The changing uses of writing systems in the east of Asia

The changing uses of writing systems in the east of Asia by miquelangelcastillo
1. Linguistic Variety: a glimpse across time and space
2 Brief description of language families


3 Historic mobility of people and languages:
3.1. Main cultural influences
3.2. Tracing alphabets (re)creation in the ancient world
3.2.1. The kanji expansion: East Asian cultural sphere.
3.2.2. The southern belt.
3.2.3. The open northern corridor
3.3. In and out. Language exchanges: translations and loanwords.
3.3.1. Buddhist translations and vocabulary loanwords into China
3.3.2. Vocabulary loanwords in the outer circle: Japanese, Vietnamese and Korean

4. Writing systems in East Asia: China and Chinese domain
4.1. One language in China: Tibetan
4.2. Two Writing Systems from the first circle: Japanese and Korean
4.3. Three current scripts from further south: from Thai to Bahasa

5. Literature and sources








The changing uses of writing systems in the east of Asia 

by miquelangelcastillo

ONE. Linguistic Variety: a glimpse across time and space.

Interested in language diversity and familiar with the historic developments in European languages, I have been puzzled by a contradiction related to the Asian writing linguistic landscape. I would like to dive with this paper into the dozens in use in modern life in East Asia focusing on how they evolved, who took part in such a huge task and some common mindset affinities of the area.
After looking up miscellaneous sources I came across a perfect introductory sleek book to my search: the Atlas of Languages (see sources). I will spin the tale of my quest. In this website http://www.proel.org/traductores.html the reader can find a table with a very detailed tree of alphabets of the world. Not a very satisfying one related to our specific interests. I found another one easier to follow in www.ancientscripts.com . By far, and concerning my research interest (as I told you in my first mail) I still consider the best display of writing systems the introductory chapter of an excellent classic such as Le monde chinois by Jacques Gernet. Dealing with Language systems in Asia, I found a couple of plates showing the great diversity of writing systems in China itself (page 37) and a clear account of the main writing systems in Eastern Asia and their origins (pages 38-39) that I display below:

A mere glance at an Asian linguistic map is an eye-opener to avoid thinking of China as a monolithic country. China expanded itself from the north and suffered foreign influences. In addition to its Sino languages, China also has some 160 smaller languages, many of them with just a few thousand speakers. All these languages fall into four families, which differ greatly in their geographic distributions. Besides the compact Sino-Tibetan languages the other three families are scattered all over (to epitomise the intermingling, languages of all four families are spoken in Laos). As a matter of comparison www.ethnologue.com offers a database with spoken languages. If you go to the ibero-romance subfamily you will surprisingly get an incredible high number of them, 38; if you click in any Asian family, the number escalates .
With its vast area and long history of settlement, China ought to have hundreds of distinct languages and cultures. In fact, all the evidence indicates that it once did. Coming from a modern uniform Europe I ponder, what happened to them all? Two thousand years ago the southern parts of the country were variously inhabited by speakers of Miao-Yao, Austroasiatic, and Tai-Kadai languages until they were largely replaced by their Sino-speaking northerner neighbors. An even more drastic linguistic upheaval appears to have swept over tropical Southeast Asia.
From the beginnings of literacy in China over 3,000 years ago, it has had only a single writing system. This is a clear connexion between the Chinese world and its area of loanwords influence towards the south. On the north east we still have the current coexistence of Chinese characters in the life of Korean and Japanese languages.


TWO. Brief description of language families
 
I am aware that when I consider the language universe of China I am dealing with Chinese language(s) and some others. This etcaetera group is very heteregenous. To start with, their numbers are small compared to Chinese but they cover a large spectrum of families. I will use data from Katzner, K. The Languages of the World most of the time. To better explain the issue in tropical Southeast Asia I can start with these words:
Multilingualism is a way of life, and as a result there has occurred much remarkable linguistic covergence. In south-east Asia several language families have mingled in the shadow of China. <2>
Most languages have SVO word order and belong to the isolating type (most words consist of a single syllable). One distinctive feature of all Sino-Tibetan languages is that most words consist of a single syllable. On the Tibetan side the main languages are Tibetan and Burmese. This family amounts for some 40 million speakers. Burmese is spoken by two-thirds of Myanmar population (28 million). Tibetan speakers number over 6 million in China. The other three families have broken distributions, being spoken by islands of people surrounded by a sea of speakers of Chinese and other languages. The 6 million speakers of the Hmong-Mien (Miao, Yao) family are divided among five languages. Their speakers live in dozens of small enclaves scattered over half a million square miles from southern China to Thailand.
The number of speakers varies depending on the taxonomy we follow for the languages in the Austroasiatic family, which include the Munda languages of northeastern India and the Mon-Khmer languages such as Khmer (or Cambodjan), which are also scattered across the map. Austroasiatic languages are characterized by an enormous proliferation of vowels, which can be nasal or nonnasal, long or extrashort, creaky, breathy, or normal, produced with the tongue high, medium high, medium low, or low, and with the front, center, or back of the tongue. Khmer is spoken by 8 milion people (1 million in Vietnam and Thailand respectively). Indonesia and Malaysia share many features of their national languages: Bahasa indonesia & Bahasa melayu. The first one is the native language of 35 millions but understood by 160 millions <3>. The second one is spoken by half of the Malays (10 million as their first language, 8 more as second language, plus 1 million in Thailand).
The 120 million speakers of Tai- Kadai are scattered across south-east Asia –in southern China this language family goes up to 50 million people with Zhuang registering the largest number of speakers (around 14 million). Outside they are distributed southward into peninsular Thailand and west to Myanmar (Burma). Thai is spoken by over 85 % of Thailand population (50 million), and is very close to Lao (18 million in Laos and neighbour Thailand) &Tagalog (15 millon). In Tai-Kadai languages, as in most Sino-Tibetan languages, a single word may have different meanings depending on its tone or pitch.
Besides, inside China there are two other families: one distinguished member from the Altaic family, the Mongolic language and the Tadjick from Indoeuropean family with a tiny small number of speakers. There are three languages unclearly related: Japanese, Korean, which are perhaps distant relatives of the Tibetan family and the Vietnamese that may go on the Austrasiatic one <4>. Their numbers are the following: Vietnamese is spoken by 65 milions in Vietnam, Korean by 65 million plus 2 in China and 700.000 in Japan and over a half a million in US. Japanese is spoken by some 125 million people.


THREE. Historic mobility of people and languages: main cultural influences

3.1. Main cultural influences
My account in this chapter wants to do justice to the changing picture of the East area in Asia. No matter how backwars we plunge ourselves into Chinese history, up to 2000 years, the sinification of the adjacent cultures suffered the great presence of her neighbourgs. We can refer to three main areas of developments to display the Sinification of tropical Southeast Asia: mobility of peoples and languages, agriculture and arts; the systems of writing; and finally linguistic borrowings.
Nowadays the 30-million estimate Chinese overseas are a very influent minority that makes an important source of financial muscle in countries such as Singapur (3 millions), Thailand (6 milions =10 % who stand for a large part of the GDP: 50 % banking sector and 80 % business), Malaysia (12 millions =35%, with 70% of family businesses); Indonesia (6 millions =3% with 70% of private economy) and Vietnam (1 million). But when we move some millenia backwards we meet an interesting picture. I will follow the outline given by Jared Diamond’s Empire of uniformity (see sources). Diamond states:
With the Chou dynasty the people of the Huan-ho Basin started to move southwards and this produce a large scale migration of the peoples that were catched in between. China's Chou Dynasty, from 1111 B.C. to 256 B.C., describes the conquest and absorption of most of China's non-Chinese-speaking population by Chinese-speaking states. To summarise the province of Yunnan shows today a perfect patchwork of many ethic populations living side by side. That should have been the situation at the Han times.
All the Indo-china populations were put under great strain and the populations of the area (today the remains of these peoples can be found in Andaman islands and the shores of New Guinea) had to cope with the invaders from the Yang-tze region. The studies of Cavalli-Sforza <4> showed that this southern population had more in common with their cousin from the bordering states (Laos, Cambodja, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia and Vietnam) than with their northern couterparts, which in turn were more related to Mongol, Tibetan and Nepali groups. For instance, even if we look inside the sino-family itself, in this case, in the relatively well studied Hakka minority <5> some modern biological studies indicate that Hakka are primarily from a southern Mongoloid group, not northern groups, as all the genetic trees and maps demonstrate that the Southern Chinese group is distant from the Northern Chinese. All these modern peoples appear to be recent offshoots of their southern Chinese cousins <6>. Today the modern inhabitants of Indonesia and the Philippines are fairly homogeneous in their genes and appearance and resemble southern Chinese.
Regarding farming Jared Diamond wrote:
The most important animals were water buffaloes (since they were used for pulling plows), as well as silkworms, ducks, and geese. Familiar later Chinese crops include soybeans, hemp, tea, apricots, pears, peaches, and citrus fruits. So far as a wave to the Philippines, then the islands of Indonesia, were accompanied by gardening and by China's livestock trinity (pigs, chickens, and dogs).
Two different directions were accounted for. What entered? For instance, western contributions to ancient China's economy were wheat and barley, cows and horses. From the south came especially iron smelting and rice cultivation. But the predominant direction of spread seems to have been the other way. From northern China came bronze technology, Sino-Tibetan languages, and state formation.
In the first outer circle, Korea and Japan adopted rice from China in the second millennium B.C., bronze metallurgy in the first millennium B.C. As for languages contacts, Vietnam and Korea had to accept their warring neighbour from the time of the Han empire, becoming tributary areas. When looking into accounts of linguistic interference, Ifound that the earliest extant records in lexicography and language variation were recorded by Yang Xiong (53 B.C. – 18 A.D.) in his work Fang yan (‘region’ and ‘speech’ –in modern time ‘Fang yan’ stands for “dialect”) <7>.
The northern cultural dominance shows its clearest action in writing. To summarize, literate civilized Chinese states absorbed or were copied by the preliterate barbarians. This classification remained vivid until the modern era, and can come back. I will bring an anthopological example: burning the scapula of an animal then prophesying from the pattern of cracks in the burned bone. This distinctively forerunner Chinese method for reading the future, scapulimancy, appears progressively in the whole region. From the earliest known appearance of oracle bones in northern China, archeologists have traced scapulimancy's spread throughout China's cultural sphere.
As I will show in 4.2, Vietnam, Korea and Japan adopted Chinese writing around the first millennium A.D.; the tones of Vietnamese seem to have been developed relatively recently. (For translation works, close vocabulary links and alike mindset see 3.3).

3.2. Tracing alphabets (re)creation in the ancient world

I already stated in the introduction that one of the many things that left me in bafflement at the time of studying the first unit was the divergence of alphabets.Languages are not writing systems: the first ones are the software, the second ones the hardware. When something is printed you have a material thing. A cultural construct if you like. The transmission of these civilizised artifacts indicates the craftmanship of the human race. The main direction in Southeast Asia was the dominance of Chinese features, and Buddhism in the other direction. The southeast was caught in the middle of those trends. Basically every kingdom wanted an appropriate system to transfer their language to the written records. Here I will show some of the main developments in the historical times following mainly www.omniglot.com .

3.2.1. The kanji expansion: East Asian cultural sphere.
Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese were originally complete 'strangers' belonging to different language families. Roughly 2,000 years ago, the less developed Vietnamese and Japanese cultures came into China's orbit, whether willingly or unwillingly, creating what might be termed an 'East Asian cultural sphere'.
Kanji were the sole form of writing used in Japan for a few hundred years after their introduction in the 4th or 5th century. Kata-kana (‘kata’ means ‘side’) developed out of the phonetic use of Kanji to be read next to a Kanji text <8>. In the early days of Kanji use, to write the names of people and places, the Japanese used Kanji for their sounds, ignoring their meanings. This method of writing was certainly brought to Japan from Korea. From the Manyogana, some characters were simplified and used phonetically. As this was regularized a phonetic syllabary came into being: kana.

Korean King Sejong and his scholars in the XV century probably based some of the letter shapes of the Korean alphabet on other scripts such as Mongolian and ’Phags Pa, and the traditional direction of writing (vertically from right to left) most likely came from Chinese, as did the practice of writing syllables in blocks.

Vietnamese (Việt-ngũ) was originally written with a Siniform (Chinese-like) script known as Chữ-nôm or Nôm. During the 17th century, Alexander de Rhodes, a Frenchman with Sephardi ancestors, introduced a Latin-based orthography. Roman Catholic missionaries developed the use of written language for Vietnamese, Quốc Ngữ (national language), which has been used in parallel with Chữ-nôm. Today only Quốc Ngữ is used.
To read more about the JKV group see 4.2. Indeed, the influence of the Chinese culture is still so great that Japan has no thought of discarding its Chinese-derived writing system despite its disadvantages for representing Japanese speech, while Korea is only now replacing its clumsy Chinese-derived writing with its wonderful indigenous Hangeul alphabet.

3.2.2. The southern belt.
When we directed our attention at the tropical Southeast Asia the direction of writing influences came from India, where the Indian goddess Sarasvati was credited with the invention of the writing and the alphabet. The Sanskrit (meaning “purified”) language from the Indoeuropean family was typically written in the Devanágarí script (“script of the city of gods” – 'deva' being related to “divine”). In this section I will track the directions of expansion and their sylalbic alphabets representatives.
In the Tai-kadai family, the Khmer syllabic alphabet is descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India by way of the Pallava script, which was used in southern India and South East Asia during the 5th and 6th Centuries AD. The oldest dated inscription in Khmer dates from 611 AD. The Khmer alphabet closely resembles the Thai and Lao alphabets, which were probably developed from it. King Ramkhamhaeng (1275-1317) claims to have created an alphabet for the Siamese language in 1292, which later developed into the Thai alphabet. After the unification of the Lao principalities (meuang) in the 14th century, the Lan Xang monarchs commissioned their scholars to create a new script to write the Lao language. The scholars adapted an early version of the Thai script, which was developed from the Old Khmer script, which was itself based on Mon scripts. In the Tibetan sub-family, the Burmese script was adapted from the Mon script, a distant relative of the Brahmi script of ancient India. The earliest known inscriptions in the Burmese script date from the 12th century. When the mongols destroyed the area in their invasions at the end of the XIII century the intellectual landscape languished.

3.2.3. The open northern corridor
When we consider the peoples inside the mainland of current China we can find the origin of different alphabets. From the early times China had contacts with the western Asian powers. To cite an example, one of the kushan kings, Kanishka was the earliest and most famous <9> and one of his chaplain work was translated into chinese by An-Shih-Kao, a Persian. From the steepe came a pool of influent tribes with different languages between the X and XIV centuries: the Khitan, Tangut, Jurchen and Mongolians.
The Khitan people, who dominated a large chunk of Manchuria between 916 and 1125 AD, used two different scripts - the "large script", which came into use in about 920 AD, the "small khitan script", which was reputedly created in about 925 AD by the Khitan scholar Diela, who was inspired by the Uighur alphabet. The Tangut logographic script was modelled on the Chinese and Khitan scripts. It was apparently devised by one 'Teacher Iri' in 1037 and was used for the translation of Buddhist texts from Sanskrit and other languages. It was was until the 16th century. The Jurchen script (also known as Jurchi, Jurchin or Southern Tungusic) was created by Wanyan Xiyin in 1120 and officially introduced in 1145. It was modelled on the Khitan script and contains a large number of characters from Chinese, many of which were modified or distorted.
The Mongolian alphabet was adapted from the Uighur alphabet in the 12th Century. The Uighur alphabet was a derivative of the Sogdian alphabet, which ultimately came from Aramaic. Between the 13th and 15th Centuries, Mongolian was also written with Chinese characters, the Arabic alphabet and a script derived from Tibetan called Phags-pa. In 1269, Khubilai Khan commissioned a Tibetan Lama called Matidhvaja Sribhadra (1239-1280) to create a new syllabic alphabet for Mongolian. At that time, Mongolian was written with the Uighur alphabet, which wasn't really suitable for the task. Khubilai wanted the new alphabet to reflect the sounds of Mongolian more accurately, and also hoped that it would help to unify his vast, multilingual empire and could be used to write other languages. Sribhadra created a new alphabet based on the Tibetan alphabet. Inspite of being actively promoted by the Mongol government, the Phags-pa alphabet was not adopted by the Mongolians or the Chinese. The most recent example of Phags-pa writing dates from 1352.


3.3. In and out. Language exchanges: translations and loanwords.
Chinese regarded all things foreign with disdain. To gain respectability, Buddhist thought had to get a layer of Taoist, or Confucian, terms and Buddhist practices changed to conform to Chinese customs.
In the next passage I provide an account of these early translators from India, Nepal, Persia ans China itself. We can bear in mind that the daunting task of these middlemen was two-folded in Koerner’s words:
to provide the pronunciation associated with a given character (known as the du ruo, or ‘read as’ method). New words developed a new approach: the fan qie method which broke down the syllable represented by a character into two component parts, namely (a) the initial consonant and (b) the syllable final element and the tone <10>.

3.3.1. Buddhist translations and vocabulary loanwords into China
I will follow www.buddha.net here. Those were the earliest contacts: First arrival of monks, Kasyapa Matango and Dharmaraksha, in Han Dynasty China under Emperor Ming. 148 CE: An Shih-Kao, a master from Persia, arrives and begins translating and teaching the dharma- translating Indian Buddhist texts, initially causing many Chinese to believe that Buddhism was another version of Taoism. His Ssu-ti-ching had 3620 characters, with no concept transliterated.
5th century CE: Kalayasas arrives in China from Central Asia and translates Sutras. Buddhabhadra (359-429), born in Nepal, arrives in China along with Kumarajiva (344-413) from Central Asia, both who translate sutras and teach the Dharma. Kumarajiva was an Indian Buddhist scholar and missionary <11> who had an epoch-making influence on Chinese Buddhist thought, because he did much to clarify Buddhist terminology and philosophical concepts. His translation was distinctive, possessing a flowing smoothness that reflects his prioritization on the conveyance of the meaning as opposed to precise literal rendering. Because of this, his renderings of seminal Mahayana texts have often remained more popular than later, more exact translations.
The next wave of exchange starts in 520 CE when Indian Master Bodhidharma travels as a Buddhist missionary to China, being the forefather of Ch'an and Zen Buddhism which emphasized meditation. Also, Bodhiruci, Ratnamati, Buddhsanta, and also Paramartha arrive in China and translate sutras. Later, Sikshananda, who arrived from Central Asia, translated the Avatamsaka Sutra. Master Hsuan Tang (596-664) makes pilgrimage to India in 641 as an envoy from the Chinese emperor and established the first Chinese diplomatic relations with Harsha-vardhana (606-647). He returns to China with hundreds of scriptures and images, and ushers in a new era in translations. From this time we have the word for ‘sutra’ in Chinese (related to our “sutura”, and translated the eymological sense: ‘enfilall’). As late as this century, he wrote in the Ta-t’ang His-yü-chi:
Sanskrit words should be translated. One must make an effort to keep the original form. Take the pattern of the orthodox textbooks, infern and then discourse about them. I fear to pervert the truth <12>.

3.3.2. Vocabulary loanwords in the outer circle: Japanese, Vietnamese and Korean
Chinese characters stood as a visible symbol of the dominance of Chinese culture in East Asia. With Chinese characters came huge numbers of Chinese loanwords, which are still an important part of the vocabulary of East Asian languages. Chinese characters, Hanzi, are called ‘Hancha’ in Korean and ‘Kanji’ in Japanese which, incidentally, all three use the very same two Chinese characters. Since the end of World War II, the new phenomenon has been the borrowing of words from European languages.
In the fifth century Buddhism is established as the state religion in Korea <13>. Two centuries later, many Chinese schools were introduced. Around the seventh century, emissaries from the Korean Paekche kingdom began to introduce Chinese characters, Buddhism, and Confucianism into Japan. Koreans adopted Chinese as their written language –as Latin in Medieval Europe. Their highest cultural output was the Tripitaka Koreana <14>. Educated Koreans, then, spoke in Korean but wrote in classical Chinese. The educated upper classes until the end of the XiX century continued to write in Chinese, which naturally resulted in the adoption of a great number of Chinese loanwords: well over half of all modern Korean vocabulary consists of words either directly borrowed from Chinese or derived from Chinese characters. To this date numerous words that have Chinese origins are used along with words from Korean origin. Even if Koreans still include some Chinese scripts in the newspapers and publications, those Chinese characters used in Korean and Chinese are similar in meanings, but they differ sometimes in shapes and always in sound. Since the adoption of these words was almost exclusively through the medium of writing, this led to the formation of "a standardized Sino-Korean pronunciation" for Chinese characters used in Korean. For centuries, the demand for new Korean words was met almost entirely through this process, and, in fact, is still going on. Since 1945 however, the importance of Chinese characters in Korean writing has waned significantly and in 1949, they were abolished in North Korea.

From an early date Japanese borrowed a large number of Chinese words, to a great extent as a matter of deliberate policy. Chinese words which have become an integral part of the Japanese lexicon have a particular role as expressing abstract concepts. However, after the early burst of borrowing from Chinese there was a renewed active borrowing of Chinese words in the Meiji period. A study of the use of native Japanese and loanwords in newspapers in 1971 showed: Native Japanese words 26.6% to 43.9%; Sino-Japanese words 50.7% to 65.3%; and Foreign loanwords 12.0% to 12.7%.
Per donar un parell d’exemples, aquests dos caràcters diferents he trobat això de tres llengües (xinès, japonès i coreà) de tres famílies: Caràcter 1 Caràcter 2
Writing systems: Chinese, Japanese Korean Chinese, Japanese Korean
Latin transcription: zì / ji / ja shū, ka(ku)/sho, seo/sŏ
Pronunciation: [ ʤ̥ ] / [ ʤa ] / [ ʤa ] [ ʂu ], [kaku/ʃo ], [ sʌ ]
Meaning: character, letter,word writing, book, to write, letter, document, script

Vietnamese was originally written with a Siniform (Chinese-like) script known as Nôm since the XIII century at least. Till then they wrote in Chinese. At first most Vietnamese literature was essentially Chinese in structure and vocabulary. Later literature developed a more Vietnamese style, but was still full of Chinese loan words. Finally, Vietnameses, who were for the longest period under Chinese orbit, adopted beaurocracy exams system in 1554 but ended their particular relationship turning their backs on the characters and adopted an alphabetic writing system severing the close connections with their Han neighbours.


4. Non- Chinese Writing systems  (see them at www.omniglot.com)
 
In the introduction was stated that the language universe of China comprised a large etcaetera group. In this chapter we will rapidly visit several living languages and three old scripts. As we could find some mentions to some writing systems in the learning material due to space problems I focused here on other information I gathered <15>.

4.1. One language in China: Tibetan
The southern belt of China displays many writing systems from all the families but they never got promoted into major languages outside their areas. There is a Chinese public concern to offer Latin alphabet solutions to minorities in Chima. Since the last 10 years efforts have done some headway in this direction. The real success of this initiative still remains uncertain. However, the languages of the north played a role in the last two foreign Chinese dynasties: Yuan and Ming. As for the Tibetan one the preservation of Buddhist scriptures makes it an interesting case. The relationship with the mongol is clearly explained in the material.
The Tibetan script was created early in the 7th century AD Thume Sambota was sent to India to create an alphabet for the Tibetan language <16>. The script he created script, modeled on the Devanagari or Nakari scripts, has evolved through the centuries and today Tibetan is written in few different types: the two most common are U-chen (literally: Big Head) and U-me (literally: Headless). U-chen is the script you see on Tibetan websites, books and other publications while U-me is primarily used for handwriting, although it can be seen in some modern books. The six reversed letters are sometimes referred to as the Sanskrit letters, since their purpose originally was to use in translation from Sanskrit. The first Sanskrit-Tibetan dictionary, Mahavyutpatti, appeared in the 9th century. Wood block printing, introduced from China, was used in Tibet from an early date and is still used in a few monasteries.

4.2. Two Writing Systems from the first circle: Japanese and Korean
Chinese characters are one of the most distinctive artifacts of Oriental culture. The expansion of China warlords gave those neighbouring Koreans (IV cent. AD), Japanese (IV-V cent. AD), and Vietnamese (VIII cent. AD), a new writing tool for their own tongues. Considering the fact that the respective languages belong to different families, the effort come short of nothing less than a great ordeal <17>.
The Japanese were the more resilient to Chinese presence since the aborted Yuan invasion, and the ones who still have a more clear presence of the characters in their writing six centuries later while devising a far more complex writing system mixing several sources. The Koreans kept a low-key writing system of their own until the end of the XIX century when the Japanese invasion sparked a national upsurge with the practical result of largely displacing Chinese characters in ordinary use (but continue to resemble them in their box-like shapes). Koreans, more persistently and heatedly than Chinese and Japanese, debate the use of Hancha <18>. The Korean alphabet was associated with people of low status, i.e. women, children and the uneducated. During the 19th and 20th centuries a mixed writing system combining Chinese characters (Hanja) and Hangeul became increasingly popular.
Evolution of both Writing Systems.
The Japanese writing system is certainly unique due to its 'Orthographic variation'. Japanese uses at least four different sets of graphical symbols to write the language:
Hiragana syllabary (phonetic, mainly used for grammatical endings and function words)
Katakana syllabary (phonetic, mainly used for foreign words, scientific biological names, and onomatopoeic words).
Chinese characters (kanji, used for 'content words' -- verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc., both native and Chinese based) -which may be rewritten in phonetic hiragana or katakana for simplicity, emphasis, or other effects. Kanji used phonetically for their sounds, disregarding their meanings, are called Man'yoogana (Man'yoo + kana). Not everything can be written in kanji.
Roman letters (the ‘romaji’, used mainly for symbols and some foreign words) with Arabic numerals are written from left to right.
Before the invention of a Korean alphabet, the clerical class used Chinese characters, method that created more difficulties to the invention of their own system. Writers later devised three different ones for writing Korean with Chinese characters: Hyangchal, Gukyeol and Idu <19>. These systems were similar to those developed in Japan and were probably used as models by the Japanese. The Idu system, the most important one, used a combination of Chinese characters together with special symbols to indicate Korean verb endings and other grammatical markers, and was used to in official and private documents for many centuries.
Korean language has three kinds of words (native, Sino-Korean, and European) as well as two kinds of scripts (phonetic and logographic). Today, Korean [in South Korea] is written in hangeul or a mixture of hangeul and Chinese characters.
The Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 was originally called Hunmin jeongeum, or "The correct sounds for the instruction of the people", but has also been known as Eonmeun (vulgar script) and Gukmeun (national writing). The modern name for the alphabet, Hangeul, was coined by a Korean linguist called Ju Si-gyeong (1876-1914). I will mention some notable features of Hangeul.
There are 24 letters (jamo) in the Korean alphabet: 14 consonants and 10 vowels <20>
The shapes of the the consontants g/k, n, s, m and ng are graphical representations of the speech organs used to pronounce them. Other consonsants were created by adding extra lines to the basic shapes.
The shapes of the the vowels are based on three elements: man (a vertical line), earth (a horizontal line) and heaven (a dot).
In modern Hangeul the heavenly dot has mutated into a short line. Spaces are placed between words, which can be made up of one or more syllables.

Our last reflection goes to the education system. Both writing systems are certainly very difficult to learn. Nine years of school education are neede before Japanese children can read a newspaper satisfactorily. The Japanese Government recognises three levels of kanji, 881 characters called education kanji, and 1045 general purpose kanji and a third more complex. Everything could be written in kana, as it is done at the beginning of the first year of school). As for South Korea, about 2,000 Chinese characters are currently used in Korean. In South Korea school children are expected to learn about 1,800 hanja by the end of high school.

4.3. Three current scripts from further south: from Thai to Bahasa
Thai, from the Tai-kadai family, uses a syllabic alphabet consisting of 44 basic consonants, each with an inherent vowel: [o] in medial position and [a] in final position. The [a] is usually found in words of Sanskrit, Pali or Khmer origin while the [o] is found native Thai words. The 18 other vowels and 6 diphthongs are indicated using diacritics which appear in front of, above, below of after the consonants they modify. There are 8 letters which are used only for writing words of Pali and Sanskrit origin. For some consonants there are multiple letters. Originally they represented separate sounds, but over the years the distinction between those sounds was lost and the letters were used instead to indicate tones.
Tagalog (a.k.a. Baybayin or Alibata) alphabet is one of a number of closely related scripts used in the Philippines until the 17th Century AD. It is thought to have descended from the Kawi script of Java, Bali and Sumatra, which in turn descended from the Pallava script, one of the southern Indian scripts derived from Brahmi. Oldest inscriptions form year 900 AD. Today the Latin alphabet is used to write to Tagalog. This is a syllabic alphabet in which each consonant has an inherent vowel /a/. Other vowels are indicated either by separate letters, or by dots - a dot over a consonant changes the vowels to an /i/ or and /e/, while a dot under a consonant changes the vowel to /o/ or /u/. The inherent vowel is muted by adding a + sign beneath a consonant. This innovation was introduced by the Spanish.
From the Austroasiàtic family, the earliest known inscriptions in Malay were found in southern Sumatra and on the island of Bangka and date from 683-6 AD. They were written in an Indian script during the time of the kingdom of Srivijaya. When Islam arrived in southeast Asia during the 14th century, the Arabic script was adapted to write the Malay language. In the 17th century, under influence from the Dutch and British, the Arabic script was replaced by the Latin alphabet. Their main difference with Bahasa indonesia is in the spelling (due to British colonialism the first and to Dutch one the second).


5. Literature and sources

Alay, J.L., Història dels Tibetans, Lleida, Pages editors, 2000.
Comrie, B., Matthews, S. & Polinsky M. (ed.) The Atlas of Languages. The origin and development of languages throughout the world, London, Bloonsbury, 1997. A perfect introduction to my topic.
Diamond, Jared Empire of Uniformity Discover Magazine, March, 1996
http://www.huaren.org/heritage/id/082698-01.html (good cultural approach back into history)
Gernet, Jacques, Le monde chinois, Paris, Armand Colin, 1972
Koerner, E. Asher, R.E. Concise history of the language sciences, New York, Pergamon, 1995
Katzner, K. The Languages of the World, London, Routkledge, 1990
www.omniglot.com has been the most productive website for the topic, especially for the visual display of the scripts. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the topic.


Notes on all chapters:
<1> To appreciate the language variety we can compare the Romance languages we know (its numbers go up to 47!) with the Tibetan and the Tai-Kadai, with 351 and 70 respectively (sources in http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=874
<2> Comrie, B., Matthews, S. & Polinsky M. (ed.) The Atlas of Languages. The origin and development of languages throughout the world. page 56.
<3> Indonesia is a linguistically diverse region where the Indonesian language acts as a lingua franca, even though there are more native speakers of Javanese - about 75 million.
<4> L.L Cavalli-Sforza, P. Menozzi and A. Piazza The History and Geography of Human Genes, chapter 6.
<5> About the Hakka The New Encyclopedia Britannica stated: ‘group of North Chinese who migrated to South China, especially Kwangtung and Fukien provinces, during the Southern Sung dynasty (1127-1279), when North China was occupied by Inner Asian tribesmen.’
<6> As I stated in the introduction the languages spoken 2.500 years ago in South China were from the other three families: Miao, Austrasiatics and Thai. “The Tai-kadai languages were once believed to belong to the Sino-tibetan family because they share some vocabulary with Cantonese. These similarities are now seen as the result of borrowing and language shift, whereby their speakers came to adopt Chinese, bringing to it features of their original languages” in Comrie, B., op.cit. page 64.
<7> ‘Given the wide extent of the Han empire at the time and the fact that much of the population in regions toward the periphery was not Han, it could be well the case that Yang Xiong was describing different languages. This would partially explain why many of the words he lists are not found in modern Chinese’ in Koerner, E. Asher, R.E. Concise history of the language sciences, chapter III.
<8> Hiragana comes from a ‘selection of cursive forms of whole hanji, while the square katakana were created by taken parts of more formally written charactersto stand for the whole … the arrangement is clearly based on an Indian model’ (in Koerner’s Concise history of……, page 55).
<9> When Kanishka ascended the throne (AD 120), his empire consisted of Afghanistan, Sind, Punjab and portions of the former Parithan and Bactrian kingdoms. His empire extended from the north-west and Kashmir, over most of the Gangetic valley. He annexed three provinces of the Chinese empire, namely, Tashkand, Khotan and Yarkhand.
<10> Koerner, E. Asher, R.E. op. cit. page 43.
<11> From 401 Kumarajiva was at the Ch'in court in the capital Chang'an (the modern Xi'an), where he taught and translated Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. In his Samantamucha Parivarta from 2.067 characters, there were 230 Sanscrit words. Of the 80 translations only about 24 can be authenticated, but they include some of the most important titles in the Chinese Buddhist canon. Source: www.buddha.net/e-learning/history/chin_timeline.htm
<12> “A Reflection on the question of a philosophy of assimilation in Buddishm” by Kazumitzu Kato in Journal of the American Oriental Society 93.3 (Jul.-Sep. 1973) –footnote 10.
<13>Korean cultures date back to c. 300 BCE, the Korean Han, which were overthrown by Chinese refugees in 194 BCE. This in turn was overthrown by the Chinese Han dynasty. Four Chinese-controlled provinces established in northern Korea. The Korean Han tribe moved south. Later, in 918, the Koryo kingdom took over, whence the name, Korea. In modern times Korea was also caught between Chinese and Mongol invaders from the north and Japanese invaders from the east.
<14> The Tripitaka Koreana are more than 80,000 wood blocks used for printing the complete collection of Buddhist scriptures, laws, and treatises. The original set took 77 years to complete, and was finished in 1087. However, it was destroyed in 1232 by a Mongol invasion.
<15> This note will deal with it. We learned about the use of the Latin alphabet by the zhuang; the syllabic system for the Yi and pictographic for the Naxi and the changes in the case of the Uigurs or Mongolian. Other interesting ones were Miao group that split across southern borders using Chines characters in China and a Latin alphabet abroad. The Dehong syllabic alphabet was derived from the Pali alphabet and has been used the Jingpo people, who live in Yúnnán province in south-western China, since the 11th century.
<16> The great master Sambota wrote 8 different treatises on Tibetan grammar of which we have only 2 left today: Sum Chu Pa and Tak Juk. Numerous Mahayana Buddhist Sutra scriptures were translated into the newly created Tibetan script (sources: www.omniglot.com and http://www.tiblanstu.net/lessons/intrtume.htm ).
<17> Furthermore, Chinese is a Subject, Verb and Object language whereas Korean is a Subject, Object and Verb language. There are more similarities between Korean and Japanese in grammar and sentence structure (source: www.cjvlang.com/cjvkforum )
<18> It seems appropriate to include here some comments on these very distinctive writing systems.
The Korean needed ten centuries to develop their own writing. Our sources come from
http://www.cjvlang.com/Writing/index.html and www.anotherscene.com/japanpm/koreaw.html. . As for the Japanese, it has done much to support the idea of Japanese as an isolated and special language (see http://www.percepp.demon.co.uk/japanese.htm
<19> The Idu system usage was largely limited to women and "members of the humbler classes" until the end of the nineteenth century. The Hyangchal system used Chinese characters to represent all the sounds of Korean and was used mainly to write poetry (source: www.omniglot.com ).
<20> King Sejon’s most original feature was ‘the treatment of the vowels. For this he had no precedent either in Chinese or hPags-pa alphabet’ (in Koerner’s Concise history of……, page 55).

ART. Motifs and comments. Section1.

ART. pac2 –miquelangel castillo (see section 2)

Section 1. Elaboration on the motifs of eight images

1.A.- Selection of 4 images from Japan.

1.B.- Selection of 4 images from China.

(as seen on the screen)

image 3 + image 2 + image 6 +image 12

Section 2. At a loss for words on Eastern Art

2.1. What we can see.

2.2. What artists do.

2.3. Inside the beholder.

Section 1. Elaboration on the motifs of eight images

1.A.- Selection of 4 images from Japan.

Image ONE. Kimono amb fulles de bambú i ideogrames.

The four popular plants/ flowers in painting (the orchid, bamboo, plum, and chrysanthemum) are called the "Four Paragons" in Japanese art, were also known as the "four Gentlemen" in the continent. These four plants symbolise the four seasons and they characteristicly represent the qualities ideal gentlemen should have.
The Bamboo corresponds at summer and symbolises strength and the spirit to endure adverse circumstances. It bends with the wind and snow but it does not break, it returns to its upright position when the wind and snow ceases. The bamboo, therefore, also symbolises flexibility but with integrity.

The bamboo it's one of the most difficult subjects to paint. A painting of bamboo is essentially a painting of lines, the very same line from where the writing system derives and both share the appretiation of the calligraphy artist.

Image TWO. El vell pruner

The plum blosom appears to be a main theme in East Asian art. This image symbolises the passage of time from winter to spring. The main difference between China (like Korea) and Japan being the time the blossoming takes place. In the continent it is earlier than in northern Japanese lands. The most interesting association I found was with the lifestyle of the isolated scholar-recluse.

The ‘Plum Blossom Studio’ made the appearance with the works of Lin Bu, a Song dynasty poet , who was well represented in Chinese literature and painting, and pursued by cultivated Kyoto people in the Edo period.

The plum tree symbolises many ideas from where we highlight both hope and continuity of life which enhances the triumph of virtue over hardships in life but it also represents the virtues of purity and refinement. In China it goes with “good fortune”.

Plum tree is admired for its ability to reform itself to withstand adverse conditions. i.e. it manifests an appearance of hardness during winter. However, when spring comes, it nourishes itself and develops into a beautiful tree in spring. Plum blossom is the national emblem for Chinese New Year.
A poetical description can be rendered like this:

Almost before the winter snows have melted, the barren landscape welcomes the blooming of the plum tree, whose fragrant and delicate blossoms of the snowy white or light pink share, with the angular tree itself, older people's special admiration. The Japanese see the contrast between the knotted trunks and young green shoots as symbolic of age and youth - one bent and crabbed, the other fresh and vigorous, suggesting that in spite of age, the charm and joy of youth can always rise anew. <2>

Image THREE. Vano pintat amb la imatge d’un cirerer florit

The cherry blossom is the national flower of Japan and also China. I will deal with its characteristics in Japan here.

In spring, one of the best-loved <3> symbols of Japan makes a dramatic sweep across the country. Sakura (cherry blossoms) bloom usually from the end of March through April in a kind of wave starting in southernwest areas and working its way northeast.

The word sakura is generally used for those species of cherry appreciated for the beauty of their blossoms rather than those grown for their fruit. The sakura is mentioned frequently in Japanese literature since the VIII century.

The associations I found were threefold:

• Traditional Japanese values of purity and simplicity are thought to be reflected in the form and color of its blossoms symbolizing also filial love.
• Since it flowers very briefly and then scatters, the cherry blossom has also become a symbol of the Japanese appreciation of ephemeral beauty. The undeniable beauty of the delicate pink flowers is offset by a sense of melancholy at their all-too-brief appearance. This is often compared to our own short time spent on the earth.
• The crimson flowers are liken to one of the symbols of Japan’s history: the samurai. He spends his life preparing for the battle in which he offers as a selfsacrifice to his lord: to defend him to death. Here we can play with the Germanic roots of the archaic Bluot (meaning both flower and blood –in modern German they are two words: Blüte and Blut).

Image FOUR. Choju-Gija emaki, Choju Jimbutsu Giga (Frolicking Birds and Animals) Emakimono Attributed to Toba Sojo (1053-1140), late Heian Period Kozan-ji.

Toba Sojo was the head priest of a Buddhist sect near Kyoto. He is the author of a series of important narrative scrolls featuring humorous subjects inked in the Buddhist tradition of swift brushed work.

In this famous piece the common technique of free-line ink drawing was used to depict frolicking animals, with no explicative legend or poem written on the canvas which could give the audience a clue on the intention of the author.

Some maintain that the scenes were caricatures of contemporary Buddhist priests. To support the views we can say that the time of the scroll showed the change of aesthetics from a Buddhist frame of mind to a court leaned on sword power and more interested in mundane affairs <4>.

On the first scroll the scene depicted a scorned bonzo monkey reading in front of a frog sat on a Lotus flower. The second scroll shows more realistic actions drawn with excellent technique but no signs of parody. The quality sensibly lowers in the third one but keeping the motifs of the first and second scrolls to reach a trough in the fourth <5>, sohas been advanced the posssibility of being from different hands.

1.B.- Selection of 4 images from China.

Image ONE. H 1: Fragment del romanç de la cambra de l’oest (segle XIX, Dinastia Qing).

The picture with the man at his desk shows he is a man of affairs, taking part in the mundane work of urban life. It is a fragment of a narrative piece which shows him surrounded by his natural items as any man in his position needs to appreciate culture in nature. The lifestyle of the scholar, represented in literature and painting, was pursued by the Qing’s artist fascinated by Chinese texts, rituals, leisure activities, and goods.

But the philosophy underlining his appretiation of beauty reflects, I would adventure myself to say, a Confucian approach to life. He is serving his duties (tha mandate of heaven goes upwards to his Lord and in the end his state). After the Ming dynasty the new merchant class from the southern lands could acquiry beauty as an appreciation of the work of painters. Here the man shows the great value of calligraphy and painting (the scroll) and the rich ornamental surroundings of furniture and jarr with the private garden in company of the significant other (the women in rich robes). The use of perspective and some abstract decoration combines harmonically with the organic forms of the table.

Image TWO. H 4: Contenidor de pinzells.

The materials traditionally used in Chinese brush and ink painting are water, water container, water dropper, china palette, handmade brushes, brush rest, handmade paper and woven silk, Chinese ink stick and stone to grind the ink, watercolour and cadmium red paste for the carved stone seal for the signature. The brush rest is set into a carved mould, which can be in various shapes and often decorated with a scenary as in this object (or with gold and calligraphy).

This little object gives no clue of the owner of the piece. The setting depicted on it shows the Taoist ideal of life in nature. The precious woodcarving in such a had piece of wood gives a clear account of people and bamboo trunks gathering to enjoy life as it is: a cordial group of people, away from the life in the administrative chores and free spirits with real goals: be there.

We can find several examples of friends who were famous in Chines arts and gave word to preeentr them as the example to the person who did not want to be attached to material things.

The “seven sages of the bamboo forest” for instance (drinking wine and writing poetry) is the most well known in China.

Image THREE. Hogar 5: Gerro anb flors de lotus.

The image of the lotus flower stems from their origins which stretched out over the east of Asia <6>. The flower appears in midsummer. Roots come from muddy pools, and the flower grows in mud but oddly comes up white and pure. Buddhism uses this symbol for the Buddha's life - born in the problems and darkness of society, he grew to become pure and truthful, suggesting that a pure and lovely spirit can lift itself above worldliness to live in peaceful serenity.

It is thus a sacred flower of Buddhism, and is called "sacred friend" in Chinese floral tradition. Often used at funerals. The Lotus represents in a smaller scale stately beauty.

The lotus flower shows its universal meaning in the eight petals symbolising the eight directions of the heavens. These connections may be a little difficult to figure out. For twenty centuries the Lotus flower has been a symbol of different things but somehow related to the central concept of ‘purity’: from creation and meditation to truth and perfection, and also to immortality.

Image FOUR. Adorn2 Retrat de l’Emperadriu Cixi

Here are some of the meanings of both flowers in traditional Chinese painting:
The peony has a rich, lustrous appeal, and has been addressed as the “queen of the flowers”. It signifies wealth and nobility. The peony is called the "flower of twenty days" because of its short blooming season in May. It was especially favored by the upper classes and considered a symbol of happiness, prosperity, love and affection.

The chrysanthemum, the flower of early Autumn was used to provide encouragement to one who struggles and has long been considered a noble flower. Being one of the year's last flowers and because it can survive in cold conditions that would kill most plants, it symbolises the central meaning of courage, but widening the range from longevity and satisfaction to strength, from dignity and love to knowledge.
In Japan the crest of the imperial household is a stylized representation of a chrysanthemum blossom.

ART. La presència humana en el paisatge oriental

1. Itinerari
2. Principis culturals a l’orient.
2.1. harmonia, natura, simplicitat, naturalitat.
2.2. Les arts de pinzell
2.3. La consolidació del gènere del paisatge en la pintura.
2.4. La tradició de la crítica en la pintura de paisatge.
3. La presència humana en el paisatge oriental.
3.1. La persona i el context en Xina i Japó
3.2. Dins del món xinès: L’absència de Self
3.3. La progressió Song>Yuan. La presència de Self.
3.4. La presència humana en el paisatge oriental.
4. La figura excepcional d’un pintor de tradició: Sesshu Toyo
4.1. Sensibilitat Chan/Zen
4.2 La recerca en el passat de Sesshu Toyo
4.3. La presencia humana en l’obra de Sesshu


pac3art- alumne: miquelangel castillo

La presència humana en relació a la natura en el paisatge oriental
As Chuang-tzu said, "Those who would have good government without its correlative misrule,
and right without its correlative wrong, do not understand the principle of the universe."

1. Itinerari. Que sabem, nosaltres estudiants, de la pintura del paisatge com a art? Des del meu racó he de confessar que ha estat el gènere que més m’ha interessat en els primers dos pacs. Si més no el que m’ha fet encuriosir ‘cordialment’ per aquest gènere. Fer-hi una petita anàlisi per a la pac3 em sembla més ‘coratjós’ que les dues primeres! Potser la qualitat més xinesa siga la de lleialtat (zhong) escrit amb “cor i a sobre “centre”. On posen el cor no els ha d’anar mal. <1>. Si miren al passat podran saltar endavant cap el futur.
Llegint els apunts de classe i els meus materials ho intentem sense deixar de ecordar el poc que sabem i en el que encara ens falta. Abans de començar el mòdul 4 La saviesa com a estètica veia la delicadesa del traç, i l’ús de la tinta i la força de la línia que eren quelcom ja familiar.Refent les petjades del meu itinerari manifeste que el context al tema escollit l’he tingut amb quatre materials: primer una lectura detallada de ‘El arte chino” d’Isabel Cervera en Historia 16, desprès el buscar les referències a la pintura en Li Zehou sobre la Xina i en Vera Linhartova sobre el Japó, desprès escapbussar-me en el Summa Artis –vol. 21. Aquesta visió de conjunt va complementada de detalls que sortiran en els apartats següents.

El meu text s’estructura a partir de comentar els conceptes comuns a la pintura oriental, que ja ens han sortit en les dos primeres pacs. Després s’abordarà la presència humana en el gènere del paistage. Conclourem amb la visió de dos pintors rellevants i amb una petita visió cap el present d’aquest art.

2. Principis culturals a l’orient
2.1. Harmonia, natura, simplicitat, naturalitat.
El principi clau a l’orient sembla l’harmonia. Entrar a ressonar amb l’univers. A més no hem d’oblidar una subtil diferència: l’esperit és materialista i la materia espiritual. Més explicitament, el qi i el li; el primer és la força vital en moviment, el segón l’estructura interna de l’objecte. La percepció occidental mostra la disparitat subjecte-objecte. Aquesta falsa oposició no ens permet entendre les coses del món. A l’orient, el món és una acció, un joc realitzador, un procés que catalitza en un joc de ressonàncies. És més aviat una creació que una reproducció.
A la primera pac hem anat aprenent que la divisió entre orient i occident parteix de la premisa de com s’enfronten a la natura: nosaltres dominant-la, ells reverenciant-la. I les arts aixi ho palesen: nosaltres representem la natura, ells la presenten. Com assenyala Chantal (2000:95) l’actitud estética és la más apropiada para conseguir el wu-shin (no-espíritu). És a dir, la receptivitat és una manera de ser. El principi regidor és el qi: Aquest principi d'unitat es dinamitza en el qi el qual informa (zao) i transforma (hua) tota cosa. No és cap substància aïllable al marge de les formes que pren i transforma. Com explicita el professor Ollé:
El pensament xinès no distingeix entre matèria i energia, però es pòdria parlar analògicament del qi com d'energia a punt de transformar-se en matèria o de matèria a punt de transformar-se en energia. De fet, qualsevol cos, objecte o fenomen no es concep com a res més que una forma particularitzada del qi: alè de vida immanent, principi d'unitat i de coherència que vincula els deu mil éssers entre si <2.1>.

De les tres corrents artístiques a la Xina el Confucianisme va seguir una vessant realista, el Taoisme expressionista i el Budisme impressionista. Aquestes dues últimes van interaccionar molt amigablement (especialment amb el Chan –Zen).
Per entrar en el nostre tema, entre les tradicions orientals, especialment la xinesa, la pintura ha estat central. En els murs, la seda, el paper, o sobre bambú l’expressió pictòrica ha centrat en el món natural la seua expressió creativa. Com a valor comú hem d’estar d’acord amb el valor que s’atorga al buit com expressivitat.
Aqeust darrer pensament ens portarà al Japó. Per cloure, al Japó el shintoisme sempre ha tingut un valor de substrat també estètic. Aquesta disciplina artística tan humanística però també tan individualitzada, que transmetia uns principis orientals difícils de copsar. De mostres clares les trobem en les teulades shinto, lescampanes Dotaku, l’escultura Nara (monjo Ganjin)i les posteriors influències Zen com veurem, fins arribar actualment a l’arquitectura d’Ando. Per citar a Garcia Gutierrez sobre la diferenciació japonesa :
La naturalidad en el arte quiere decir intimidad con la naturaleza ... que la transforma en arte, realizando una unión inefable entre el ideal i la realidad. Como és indeterminada en sus formas, así tambien el arte: sólo debe ser la unión de un contenidao interior <2.2>.
Sobre l’intimisme amb la natura ens mostra el valor del Sabi, el Wabi i el Shibui. El primer, que indica la solitud, s’ha de superar la bellesa formal per anar a l’essencial dos traços emmarquen el buit i “una vez sumergidos allí, lo descubrimos todo.” com afirma García Gutierrez. El segon incumbeix l’individu, per posar-nos en contacte amb la vera simplicitat ... de la vida que ens posa en contacte amb la natura universal, breus traços, economia de recursos. I la del Shibui que secciona vitalment els dos anteriors: la bellesa està a un cop de ma, proper, simplement familiar i també d’alguna forma inacabada.

2.2. Sobre les arts de pinzell
El mòdul 4.2 s’inicia amb el concepte que vam veure al pac1 (cif. Poésie et pinture) de youji. Més endavant tenim el refugi en la natura de Tao Yuangming que expressen el canvi d’estètica amb les arts del pinzell: “un model que es perpetua per mitjà de la poesia, la cal·ligrafia i la pintura al llarg dels segles ... imbricant-se de tal manera que resulta difícil entendre’n una sense l’altra” (pàg. 17). Podem recordar ara el que assenyalava Leys del període Yuan: xie bua “escriure una pintura”. Entre ells deu segles on la veneració per un mitjà d’expressió tan cohesionador i fascinant. ha estat perfectament expressat per Harrist:
Perhaps the secret of the fascination the letter has exercised for so long lies not just in its beauty and its status as a prestigious work of art, but in the bond, however tenuous, between this small piece of paper and the venerated but elusive man whose words and brushstrokes it transmits <2.3>.
El segle IV respon a la primera crisi de l’imperi, la fi dels Han, i la divisió amb noves forces del nord que es veuran atretes per l’impuls civilitzador de la Xina per ser realment el País del Centre (Zhong Guo). El confucianisme deixa pas a l’emergència del Taoisme com a cultura oficial i la adaptació del Budisme, primer al nord, a les particularitats xineses.
No cal dir que el simbol més gran de la unitat xinesa la tenim en l’escriptura, la més llarga tradició textual de la humanitat no es pot deixar de banda. Els antics caràcters es classificaven com a wen, i cultura es diu wénhuà mostran el respecte per la tradició. No oblidem que en tots els llocs les paraules conformen la cultura (i viceversa). L’impuls en l’art dona un inici que trigarà 8 segles a consolidar-se en el moviment wenrenhua. Leys a l’article ho expressava així: els principìs i procediments “de la poésie sont d’ordre pictural; de la peinture d’ordre poétique”.
A diferència dels pintors occidentals, pintaven en estudi donat que volien interpretar la natura. Sobre els formats que feien servir destacarem: els, els rotlles manuals, primer com a estendards, deprés verticals, i finalment horitzontals. També podien ser penjats. La tasca de l’acadèmia per recollir el passat va portar a desenvolupar albums en molts gèneres. De Japó i Korea van venir els vanos plegables sobre bambú.
Al primerenc ús de la línia, van aperéixer dos noves formes d’aplicar el pinzell per mostrar la textura cun i dian. El crític modern Chiang Hsun ho va expressar així:
The use of cun and dian brushstrokes ("wrinkle" and “dots” strokes) allowed Chinese artists to diligently reproduce natural forms, both for the overall structure of a landscape and for smaller details like the texture of the soil or a mountainside's exposed rock. … In Traveling amid Mountains and Gorges Fan Kuan applied delicate and sharp cun to convey with great clarity the cracks in the rocks on the mountain face and the light mist <2.4>.

De Li hiao recordarem l’expressió: ‘té pinzell, té tinta’. tots dos van ser elevats a principis actius (veg. 2.4): Bi: Va més enllà del valor tècnic del pinzell. Al representar una idea, el pinzell ha de fluir al ritme de la ment, possible si s’aconseguit un perfecte domini. Mo: habilitat amb la tinta. Permet crear espai i llum, com dotar a les formes de sutile matiços por mitjà de l’aiguada.
Els dos estils d’aplicar el pinzell ha generat dues escoles: gongbi amb una atenció als detalls i aplicació meticulosa i la xieyi amb un treball més lliure i amb tocs impressionistes.

2.3. La consolidació del gènere del paisatge en la pintura.
Destacarem algun comentari teòric que anirà acompanyat de dos poemes –com no!?- i aquells elements tècnics que no han estat englobats en l’apartat anterior. Podem començar amb l’epítom d’un sentiment amb un poema de Su Dongpo:
It is like clouds and mists passing before my eyes, or the songs of birds striking my ears. How could I help but derive joy from my contact with these things? But when they are gone, I think no more about them. In this way, these two things [painting and calligraphy] are a constant pleasure to me, but not an affliction."

La pintura Sui va donar importancia a les pintures murals. El budisme aportava nous models i aqeusta creença va servir per crear nous vincles entre els han-ren i els pobles del nord (xianbei, touba, weibei) i els aportacions tècniques van servir per tansformar un fons d’una història a una veritable inmportància del paisatge. Van ser els Tang els que van aprofundir amb la integració nacional introduient nous temes iconogràfics a la cort. D’una banda l’interés per la vida real va donar pas a la pintura de personages amb els principis pictòrics de guqi (fuerza del caracter) i qingsi (món espiritual). Wang Wei ens ha deixat poemes i pintures (còpies). La pròpia percepció enmig la natura servia per expressar alguna cosa més. Davant aquest poema seu, Esteban Ierardo comenta:
Sentado sólo en medio de silenciosos bambúes,/ taño mi laúd y canto largo tiempo.
Nadie sabe que estoy en el bosque,/ sólo la luna brilla acude a acompañarme.
escenografía pasiva para el drama humano. La naturaleza es ya realidad emocional, delicada vida sensible que un pintor poeta debe percibir, aprehender. El arte del paisaje aspira así a expresar la fina y plástica vida que fluye por montañas, aguas y bosques <2.5>.

El terme shanshui evoca el paper preponderant de la natura en el paisatge. La primera consigna que trobem en la creació del paisatge és un principi cultural, previ a la transmissió d’un sentiment. Com ha expressat Marie-Hélène Nouhaili dels shanshui:
complémentarité de la montagne (la terre) et de l'eau (mer, rivière, nuages porteurs de pluie) annonce l'aspect mystique et profondément spirituel de cette vision de la nature, relativement éloignée de la nôtre. Dans la pensée taoïste, la montagne est un symbole masculin alors que l'eau est en relation avec la féminité : le yin et le yang, les deux aspects complémentaires du monde apparaissent comme les notions fondatrices de cette esthétique qui véhicule aussi une philosophie. La découverte d'une pensée, fondée non sur la séparation de la matière et du divin comme en occident mais au contraire sur leur fusion <2.6>.

El pintor Wu Daozi va innovar amb una tècnica de treballar amb línies i oblidar-se del color, i va donar un impuls al gènere que no va minvar. Chang Tsao va reblar un clau conceptual amb el principi motriu del gènere: ‘el meu mentor extern és la Natura; la meua força interna és la xing (ment-cor). Després va venir l’era daurada de les Cinc Dinasties amb Jing Hao, Guan Tong, Dong Yuan and Ju Ran que van ser els exemples a imitar els potents massissos de pedra [imatge 1] i precipicis en boira pels nous mestres del Song del Nord: Li Cheng, Guo Xi, Fan Kuan and Mi Fu. Aquí s’obté la majoria d’edat del gènere i no l’ha perduda. Li seguí la Dinastia Song del Sud, caracteritzada per un estil líric de pintures monocromes amb cops de pinzell forts com de destral. Mestres de l’Escola Ma/Xia: Ma Yuan, Xia Gui, Mu Qi, Liang Kai. Per expressar-lo succintament vejam que va dir el crític James Cahill:
The Sung dynasty saw two important developments: the rise of an educated elite bureaucracy (scholar literati), and the dominance of landscape painting over figure painting. With these developments came a preference for the use of nature for artistic expression rather than the earlier, more literal, realistic rendering of landscape. By the late Yüan dynasty, painting was viewed as an individual artist's effort to "write" his ideas in pictorial compositions <2.7>.

El format és majorment una composició vertical sobre seda o paper que un cop acabada es muntarà sobre un suport de paper amb uns acabats de seda. La perspectiva de lectura es veurà com una cosa unitària que és simultàniament múltiple: la ‘lectura’ es fa d’allò proper a allò distant. Per cloure, l’últim tret que destacarem el devem a Zhao-Mengfu, va seguir a la cort a Pekín amb els Yuan.
Il devient le peintre officiel de la cour et invente une nouvelle forme de peinture de lettrés, donc sans aspect commercial: Accumulation d'éléments évoquant des peintures plus anciennes, les inscriptions expliquant la manière dont l'oeuvre a été réalisée, la référence de son bénéficiaire, commentaire des propriétaires ... envahissent la toile, les cachets de cire identifient l'artiste et les propriétaires successifs <2.8>.

2.4. La tradició de la crítica en la pintura de paisatge.
Aquest apartat ens presenta uns principis estètics per entendre la creació artística. La natura és també la reinterpretació d’un gènere, és a dir, un corpus, un passat. Per dir-ho clarament en perspectiva xinesa: ‘el que no té tradició –vora dos mil·lenis i mig- no tindrà futur’. Tot artista fa una imitatio del passat i la reinterpreta per projectar-la al futur.
Amb un passat sòlid, l’art de la pintura va arribar d’un món religiós a un context civil. Dels frescos budistes, d’un paisatge que a gongbi a les pintures Song. Però el context de cada moment ja ha canviat. Fent el mateix, pintar, seguir models, incloure poseia a la pintura, ben bé era una altra cosa com queda clar en el text. Que es manté?
En primer lloc destacar que el valor de l’original es perpetua en la còpia, donat que aquesta transmet una interpretació de la natura, igualment que l’original. Recordem les moltes còpies de l’obra Viatgers entre muntanyes i cascades de Fan Kuan; i la tasca de descobrir l’original al Museu de Taipei!
Després el gènere va ser englobat en cinc estils: courtesà (Zhoa Boju); monumental (Fan Kuan, Li Cheng); literal (Emperor Hui Zong); líric (Ma Yuan, Xia Gui); i espontani (Mu Qi, Liang Kai).

D’una banda està la pràctica, i d’altra la teorització sobre l’art. Per a les properes generacions tenim tots dos tipus d’obres. Ara parlarem de tres crítics ben influents: Jing Hao, Dong Qichang i Shi Tao.
Amb la seua enumeració i explicació Jing Hao va independitzar el génere del paisatge a la màxima categoria, practicant panorames amb vistes impresionants. Li Zehou ens deixa aquesta frase: “It is not however until I had made thousand of sketches that I achieved a true likeness” –iron selfcontrol! Organizó el paisaje por medio de la aplicación de distancias (yuan –perspectivas) com hem llegit als materials.
Coneixem el qi. A banda de l’esmentat als materials Xie He (siglo V a. C. amb la seua idea qi-yun, shen dong) Jing Hao va escriure unes Anotacions sobre el mètode (Bifa ji). En ella servint-se d’un diáleg imaginari amb un vell pagès, reflexiona sobre el significat de la pintura i cal·ligrafía, exposant els "6 Essencials". Al qi i yun afegia:
Si: Se refiere a la intención del pintor. Define los aspectos compositivos: proporción, estructura... conseguidos por medio de la pincelada y sus categorías. Jing: expresar los cambios en la naturaleza en su aspecto anímico, que conduzcan al espectador a una comunión espiritual con el artista <2.9>.

Dong Qichang (1555-1636) va ser a més pintor i cal·ligraf. Va categoritzar els artistes en dues escoles "Nord i Sud", basant-se en si eren artesans professionals o lletrats. Va ser capdavanter de l’escola “ortodoxa” dels Ming on calia seguir els mestres antics per aconseguir un bon resultat amb el resultat de conservar el pasat i també tendir a negar innovacions en format i composició.
Shi Tao (1617-1717) també conegut com TaoChi, va seguir en la pintura els princiupis de Guo Xi: ‘comprendre les forces secretes del cel i la terra’ investigant i renovant amb el seu coetàni Zhu Da. La seua tècnica es va basar en els traços de la ‘pinzellada primera’ on volia mostrar com la natura en la sua virtualitat revela a l’home la propia natura, permitint-le superar-se [imatge 4]. En Hua Yulu (Quotes on Painting) potser va ser el llibre estàndard al seu temps va escriure com l’artista ha de ser ú amb el universe:
The painter is guided by his heart and the mountains and reivers ask me to speak for them ... They have given me ideas that i must turn into form . <2.10>

3. La presència humana en el paisatge oriental.
3.1. La persona i el context en Xina i Japó
L'ésser humà apareix sovint en els quadros, però perfectament integrat en el paisatge, com un element més en connexió i com a reflex d'altres àmbits. En la part que ens ocupa ara, com una presència gairebé imperceptible, com una mirada que contempla i que circula pel paisatge tal com ho fan els núvols o l'aigua. Ollé ho expressa aixi:
Insignificant en si mateix, el cos humà es mostra en la tradició pictòrica del paisatgisme xinès perfectament fos en les valls boiroses que encarnen el dinasmisme entre la buidor i la plenitud, entre el moviment i la quietut. Apareix perfectament integrat en els paisatges en moviment que permeten contemplar les transformacions de les diferents polaritats que dinamitzen l'energia primordial (qi) que conforma el paisatge viu de la natura. <3.1>

Una de les característiques d’expressar el concepte Taoista de la unitat del món com una entitat viva i conscient és la d’integrar la persona humana dins de les composicions [imatge 3]. D’una banda tenim la riquesa espectacular de la natura, que domina sobre tots els elements, després la representació seguint uns patrons de composició. La tècnica pictòrica ha anat evolucionant i ha creat un seguit d’escoles com hem vist.
Ara presentarem una breu visió de la Xina i el Japó. Ho farem en etapes, seguint Li Zehou: L’absència de Self amb la posterior incorporació de noves formes i motius estètics i la presència de Self. Els nous plantejaments del Buddhisme Chan va ser el factor subjectiu que va permetre la formulació dels nous principis estètics en aquests dos segles.
El context d’apreci del paisatge va ocorrer dins d’un món artítstic dominat per uns parametres taoistes on els guerrers van quedar postergats als lletrats, a diferència del Japó. L’acceptació del neoconfucianisme va portar a un estil propi del retat realista a la cort amb un paisatges més interpretatius als amateurs.
Dins del món japonès el context d’apreci del paisatge va ocorrer amb una casta de guerrers al davant de la societat: perídoe Kamakura. La doctrina Zen va ser simple i directa i l’acceptació dels samurais del Shogunat va ser immediata.
the Japanese compulsion to compete with oneself - a compulsion which turns every craft and skill into a marathon of self-discipline. Although the attraction of Zen lay in the possibility of liberation from self-consciousness, the Japanese version of Zen fought fire with fire, overcoming the "self-observing the self" by bringing it to an intensity in which it exploded <3.2>

3.2. Dins del món xinès: L’absència de Self
Comencem per el que s’ha dit “Absència de Self”. En l’obra de Guo Xi destaquem la seua reflexió en Linquan Gaozhi: “some hills and streams are for passing thru, some to be viewed; some are to tour and enjoy; some to live in” (p. 186) on la imaginació ha de seguir aqeusta multi-perspectiva que aconsegueix un efecte emocional produida per una concepció artística completa i perdurant. Així la recepció en l’observador serà més lliure i la relació bucòlica entre la humanitat i la natura mostra en tota la seua amplitud plaer i joia.

La demanda per una tendència cap un treball més poètic dels ‘literati’ dels Song del Sud es va poder veure en els treballs de l’instaurada Acadèmia de Pintura. Expressar un poema en un quadre suposava passar del verbal al no verbal, i donat que la llengua xinesa mostragran vaguetat. Els resultats van explicitar un fervor més estètic on la presència humana va quedar més subtilment retratada <3.3>.
En aquests moments, les composicions fragmentaries, l’ús dels angles per emfatitzar allò concret amb grans espais de bellesa més abstracta, amb espais en blanc més madurs en el seu significat [imatge 2]. El començar de la primavera (1072) es l’única pintura que ens ha arribat de Guo Xi.
En ella se estremece el espíritu renovador de la naturaleza que se produce tras el reposo del invierno. Las formas que dan vida a las montañas constatan el movimiento y el sentido de transformación, mientras que las aguas invaden pacíficamente los valles donde el hombre disfruta de paseos en barca, formando parte de un universo en mutación <3.4>.

Aquests detalls van fer els paisatges més universals i les emocions més riques i nítides. Li Zehou escriu: Seeking spiritual ressemblance though formal resemblance and expressing the infinite (poetic sentiments) by means of the finite (the limits of a painting) increasingly became the aestheics criteria of al Chinese Art <3.5>

3.3. La progressió Song>Yuan. La presència de Self.
Amb la nova dinastia l’Acadèmia va perdre referència en els pintors i el nou centre es va desplaçar als wenrenhua. Els nous grans artistes van portar l’equilibri entre els valors poètics de la natura cap els elements espiritual i subjectiu. Pocs d’aqeusts artistes van pintar objectes. Ni Lunyin podia reflexionar sobre el qi: ‘Pinte bambú només per mostrar que el meu cor està allí; perquè hauria de preocupar-me si s’assembla de veritat’. La bellesa és independent de l’objecte. A més, l’emfasi formal va ser en bi i mo de tal manera que les línies i colors podíen comunicar l’esperit del pintor. El joc d’expressar el mo (self) de l’artista en un paisatge per mig dels elements a la seua disposició per revelar el xing (cor-ment) més intrínsec <3.6>.
Amb els Yuan l’art de la línia va arribar al zènit. D’aquesta unió va unir-se la cal·ligrafia al quadre –el tret més representatiu de l’art xinès i una contribució única en la història de l’art. l’ideal de tres arts en una perdura encara.
Recordem que les inscripcions corresponien a una línea en els Song. Ara van arribar a 10 línies i s’integrava en la qualitat estètica amb una vessant d’encant literari amb més significat i elegància. El segell vermell va afegir una marca indeleble de prestigi com hem vist suara.
Alliberats de no plasmar els objectes naturals van poder navegar sobre l’altra direcció: quan més simple, millor. Els espais en blanc van guanyar expressivitat, els colors s’aconseguien amb la riquesa de la tinta, el domini de la línia, el treball del pinzell xieyi i l’ús dels punts.
3.4. La presència humana en el paisatge oriental.
Sobre la presència humana en el quadre tenim doncs tres mostres: intuïda per edificis, barques –petits-, accions en el devenir del quadre de figures minúscules, o el savi allunyat del món material i mundà inspirant-se en communió amb la natura. Ned Denny ho escriu amb sensibilitat:
(…). One of the classic images of Chinese painting has a poet or scholar lost in contemplation of one of these lucid, bristling trees, its darkly tenacious branches seeming to open up a fissure in the sky. True knowledge, it seems to say, comes with vision. More often, though, the human presence in a Chinese landscape is limited to barely discernible, antlike figures or the unexpected geometry of houses among pines. These latter contrast peculiarly with the landscape that dwarfs them, their crystalline regularity forming vantage points from which it can be viewed. <3.7>
Donaré nou exemples de quadres que m’han agradat mostrant aquests tres opcions.
A. intuïda
a.1. Capvespre en un poblat de peixcadors de Mu Qi (Museu Nezu, Tokio). Les 4 cabanes I les dues barques són insinuades entre la vegetació I l’aigua respetivament. Les muntanyes al fons no són majestuoses però accentuen l’espiritualitat amb el joc de tintes i pinzell.
a.2. Residència en les muntanyes de Fuchun de Huang Wongwang (1350). Amb una subtil variació de traços, mostra un paisatge equilibrat amb les construccions entre la poca vegetació central. Amples espais on l’espectador pot perdre’s dintre el quadre.
a.3. Paisatge d’hivern de Seshu(Museu de Tokio). El dibuix de la tinta amb detalls quasi elèctrics i expressionisme abstracte deixa veure un edifici al peu d’una majestuosa superficie plana.
a.4. Paisatge de muntanya Jinting a la manera de Huang Gongwan de Shi Tao (1630-1717) (Museu Guimet) - [imatge 4]. La perfecta harmonia de la composició deixa veure un espai habitat a la part inferior al centre anb uns jocs de tinta que deixen clar el maneig del pinzell molt equilibrat i amb força expressiva.

B. minúscules
b.1. El començar de la primavera de Guo Xi (Museu Taichung, Taiwan). Les aigües ocupen les valls, elements receptors, on una petíta barca apunta a dos figures fent un tranquil passeig.
b.2. Primavera en el bosc de Shen Zhou (1470-1524) (Museu del Palau Imperia, Beijing) Com la famosa obra de Fan Kuan, amb grans espais de la vall, amb muntanyes suaus, i
b.3. Lletrats observant la lluna i la seua reflexió en l’aigua de Chen Quan (Segle XVII) (Collection Nicholas Cahill) [imatge 3]. El contrast de les petites i múltiples figures en un mar de color per represntar el fons i el llac ens porta a una pau interna amb facilitat.

c) persona solitària
c.1. Passeig per un sender de muntanya en primavera de Ma Yuan (Museu Taichung, Taiwan) [imatge 2]. Aqeust famós quadre sembla l’epítom de l’‘angle Ma’ en quant a composició i mirada serena del savi en perfecte contrast amb l’entorn i cap un endavant que ja no vem
c.2. Breu descans a l’ombra d’un pi de Wu Wei (1459-1508). Ara són els pescadors que tenen una presència important en el quadre dibuixats amb soltura i traç volat a l’ombra d’un pi amb una línia molt caligràfica en contrast amb els tons suaus de la figura difuminada de les muntanyes.


4. La figura excepcional d’un pintor de tradició: Sesshu Toyo
4.1. Sensibilitat Chan/Zen
Recordem de l’assignatura de Pensament que els vells mestres Chan van entrar a coneixer profundament les fonts Taoistes. La natura va ser assimilada dins el Tao de la natura. I l’acceptació de les coses com eren sense caler justificar. Aquesta naturalitat va quallar perfectament amb la sensibilitat japonesa. Era el que Alan Watts va expressar: el seu tarannà era wu-shih (res especial, ‘no fuss’). El Chan–Zen ensenyava qeu només podiem trobar a Buddha en la nostra interioritat i després aquesta unitat es manifestava en l’univers: l’ú en el tot, i viceversa. La sensibilidad per la bellesa tenia a veure amb la forma interior. L’objecte tenia que entrar en resonància amb el cor o esperit.
Certain arts were inspired by the Zen apprehension of spiritual identity of all things, by an appreciation of direct, intuitive perception, and aesthetic standards which stressed subtlety, allusiveness and restraint. The tea ceremony and its related arts, monochrome landscape painting, and garden architecture were especially favored by Zen artists and patrons. <4.1>
Com va expresar Cheng, l’oposició de ple i buit, negres i blancs, es fundadora de l’estètica japonesa. El buit és “signe parmi les signes, assurant au système pictural son efficacité et son unité. (...) Ressort de toutes choses, le vide intervient à l'intérieur même du plein, en y insufflant les souffles vitaux”. ´És aquesta l’essència de l’art oriental entre el que hi ha i el que és dibuixa més enllà. Com Denny va escriure:
the forms of the landscape seem to be slipping in and out of a bareness that might be mist and cloud, but is also both the primal void and merely areas of untouched paper or canvas. And these blank areas have as much intensity and inner life as the landscape's visible features <4.2>.

La situació cultural va permetre adorar els productes xinesos. D’alguan manera la valoració del pasta en Xina havia portat a deixar de valorar aquesta pintura, dita zen, que va tenir tant de ressó en Japó. El recuperar l’alé d’aqeusts grans mestres en la tècnica i l’expressió implicava que esdevenir artista era una ardua tasca. Per llegir amb profit tenim aquest petit fragment:
When they ordered paintings by Japanese painters, they would ask for them in the style of famous Chinese painters who were popular in Japan. Besides Xia jGui and Mu Xi, such Chinese painters included Ma Yuan, Sun Junze, Yu Jian and others. Thus in order to fill all their orders, Japanese painters of the Muromachi Period had to master the styles of as many major Chinese painters as possible! <4.4>
Mestres Japanesos del període Ashikaga Shubun (c.1390-1464), Sesshu (1420-1506) i Sesson (c.1504-1589), que van emprar els estils shin (ús de cops de pinzell rapid, aguts i angulars derivats de la tradició Ma/Xia) o haboku o hatsu-boku ("tinta volada" ús de pinzellades suaus, humides I explosives).

4.2 La recerca en el passat de Sesshu Toyo un viatge sense futur.

El procès d’aprenentatge el va fer dins de la disciplina del monestir. El seu mestre artístic va ser Shubun amb qui compartí monestir. Shubun va assimilar el joc de la composició dels mestres Song del Sud i va quallar en l’estètica de la cort. Sesshu arribar a una edat mitjana amb l’estada d’un any a la Xina en el 1468 gràcies al mecenatge de la família Ouchi. Va arribar al sud i anà fins a Pekin. Va buscar bons mestres i no en trobà. L’Acadèmia mostrava la seua vessant conservadora i una apreciació en diversa sintonia a la de Sesshu. Durant tota la vida va pintar escenes paisatgístiques combinant diversos estils, amb un dominant, amb sequències de les quatre estacions on condensa la grandesa de la natura. Com escriu Garcia Gutierrez ‘La pincelada de Sesshu es natural y espontànea. Parece como si su misma angre fuese tinta; todo lo que toca lo vuelve pintura’ en elogioses paraules d’un crític de l’època (pàg. 296). El domini tècnic dels darrers anys va plasmar uns paisatges hatsu-boku amb brillant execució seguint la tradició de Yu-chien, pintor Song del Sud. La perfecció tècnica i la potent expressivitat personal amb una construcció plàstica molt acurada va superar l’art de Josetsu, el seu precursor. Amb tots tres artistes l’entorn Zen va expandir-se a la societat japonesa exposada al fi lirisme d’una expressió molt personal. Els seguidor de seshu van donar peu a una no-oficial escola sesshu-ha.
Sobre els seus paisatges hatsu-boku la presència humana són mers traços: dues teulades i una línia mínima per mostrar una barca incrustats en un espai de tinta creant la vegetació i el blanc de l’aigua. En el famós paisatge panoràmic Vista de Ama-no-hashidate, pintat l’any de la seua mort, són les teulades vermelles les que dónen un respir habitat en un espai solemne i harmoniós.
El retrat de persones va ser també una habilitat en Sesshu. L’obra de Liang Kai El poeta Li T’ai-po ja assenyala la seua obra retratística de monjo Zen amb la màxima expressió d’un traç de tinta quasi cal·ligràfic. La seua composició Hui k’o tallant-se el braç continuà la tradició de transmetre una visió personal. La pintura zen neix de la meditació. També ell va donar pas a un jove deixeble, que li va regalar un autoretrat, ‘regal de separació’, i a un altre una inscripció sobre un ‘Pisatge a tinta’. El mestre va inscriure: “et moi. alors que dejà ma vue s’obscurcit et que j’ai atteint un âge avancé, j’ignore toujours lepourquoi et le comment de mon ouvrage’ (Linhartovà, pàg. 171). Comptat i debatut, va poder afegir que com únic consell de no anar a la Xina i seguir les vies plàstiques obertes pels pintors japonesos.



Referències i material bibliogràfic per elaborar la pac 3:
Texts llegits
Cervera,Isabel El arte chino-vol. 23 i 37 d’Historia del Arte, Historia 16
Garcia Gutierrez, F. Summa Artis Encyclopaedia vol. XXI (Japón), pages 213-15
Maillard, Chantal La sabiduria como estética china: confucianismo, taoismo i budismo, ed. Akal, 2000
Linhartova, V. Sur un fond blanc Gallimard, Paris, 1996
Nitschke, Gunter: From Shinto to Ando : Studies in Architectural Anthropology in Japan
Academy Editions (UK), (1996)
Zehou, Li The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics (Oxford in Asia Paperbacks) , 1995 [1981]
Articles:
Cheng, François (1993; 1979). Vacío y plenitud. Madrid: Ediciones Siruela (pp. 113-115).
Gª Gutierrez, F. (1990). “La concepción china y japonesa de la naturaleza en el arte” (pp.51-55) en Japón y Occidente. Influencias recíprocas en el arte. Sevilla: Ediciones Guadalquivir.
Ollé, Manel Cos i cosmos. Dinou aproximacions al cos xinès Revista de Catalunya, núm. 112 pàgs. 57-75
Zehou, Li The path of Beauty. A study of Chinese Aesthetics, Oxford in Asia Paperbacks, 1995

Notes al text.
<1> Al nostre món romànic, també les parules amaguen una història que moltes vegades no s’arriba a veure. Considerem “cordial” i “coratge” que tenen a l’interior “cor” –total entrega.
<2.1> Manel Ollé Cos i cosmos. (pàg. 61)
<2.2> Summa Artis, pàg. 28.
<2.3> Editor de la John B. Elliot Collection. http://www.asianart.com/books/reviews/embodied_image.shtml
<2.4> http://www.sinorama.com.tw/Millennium/en/Millennium-en-09.2.html
<2.5> http://www.temakel.com/trachinanaturaleza.htm
<2.6> http://www.cndp.fr/tice/teledoc/dossiers/dossier_vague.htm
<2.7> http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibits/masterworks/info_2.html
<2.8> http://perso.wanadoo.fr/fatthalin/louvre/histoire_art/chine_japon/chine3.html
<2.9> http://www.temakel.com/trachinanaturaleza.htm
<2.10> Li Zehou Op. cit. pàg. 231
<3.1> Manel Ollé Cos i cosmos (pàg. 68)
<3.2> http://home.earthlink.net/~pkrczr/watts.htm
<3.3> Els dos exemples de Li Zehou són: ‘a boatman taking a nap; beside him is a short flute’ i ‘merely painted a sign with the character wine in front of a bamboo grove at he head of the bridge to signify that the shop lay behind it’ (pàg. 191).
<3.4> Cervera Op. cit. pàg. 110
<3.5> Li Zehou Op. cit. pàg. 194.
<3.6> Wong, Wucius. The Tao of Chinese Landscape Painting, Principles & Methods. New York: Design Press. 1991.]
http://www.noteaccess.com/Texts/Wong/WongTP.htm
<3.7> Denny, N. Taoist visions New Stateman 10 /02/2003 http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4624_132/ai_98055358/print
<4.1.> www.pitt.edu/~asian/week-12/week-12.2.html - 10k
<4.2> Denny, N. Taoist visions New Stateman 10/02/2003
http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4624_132/ai_98055358/print
<4.3> François Cheng, Vide et plein : le langage pictural chinois.També en l’architectura: Tadao Ando, ha consacrat la seua creació amb uns espais específics buits per aconseguir la meditació, font de força creadora.
<4.4> www.kyohaku.go.jp/eng/dictio/data/kaiga/egaki.htm . Per un preciòs detall sobre com pintaven tenim el diari del monjo Oguri Sokei del mateix període.

images

imatge 1. Muntanya Lushan de Jing Hao.
imatge 2. Passeig per un sender de muntanya en primavera de Ma Yuan (Museu Taichung, Taiwan).

imatge 3
imatge4. Paisatge de muntanya a la manera de Huang Gongwan de Shi Tao (1630-1717) (Museu Guimet) -