著者

尼ケ崎 彬

出版者

美学会

雑誌

美學 (ISSN:05200962)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.31, no.4, pp.24-36, 1981-03-31

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According to Chinese traditional ontology, the universe was not created, but generated itself spontaneously. In the beginning, there rose from nothigness ch'i 氣-generative ether or life force-, which grew into forms and qualities, then developped into beings of all kinds. Ching Hao divided paintings into four classes, i.e. divine, excellent, eccentric and exquisite. He regarded the divine as the work of ch'i, and the rests as the work of man. At that time, painters were supposed to represent objects with 'resemblance'. In the opinion of Ching Hao, however, what matters is 'truth', not 'resemblance'. To see the truth of the object is to know the form and quality of it, that is, the way ch'i has generated it. Ssu 思-intuition and imagination-is indispensable for seeing the truth of the object and for imagining how the figure should be. As the painter endeavours to crystallize the image with ssu, the moment will come when a ch'i begins to operate at the tip of the brush. Just as ch'i generated the object with its form and quality, pi 筆-brush movement-generates a figure with the same form and quality as the object has. Pi is motivated by ssu, but led by the spontaneous force of ch'i. This correlation among ch'i, ssu and pi makes up the secret of divine works.