LITERATI AND LITERARY THEMES ON PORCELAIN - Brill
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Eva Ströber1
LITERATI AND LITERARY THEMES ON PORCELAIN
LITERATI AND LITERARY THEMES ON PORCELAIN
From the collection Keramiekmuseum Princessehof Leeuwarden
The Confucian ideal of a successful career in society was the passing of the
traditional civil service examinations to become an official. However, only a
small proportion of the ‘scholar-officials’ actually became integrated into the
imperial administrative system that ran the country. The majority of these
learned gentlemen, the literati, wenren (men of letters), had to stay in the
villages or towns of their families, helping with minor social work and
education, and spent a life committed to cultured leisure, the Tour Arts of the
Literati’: writing and calligraphy, painting, playing the guqin (zither), and
weiqi, a kind of chess.
Over the centuries these intellectuals contributed substantially to social,
intellectual and artistic life in China, and the role they played in Chinese
cultural history cannot be overestimated. They represented the ideal of the
cultured gentleman.
The literati ideal also became the ideal for disillusioned Confucian officials
looking for an escape from their intensely bureaucratie and hierarchically
organized life. They dreamed of a life of freedom and reclusivity, close to
nature; they longed for a balance of intellect and senses, of meaningful
interaction with nature and like-minded companions, a life envisioned by
painters and poets. These concepts were formed to a great extent by the
influence of Daoism.
In most cases turning to the ideals of the literati did not mean turning to an
alternative lifestyle. Most literati looked for inspiration not to wild nature but
to smaller-scale, indoor alternatives. These could be landscape paintings,
miniature gardens or ‘scholar’s rocks’: small, interesting rocks that were
thought to represent the energy of nature, or qi Through these substitutes
they created a sophisticated lifestyle for themselves.
Literati life depicted
Ceramics played an important role in their world, as an expression of
refinement and style. Designs were sometimes allusions to famous
personages of the Chinese intellectual past, scholars, painters, poets, or
calligraphers, evoking the long and glorious tradition of which they feit part.
The motifs of retirement from office into a life without official obligations,
and close to nature, are expressed in poems by Tao Yuanming (365-427)
and Liu Zongyuan (773-819).
Dwelling by a Stream
I had so long been troubled by official hat and robe.
That I am glad to be an exile here in this wild southland.
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I am a neighbour now of planters and reapers. via free access
Fig. i I am a guest of the mountains and woods.
Large jar, decorated I plough in the morning, tuming dewy grasses,
with scenes of literati
And in the evening tie my fishing boat, breaking the quiet stream.
enjoying freedom in
nature Cizhou stone-
Back and forth I go, scarcely meeting anyone,
ware, second panel, And sing a long poem and gaze at the blue sky.
h. 30.3 cm., d. 33.0 cm.,
Yuan or early Ming Retuming to live in the country
dynasty, 14* century.
In youth I could not do what everyone else did;
Keramiekmuseum
Princessehof,
It was my nature to love the mountains and hills.
Leeuwarden By mistake I got caught in the dusty snare,
lnv.no. NO 1867 I went away and stayed for thirteen years.
Fig. 2
A large jar of the Cizhou type, made during the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368),
Other side ofthe large
jar offig. 1, third panel.
or early Ming reflects the motifs of scholars looking for freedom in nature
(fig. I).1 One of the three panels is filled with peonies. The second panel
shows a scholar sitting in a boat, which is in the shape of a lotus petal; he is
reading a book in a relaxed posture. On the third panel is a scholar, dressed
in a wide, loose gown, his long hair hanging down in strands. He seems to be
in deep conversation with a bamboo tree in front of him. To his right is a bare
tree painted with awkward brushstrokes (fig. 2).
The Chinese elite under the Mongol Yuan dynasty, when this jar was made,
had developed a special affinity with bamboo, which bends in the storms of
life, but does not break. Bamboo, therefore, became for many Chinese
scholars a symbol of refusal to collaborate with the ethnic non-Chinese
Mongolian miers. It is therefore not surprising that the genre of bamboo
painting flourished particularly under the Yuan dynasty. The style of the
decoration on this jar is free and spontaneous and has the energy of
brushstrokes found in paintings.
The JThree Visits to the Thatched Hut'
A number of impressive 15th-century jars are decorated with historical scenes,
some of them with stories from the Sanguo yanyi (Romance of the Three
Kingdoms), a classical Chinese novel, probablyDownloaded
written by
fromLuo Guanzhong
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(c. 1330 - c. 1400), which is still very popular in China. The stories in thisvia free access
Fig.j novel are centred around the year 200, during the last years of the Han
Large jar, decorated dynasty (206BC - 220AD). One of the stories concerns Zhuge Liang (181-
with scenes from the 243), also named Zhuge Kong Ming or the Sleeping Dragon, who was a
Romance of the Three
famous scholar and strategist. A member of the royal family of the Han, Liu
Kingdoms,
Jingdezhen porcelain
Bei (162-223) forms an alliance with Guan Yu (162-219), a member of the
with underglaze blue, literati, and Zhang Fei (167-221), an ex-pork butcher. They try to reunite the
h. 38.0 cm., d. 38.0 cm., country by fighting the armies of the North under Cao Cao (155-220) of the
Ming dynasty, Tianshun Wei kingdom. Liu Bei and his ‘swom brothers’ ask for political and military
period (1457-1464).
advice from the famous scholar Zhuge Liang. They pay him three visits, the
Keramiekmuseum
Princessehof,
Three Visits to the Thatched Hut’; only on their last visit does Zhuge Liang
Leeuwarden agree to help them.
lnv.no. NO 674 Figure 3 illustrates a huge jar, painted with the scene of Liu Bei, Guan Yu and
Zhang Fei visiting Zhuge Liang in order to persuade him
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via free access
from his country retirement.2 Zhuge Liang is depicted sitting in his wooden
pavilion, accompanied by a servant. The three men approach on horseback,
dressed not as military men, but in the traditional gown and hat of a scholar
official, made of black gauze with two flaps.
Long life and happiness in retirement
The motif of retirement is reflected in a very different way on the vase in
figure 4, an impressive example of overglaze decoration in the Shunzhi period
(1644-1661). The colour palette is dominated by bright iron red, strong green,
and yellow, with outlines in black. The design is of flowers beside a
dramatically displayed garden rock. The painting on this vase is of high
artistic quality, as can be seen in the detail of the chrysanthemum and birds
(fig. 5). At the same time it has complex symbolic associations: primarily
Fig. 4 (below left)
wishes for longevity and allusions to the poet Tao Yuanming.
Vase, decorated with The flowers depicted on this vase are chrysanthemums and a hibiscus. Hibiscus,
rocks, chrysanthemums furong, is a Symbol of happiness, which can also be pronounced fu. The hibiscus
and hibiscus,
is combined with the osmanthus, with its small red berries. It is calledgu/ or
Jingdezhen porcelain
wan nian qing, gives the wish for ‘ 10.000 years honour and happiness!'
with overglaze enamels,
h. 35.5 cm., d. 15.0 cm., The Chinese word for chrysanthemum, ju, is phonetically close to jiu, to
Qing dynasty, Shunzhi remain, and jiu, the number nine, together providing a meaning of ‘a long
period (1644-1661). time'. Chrysanthemums therefore are symbols for long life and endurance.
Keramiekmuseum
The chrysanthemum was appreciated because on cold autumn days, when
Princessehof,
all other flowers were fading away, the chrysanthemum alone would continue
Leeuwarden
lnv.no. N01781 to flourish. This combination of beauty and strength of character led many
scholars and poets to sing the praise of the chrysanthemum. For most
Fig. 5 Chinese people, a chrysanthemum flower, depicted on a painting or
Detail of fig. 4
mentioned in a poem, conveys the association of a life spent in quiet
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via free access
16 retirement. This goes back to a famous poem by the celebrated Chinese poet
Tao Yuanming or Tao Qian. After only 80 days in office, he retired from all
official duties and instead cultivated poetry, drinking wine, and enjoying
chrysanthemums at the east gate of his garden, a kind of Chinese Tusculum.
The reference is to his poem Homecoming.
Homecoming
I built my hut within where others live,
But there is no noise of carriages and horses.
You ask how this is possible:
When the heart is distant, solitude comes,
I pluck the chrysanthemums by the eastern fence,
And see the distant Southern mountains.
And the mountain air is fresh at dusk.
Flying birds return in flocks.
In these things there lies a great truth,
But when I try to express it, I cannot find the words.
The second main motif on this vase is a garden- or Taihu rock, with its
characteristic bizarre holes, painted here like an abstract object in yellow and
green. Taihu rocks take their name from Lake Tai in the Yangtze River delta,
where rocks with holes have been collected for over 1,000 years.
The Chinese interest in rocks has been closely associated with the
cosmological idea of immortality. A rock with many holes represents a cave, a
grotto; an intermediary realm between this world and heaven. It is a symbolic
link between man and the spiritual world.
By these connotations the design of the rock refers to another motif,
associated with a story by Tao Yuanming: Peach Blossom Spring, (Taohua
yuan/i). In this tale, a fisherman discovers a cave in a mountain, which he
enters. When he emerges on the other side, he finds himself in a small
village, surrounded by fields, where men and women are working together;
everyone seems to be enjoying a life of comfort and happiness. The fisherman
is told by the village people that their ancestors came here to escape war, and
that since then nobody has ever left, so they know nothing of the outside
world. The fisherman leaves the village, marking the entrance of the cave in
the hope of returning. However, no matter how hard he tries, he never
manages to rediscover the cave.
This rural Utopia of the Peach Blossom Spring, the self sufficiënt, peaceful
village, without exploitation and suppression, cut off from the world and
reached only through a cave, became one of the most iconic romantic ideas
in Chinese literature. It is also the subject of many paintings, particularly in
the Ming (1368-1644) and early Qjng dynasties (1644-1911). The presence,
therefore, of a bizarre rock with many holes, with the association of caves as
entrances to mountain paradises, conveys a wish for immortality.
There are also many poetic renderings of this story. A short poem by the Tang
calligrapher and poet Zhang Xu (probably early 8th century) reads:
Peach Blossom River
A bridge flies away through a wild mist,
Yet here are the rocks and the fisherman’s boat,
Oh, if only this river of floating peach-petals,
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Might lead me at last to the mythical cave. via free access
0
Fig. 6
Dish, decorated with
the poet Meng Haoran
in a wintry landscape,
Jingdezhen porcelain
with underglaze blue,
h. 4.5 cm., d. 19.7 cm.,
Ming dynasty, early
i7th century.
Keramiekmuseum
Princessehof,
Leeuwarden
lnv.no. OKS1984-62
The symbolism of plum blossom
Another cherished icon of the literati tradition is the poet Meng Haoran (689-
740). He is depicted on a dish riding a donkey in a wintry landscape, looking
for poetic inspiration and searching for fragrant prunus (plum) blossom, the
first blossom to appear in spring (fig. 6).3 A servant, walking in the snow in
front of the poefs donkey, is holding a large prunus branch.
The dish is part of a set of 12 dishes from the Hatcher Cargo, the cargo of a
junk that sank around 1634 near Singapore and was recovered in the 1980s
by Captain Michael Hatcher.4
Prunus, me/, is the name for a variety of flowering plum trees. The prunus
motif is one of the most popular motifs in Chinese iconography.5 As an
emblem of winter it is regarded as a Symbol for long life, endurance and
hope, because the blooms appear on seemingly lifeless, dead branches, even
ones that are extremely old, while the ground is still covered with snow.
The prunus is one of the ‘Three Friends of Cold Winter’, together with the
bamboo and the pine.
During the Song dynasty (960-1279), plum blossom acquired great popularity
as an artistic and poetic Symbol. During this period, China was threatened
and finally conquered by the ethnically non-Chinese Mongols, who in 1279
established the Yuan dynasty. The Chinese elite were faced with the dilemma
of whether or not to cooperate with the foreign miers. In this crucial political
and cultural situation, plum blossom played a similar symbolic role to the
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aforementioned bamboo: according to the statesman and poet Wang Anshi via free access
0 (1021-1086), it represented courage in adversity, ‘braving the frost\ and the
hope of better times to come. This motif was taken up again in the middle of
the 17th century, when the Manchu overthrew the Ming dynasty in 1644 and
established the Qing dynasty.
Plum blossom came to be seen as an emblem of the civilized world of
Chinese culture. This is reflected in many stories. One example is the story of
Lu Kai, who was stationed as an official in the civilized Jiangnan region in the
south, and asked a messenger to carry a flowering prunus branch as a gesture
of friendship to his childhood friend Fan Ye, who was stationed far away in
Chang’an. Lu Kai wrote a poem about it, which ends: ‘I merely give you a
branch of spring.’
The Chinese poets’ love of plum blossom is well illustrated by the example of
Lin Bu (965-1026), who is said to have lived in retirement on Hangzhou’s
West Lake with ‘plum blossom for a wife and cranes for children.’
There are innumerable poems singing the praise of the prunus.
The friendship between Wang Wei (699 - c.759), one of China’s most famous
poets, and Meng Haoran is expressed in their poems. A poem by Meng
Haoran reads:
Taking Leave of Wang Wei
Slow and reluctant, I have waited,
Day after day, till now I must go.
How sweet the road-side flowers might be,
If they did not mean goodbye, old friend!
The Lords of the Realm are harsh to us
And men of affairs are not of our kind.
I will turn back home, I will say no more,
I will close the gate of my old garden.
The famous poem by Wang Wei, Lines, uses the prunus as a metaphor for
hope.
Lines
You who have come from my old country
Teil me what has happened there!-
Was the plum, when you passed my silken window,
Opening its first cold blossom?
Literati Gatherings
It was not only friendships such as that of Wang Wei and Meng Haoran that
characterized the literati tradition. One old literati tradition that was
reintroduced during the Ming and Qing dynasties was the holding of literary
gatherings. There are many paintings depicting these ‘Elegant Gatherings’,
mostly in a cultivated garden setting. The tradition goes back to the 3rd and
4th centuries, when the Han empire disintegrated and the elite of the literati,
under the influence of Daoist thought, chose philosophical retirement,
seeking freedom in nature, and questioning social conventions. The literati
enjoyed each other’s company and creativity, strolled around in gardens, got
drunk, wrote calligraphy, painted, and played music and games.
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via free accessFig. 7 (left) One classic gathering was held on the occasion of the spring festival on the third
Bowl, decorated with day of the third month in the year 353 in Kuaiji at Shanying, in the modern
the literati gathering at province of Zhejiang. The setting was the Orchid Pavilion, Lan ting, and the
Lanting xu, the Orchid
host was China’s most famous calligrapher Wang Xizhi (303-361). During
Pavilion,
Jingdezhen porcelain
this party, he wrote his masterwork Lanting xu, 'Essay on the Orchid Pavilion’.
with underglaze blue, The original calligraphy was buried with the Tang Emperor Taizong in the
h. 9.5 cm., d. 23.5 cm., 7* century, and innumerable imitations and fakes of it have since appeared.
Qing dynasty, Kangxi The bowl in figure 7 is decorated with scenes from the gathering at the Orchid
period (1662-1722),
Pavilion (fig. 7). The outside of the rim shows scholars in a garden setting, in
early 18* century.
Keramiekmuseum
conversation and drinking wine. Lotus leaves with small wine cups balanced
Princessehof, on them float down a brook (fig. 8). This was a game called liushang qushui,
Leeuwarden ‘letting cups float on a crooked stream’, a game the literati enjoyed. According
lnv.no. NO 2203 to the rules of the game, the scholar by whom the leaf with the wine cup
landed had to drink the wine and write a poem.
Fig. 8
Detail of fig. 7
Landscapes
The activities of literati, whether actual, idealized, or imagined, have for the
most part an outdoors setting, in either 'wild’ nature, such as a mountain
landscape, or in the more ‘cultivated’ nature of a garden.
The Chinese term for landscape is shanshui, mountains and water. Mountains
are representative of the cosmic force of yang, while water symbolizes yin.
Landscape was the domain of painters, particularly from the 10th century
when landscape painting became the pre-eminent mode of artistic expression
among the Chinese scholarly literati elite. The calligraphic strokes used in
landscape painting gave the artist the means of self-expression as well as self-
cultivation. Landscape painting, for this reason, was never intended as
impressions of a realistic landscape, as in Western painting, but rather as
quintessential emblems of the cosmos. What they depict is a universal
harmony, as expressed through nature.
Landscapes as a subject matter for porcelain decoration were an important
stylistic innovation of the 171*1 century and are associated with the scholarly
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taste of the literati class. via free accessDownloaded from Brill.com09/25/2020 09:14:22PM
via free accessIn the middle of the 17th century the Chinese elite once again faced a political
and ethical dilemma, due to the fall of the Ming dynasty and the
establishment of the new Qing dynasty in 1644 by the ethnic non-Chinese
Manchu. Most scholar officials continued to serve the new rulers, but many
refused to collaborate with the new dynasty. This fostered the revival of the
traditional ideals of the literati class of a life not spent in an office.
A typical projection of the literati ideals onto the landscape can be seen in
the tiny figures found on many landscape paintings, which were frequently
incorporated into 17th-century porcelain decoration of landscapes: a traveller
Crossing a bridge; a figure contemplating or admiring the harmony of the
clements, but never trying to dominate them; or the figure of the fisherman,
depicted sitting on the shore of a river landscape or in a boat on the water.
They are symbolic figures, and depict an intellectual fantasy of an ideal life in
retirement close to nature.
These figures are not only represented in paintings and on ceramics, but have
also figured in innumerable poems over the centuries. One example is the
poem by the Tang poet and scholar Liu Zongyuan:
River Snow
A hundred mountains and no bird,
A thousand paths without a footprint;
A little boat, a bamboo cloak,
An old man fishing in the cold river snow.
In the collection of the Keramiekmuseum Princessehof there are a couple of
fine 17th-century dishes with landscape decoration. One of these (fig. 9), a
large shallow dish, is decorated with a landscape that covers the entire inner
surface. This landscape is painted in a distinctive manner known as ‘Master
of the Rocks’ style. This is characterized by a special technique of using
numerous parallel structural lines with graded colour intensity to depict the
surface and volume of the often dramatically towering mountains, with
outlines in heavy cobalt blue. Distant mountains appear as light, washed
areas. The water is represented by the white porcelain ground, with a few
irregular light blue dots. There is a fisherman in a boat on the water; a man is
Crossing the bridge on the upper left-hand side; heading, perhaps, for the
pavilions on the shore (fig. 10). The style of painting is highly expressive and
individualistic. This dish was probably a collector’s item belonging to a
member of the educated elite.
Another dish (fig. 11) has a splendid representation of a landscape combined
with auspicious motifs, painted using a combination of red, green and pale
yellow enamels with black outlines.
The reverse of the rim is finely painted with birds perched on flowering sprigs.
The miniature landscape in the centre is an exquisitely executed composition
of high cliffs on the left and a promontory with a group of trees on the right
(fig. 12). A zigzag of water leads the eye into the distance to hills depicted with
a light brown wash, and a red sun shining in the sky. The landscape is
surrounded by a band of small ruyi (cloud-collar-shaped) clements and six
large ruyi clements and stylized leaves. The ruyi clements are filled with
auspicious objects from the repertoire of the ‘Eight Precious Things’: ba bao,
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symbols of good luck and prosperity. via free access22
Fig. n
Dish, painted with a
landscape,
Jingdezhen porcelain
with overglaze enamels,
h. 5.5 cm., d. 32.5 cm.,
Qing dynasty, Shunzhi
period (1644-1661).
Keramiekmuseum
Princessehof,
Leeuwarden
lnv.no. GMP1950-5
Fig. 12 (page 23)
Detail of fig. 11
Meaning
The world of the literati and the symbols they used in their visual commu-
nication are ‘scholarly’ subjects in themselves. Most of the pieces here
discussed were made for the Chinese market, for an educated elite. The rich
and complex symbolism used in the designs on these pieces of porcelain is
not easy to decode, particularly for us Western art historians. Lacking as we
are in an extensive traditional Chinese classical education, we are only able
to hint at the possible meaning of any particular design. I occasionally
indulge in the tempting and rather presumptuous fantasy of being able to
discuss the complex meanings of the designs with a member of the 17th-
century Chinese elite.
It is only really in the last few years that an interest in the ‘hidden meanings’
of Chinese visual imagery has developed in the West. I am confident that the
current exhibition 10.000 x Happiness at the Keramiekmuseum Princessehof,
Leeuwarden, and the catalogue of this exhibition, due in June, will contribute
to this growing interest in understanding the cultural context of Chinese
porcelain.*
* Dr. Eva Ströber is currently curator of Oriental ceramics at Keramiekmuseum
Princessehof, Leeuwarden. Before coming to the Netherlands she has worked at the
Porcelain Collection Dresden, Germany, as curator for the collection of Oriental
porcelain of Augustus the Strong. Her academie background is Chinese studies,
Oriental art history and comparative religion. Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2020 09:14:22PM
via free accessLiterature
Bickford, Maggie, Ink Plum: The Making of a Chinese Scholar Painting Genre,
Cambridge, 1996.
Bynner, Witter (transl.), Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty (618-906), Taipei,
1975 (reprint).
Curtis, Julia B, Chinese Porcelains of the Seventeenth Century: Landscapes, Scholars*
Motifs and Narratives, New York, 1995.
Harrison-Hall, Jessica, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001.
Jörg, Christiaan, Oriental porcelain in The Netherlands: Four Museum Collections,
Groningen, 2003.
Sheaf, Colin and Richard Kilburn. The Hatcher Porcelain Cargoes - the Complete
Record, Oxford, 1988.
Notes
I would like to express my deep gratitude to Harriet Impey for her language advice.
1. All photographs by Johan van der Veer.
2. For a similar jar in the British Museum, see Harrison-Hall 2001, p. 149.
3. Published by Jörg 2003, p. 73.
4. For the set of dishes from the Hatcher wreek, see: Sheaf and Kilburn 1988, figs. 65
and 93: see also Curtis 1995.
5. For the iconography of prunus, see Bickford 1996.
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