The emperor turns to reject his wife.
The verse in the illustration above reads:
No one can please forever; / Affection cannot be for one alone; / If it be so, it will end in disgust. / When love has reached its highest pitch, it changes its object; / For whatever has reached fullness must decline. / This law is absolute. / The ‘beautiful wife who knew herself to be beautiful’ / Was soon hated. / If by a mincing air you seek to please, / Wise men will abhor you. / From this cause truly comes / The breaking of favour’s bond.
39
Painting, from China
AD 500–800
After banqueting and gay sex in the early Roman Empire, smoking and ceremony in North America, ball games and belief in Mexico, we come to another kind of elaborate social pleasure – looking at painting. Specifically I want to look at a masterpiece of painting from China, in the form of a scroll, based on an original painted around the years AD 400 or 500. It embraces three separate art forms, in China known lyrically as ‘the three perfections’: painting, poetry and calligraphy. As a handscroll it was made to be viewed with selected friends, and as a fine work of art it was cherished by emperors over hundreds of years. It’s known as The Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies, or the Admonitions Scroll, for short, and it’s a form of ancient guide to manners, and above all to morals, for ladies of the Chinese court – it tells powerful women how to behave.
A common theme which has emerged from the objects I have described in the previous few chapters has been the changing view of what constitutes an acceptable pleasure. At different times in world history spice has turned into vice – or vice versa. But enjoying a work of art like the Admonitions Scroll has always been entirely acceptable, and the scroll itself carries the record of those who, through the centuries, have been lucky enough to look at it and enjoy it.
The scroll is cared for in the specially built East Asian painting conservation studio at the British Museum, where the entire painting can be laid out – it’s about 3.5 metres (11 feet) long. Its creation brought together artists of different periods, and since it was completed it has been continually cherished. The starting point was a long poem written by the courtier Zhang Hua in AD 292. About a century later, around the year 400, a famous painting – now believed to be lost – incorporated the poem. The Admonitions Scrollwas probably completed 200 years or so after that, but it faithfully copied and captured the spirit of the original great painting, indeed there are some who think that this may be the original painting itself. Whatever its precise status, this scroll is one of the most celebrated examples of early Chinese painting to have come down to us.
About half of the scroll is made up of painted scenes, each one divided from the next by lines from the poem. As the scroll was slowly unrolled, you would have read the poem and been able to see only one scene at a time; that sense of unfolding is a key part of the pleasure. One frame shows a disturbing episode. A beautiful and seductive woman of the court harem is approaching the emperor. The billowing robes and red ribbons that she’s wearing accentuate her movement as she flutters coquettishly towards him. But, as we look more closely, we can see that she’s actually faltering: she’s just been brought up short by the emperor’s outstretched arm and hand, raised in an uncompromising gesture of rejection. The emperor is above fleshly desire. Her body twists as she abruptly begins to turn away, and on her face is the expression of a shocked, thwarted vanity.
When Zhang Hua wrote the poem in AD 292, China was in a state of fragmentation following the collapse of the Han Empire. Competing forces jostled for supremacy, constantly threatening to dethrone the emperor. The emperor himself was mentally deficient, so his wife, Empress Jia, had a great deal of power, which she spectacularly misused. According to a written history of the time, Zhang Hua, who was a minister at court, was increasingly horrified by the way the empress and her clan were usurping the authority of her husband; she was jeopardizing the stability of the dynasty and of the state by murder, intrigue and riotous sexual affairs. Zhang Hua wrote the poem ostensibly to educate all the women of the court, but his real target was the empress herself. He hoped through the inspiring and beautiful medium of poetry that he would be able to lead his wayward ruler to a life of moral correctness, restraint and decorum:
Keep an eager guard over your behaviour;
For thence happiness will come.
Fulfil your duties calmly and respectfully;
Thus shall you win glory and honour.
The painting that illustrates this poem also has a high moral purpose. Although the lessons are for women, they can also speak to men. When the emperor refuses to be seduced by his vain wife he sets an example of male judgement and strength. Dr Shane McCausland, a leading expert on early Chinese painting, has studied the Admonitions Scroll in detail:
It’s about positive criticism. The artist is not trying to tell people what not to do, but to tell them how to do something better. Each of the scenes describes ways in which ladies of the court could improve their conduct, their behaviour, their character. Admonition is really about learning, improving yourself; but in order to do that, if your audience is very jaded, you need to inject quite a lot of wit and humour into it. That’s exactly what this artist has done. It bears very closely on kingship, on the tradition of statecraft, of principled government. It’s an insightful portrayal of the human interactions which go into governing.
Unfortunately, Empress Jia was impervious to the poem’s moral message and carried on with her scandalous sexual exploits and her murderous activities. Some of her ruthlessness may have been warranted, since there were rebels stirring up civil war, and ultimately in AD 300 there was a successful coup. The empress was captured and forced to commit suicide.
A hundred years later, around the year 400, the court was beset by the same problems. One day the emperor Xiaowudi observed to his favourite consort, ‘Now that you are 30 years old, it’s time I exchanged you for somebody younger.’ He meant it as a joke; but she didn’t take it well, and she murdered him that evening. The court was scandalized. It was obviously time to remind everybody how to behave by republicizing Zhang Hua’s poem in a scroll painted by the greatest artist of the day, Gu Kaizhi. The resulting masterpiece is the Admonitions Scroll. Dr Jan Stuart, Keeper of the Department of Asia here at the British Museum, is very familiar with this painting and its purpose:
The scroll fits into a tradition of didactic imagery established in the Han Dynasty and influenced by the great philosopher Confucius. When you read the text alongside the images, you realize that there’s a deep message being communicated. Confucius had the idea that everyone in society has a proper role and place, and if they follow that then a very healthy and effective society is ensured. That message must have been especially important at the time the poem that this scroll is based on was written. The message is that the woman, even one with great beauty, must always evince humility, must always abide by rules, and never forget her position in relationship to her husband and family; by doing so, she is a positive and active force in promoting social order.
In the Admonitions Scroll we find that a lady ought never to exploit the manners or weaknesses of her man. The only time that a lady should put herself before the emperor is to protect him from danger. Another scene in the scroll illustrates a real event, when a ferocious black bear escaped from its enclosure during a show put on for the emperor and the ladies of his harem. In this particular scene we first see two harem ladies running away from the wild beast and looking back in horror. We next see the emperor seated, frozen with shock, and in front of him the valiant lady who has not run away but has rushed to place herself between the emperor and the bear, which is leaping at her, snarling fiercely. But the emperor is safe. This, the picture tells us, is the kind of self-sacrifice we need and expect from our great ladies.
A lady rushes to save the emperor from a ferocious bear
This scroll became the prized possession of many emperors, who may have found it to be a useful aid in subduing troublesome wives and mistresses but who also admired its sheer beauty and used the act of collecting this precious masterpiece as a way of showing just how culturally astute and powerful they were. We know exactly whose courts it was viewed in, because each imperial ruler has left their mark on it, in the form of a stamp carefully placed in the blank spaces around the paintings and the calligraphy. Some of the previous owners have also added their own comments to the scroll. This brings a kind of pleasure you can never find looking at European painting: the sense that you are sharing your delight with people from centuries past, that you are now joining a community of discerning art lovers who have cherished this painting over centuries. For example, the eighteenth-century Qianlong emperor – a contemporary of George III – sums up his appreciation of the scroll:
Gu Kaizhi’s picture of the Admonitions of the Instructress, with text. Authentic relic. A treasure of divine quality belonging to the Inner Palace.
It was such a treasured relic that only very small audiences would ever have been given access to it. That’s true now as well, but for a different reason: the silk that it is painted on suffers greatly if exposed to light, so it is too delicate to be put on display except very rarely. But, although we’re not allowed to put our own stamp on it to record our delight, thanks to modern reproductive technology we can all join the Qianlong emperor and the other people who through the decades have so enjoyed gazing at theAdmonitions Scroll. Thanks to the internet, the private pleasure of the Chinese imperial court has become universal.