11.  Secular Painting of the Eastern Jin

Eastern Jin dynasty 东晋 (317-420).

Concept: gender

Objects

•  Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove, stamped bricks at tomb near Nanjing, Eastern Jin.   Overall length of tomb 7'10” (fig. 5-26)

•  Gu Kaizhi's Nymph of the Luo River, Eastern Jin.   Handscroll, ink, pigment, silk; 10 1/2” x 18'9” (fig. 5-28)

•  Filial Yuan Gu from Nelson Sarcophagus, Northern Wei (525 CE).   Engraved stone, height” 24 1/2” (fig. 5-29)

•  Lady Ban, detail from lacquer screen, Northern Wei.  Tomb of Sima Jinlong, Datong, Shanxi (fig. 5-27)

•  Gu Kaizhi's Admonitions of the Court Instructress, Eastern Jin (Tang-period copy). Handscroll, ink, pigment on silk; 9 3/4 x 11'4 1/2 in. (25 cm x 3.45 m) (fig. 5-25)

Texts

a) The “Six Laws” (liufa 六法 ) of Xie He 谢赫 , written after 532, in the Classification of Ancient Painters (Guhua pinlu 古画品录)

b) Xie He's comments on Gu Kaizhi 顾恺之 :

(He places Gu in the third class of painters).   “His investigation of form was refined and subtle, and he never used his brush haphazardly.   But his brushwork did not come up to his ideas, and his fame exceeds reality.”

c) Interpretation of a rhapsody called “Nymph of the Luo River” (Luo shen fu 洛神赋) by Cao Zhi 曹植 (192-232), written around 223 CE. The poem describes the poet's journey home from the capital, and a beautiful nymph who miraculously appears to him at the banks of the Luo River.   In the poem, the nymph is described:

Her body soars lightly like a startled swan,

Gracefully, like a dragon in flight,

In splendor brighter than the autumn chrysanthemum,

In bloom more flourishing than the pine in spring;

Slim as the moon mantled in filmy clouds,

Restless as snow whirled by the driving wind…