament of characters – see, for example, Portrait of Liu Zongzhou and Portrait of Zhang Zhao. Maid paintings show the scenes of beauties brewing tea, as in Classical Ladies by Jiao Bingzhen or Drinking Tea in the Shade of Basjoo by Fei Danxu. As Su Shi the great poet of Song Dynasty wrote, it has always been that nice tea is like beauty.

The wise find pleasure in water, the virtuous in hills (Confucius). The landscape painting (Shan shui) were first created in Wei and Jin period along the belief that human beings can relax their minds and comprehend the Tao by visiting mountains and waters, and in a more abstract sense, through appreciating the natural landscapes in paintings. These landscape paintings convey ideals in subjective reflections of the harmony between humans and nature, much like in the ways of the Four Landscapes by Liu Songnian, or Reading in the Spring Mountains by Wang Meng. The ancient Chinese went far as carrying the tea stove and sets with them whenever they went on a trip – this love for tea is very transparent in Farewell with Scholars’ by Shen Zhou and Glimpses of Yangzhou by Gao Xiang as well as many others.

When artists painted their bird-and-flower works, very often they had allegories of virtues of characters in mind. The common objects in the bird-and-flower ink wash paintings include the Four Gentlemen (plum blossom, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum), the Three Friends of Winter (pine, bamboo and plum together symbolizing steadfastness, perseverance and resilience) and common miscellaneous objects on study. These flora have always been associated with virtuous ideals, and in combination with components related to the culture of tea, their images are metaphorical for the scholar-gentleman’s aspirations.

The figure, landscape and bird-and-flower paintings in Chinese Painting on Tea mirror the state of mind of the ancient Chinese. Their life was poetic, peaceful and harmonious with the entertaining, relaxing and comforting tea brewing and drinking. The ambitions of Confucius, the philosophies of Zhuangzi, and the wisdom Let’s Go Drink Tea of Zhaozhou Congshen (Chán Buddhist master) are all infused in tea drinking. Visiting Friends with Guqin by Dan Dang, Tasting Tea by Sun Kehong, Playing Go in Bamboo Pavillion by Qian Gu are all excellent illustrations.

The paintings in the book reflect the perspectives of the ancient Chinese – the awe and inspiration instilled by nature, the order and culture of social morality and the subtleties of their intrinsic understanding of worldly matters. With the waves of westernization that have been continuously battering traditional thought for more than a century, Chinese values have changed much, our perspectives divergent from those of the past. Even with the use of traditional rice paper, ink and brush, contemporary paintings done in the traditional fashion may imitate along contents and structure, but they inevitably lack the traditional spirits and seldom reflect the delicacies in the ancient state of mind. The poetic connotations, contemplation of retreat, state of mind, and perspectives are the values of the traditional Chinese culture.

Human thoughts fly on the wings of writings and images. Although among the many forms of arts painting preserves the sceneries and emotions most faithfully, paintings on tea should not be understood in isolation – the attitudes and styles of life as well as the interconnection of people manifest in the culture of tea drinking. Chinese Painting on Tea is one attempt at illustrating the abstractions of Chinese culture with visual images, and the author wishes it may serve to open the realms of arts in the rich culture related to tea.

Translated by Cheng Qiu

Washington D.C., November 2013