Firecrackers, lion dances and fancy dinners are not the only ways in which the Chinese people celebrate their Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival. A long, but gradually disappearing tradition is to paste red "spring couplets (chunlian)" on the doorposts of their homes.
The spring couplet tradition, which can be traced back to the 10th century, is a wonderful union of literature and calligraphy.
A unique form of literary composition evolved from the antithetical couplets of regulated verse in ancient Chinese poetry, spring couplets consist of two parallel sentences with strict rules guiding the number of characters, the structure of the lines, the syntax and tonal inflections.
With poetic (and often auspicious) lines written in stylish calligraphy on festive red paper, spring couplets serve both as a beautiful decoration and a talisman to bring another year of happiness and prosperity to the families whose doors they grace.
But these Chinese Lunar New Year couplets represent only the origin and a limited part of the tradition of Chinese couplets, which has witnessed many new developments, in terms of their meaning and functions, over the past millennium.
A most remarkable change is that, from some time around the 17th century, spring couplets stepped beyond their folk origins to become a highly specialized art form with a vigour that has continued to this day. Calligraphic couplets written by artists, calligraphers, scholars and celebrities are highly prized in China and are often displayed on prominent walls in people's studies, sitting rooms and in art galleries and museums.
Art lovers in Hawaii are lucky. After experiencing the excitement of celebrating the 2004 Chinese Spring Festival (January 22-February 5), the islanders, many of them Chinese and many of them with a deep interest in China, have another opportunity to continue the festive and informative fun and learn more about traditional Chinese culture.
Couplets show
The Honolulu Academy of Arts, one of the most prestigious art museums in the United States and well known around the world for its collections and exhibitions of Asian art, presents an exhibition featuring 83 pairs of Chinese calligraphic couplets by leading artists and calligraphers of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
The exhibition, which is entitled "Double Beauty: Qing Dynasty Couplets from the Lechangzai Xuan Collection," opened on February 5 and will run until March 21 at the Henry R. Luce Gallery in the art museum. The exhibit is one of the most comprehensive displays of such works ever to be presented in Hawaii.
"The Lechangzai Xuan (Studio of Permanent Happiness) Collection is one of the largest of its kind in private hands. It belongs to Harold Wong, whose father Wong Pao Hsie started the collection in the early 20th century, and Harold Wong has added significantly to it over the years," remarked Julia White, Curator of Asian Art at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. She added that the collection is on loan to the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which has organized the exhibition in Honolulu based on a showing at the University Art Museum in Hong Kong in 2003.
"The examples in this exhibition are accurately and sensitively translated, and the beauty of word and poetic images comes through radiantly. The title 'Double Beauty' refers both to the parallel, antithetical lines of the couplets and also to their literary and aesthetic value," White told China Daily.
Visitors who do not read Chinese will be first struck by the spectacular formal and visual beauty of the couplets, which escapes the bonds of words.
"In the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the literati and calligraphers began to write couplets on paper or silk to be hung indoors, and by the Qing Dynasty, they had become so fashionable that few calligraphers had not at least dabbled in the form," according to Harold Mok, an associate professor at the Department of Fine Arts, in the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
"Instead of being mounted as scrolls or in albums, or in any other form meant to be opened for pleasure only occasionally, couplets are always in the form of hanging scrolls designed specifically for display. The strict rules intrinsic to couplet composition make them the perfect genre for displaying one's learning, cultivation and personality," he writes.
Double Beauty
The main styles of calligraphy in this exhibition are standard, semi-cursive, cursive, clerical, and the seal scripts. These are the five basic styles of Chinese calligraphy, although generations of calligraphers have added different, personal touches and techniques to them.
One of the most important aspects of Qing period calligraphy is its revival of seal and clerical scripts. Part of the reason is the 19th century discovery of ancient stelae that utilized the two scripts. The stelae provided wonderful examples for Qing calligraphers to study the styles, which had steadily declined from their high status before the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907).
Among the eye-catching exhibits are couplets written by renowned calligraphers and scholars such as Wang Shu, Deng Shiru, He Shaoji, Wu Dacheng and Wu Changshuo in the seal script style. The exhibition also includes works by Wang Shimin, Jin Nong, Gui Fu, and Yi Bingshou who are excellent in clerical script.
The ancient seal script style was rarely practiced by calligraphers, because its unique character form was difficult to execute correctly without knowledge of paleography. But many of the exhibits are in this difficult style and are noticeable for the blend of impressive individuality and scholarly accuracy.
One of the interesting works is a couplet by Yuan Mei (1716-97), who was better known as a poet, literary critic and essayist than as a calligrapher. The couplet reads:
Thirsty for wine, I long to swallow the sea.
Crazed by poetry, I wish to ascend the heavens.
(Jiu ke si tun hai / Shi kuang yu shang tian)
Among the very few existing calligraphic works by Yuan in the seal script style, the work stands out for its "inimitable poetic style unbounded by rules," as Mok put it in commenting on Yuan's poetry.
Cursive script is generally regarded as the most expressive style of calligraphy, because of its creativity and vitality. But it is seldom used for writing couplets, perhaps because it's more difficult to maintain a balance between the parallel lines with this style.
But this was not an obstacle for Huang Shen (1687-1770), a member of the famous Eight Eccentrics of the Yangzhou School (Yangzhou Ba Guai), well-known in the history of Chinese ink painting. Most of the painters in the Yangzhou School were also excellent calligraphers.
A couplet by Huang in the highly personal cursive script is presented together with works by his peers in Yangzhou, including Zheng Xie (Zheng Banqiao), Jin Nong and Gao Fenghan. Huang's couplet reads:
Spring grass appears wistful.
White clouds share the same feeling.
(Qing cao ru you yi / Bai yun gong ci xin)
In style, Huang's couplet does not follow the convention of traditional cursive script, which stresses smoothness and roundness. Instead, the characters are imposing and alive, with a striking sense of rhythm created by the calligrapher's forceful execution, angular brushstrokes and the extraordinary structure of his characters. It is believed that Huang's use of space in the couplet might be a reflection of his use of space in his paintings, in Mok's view.
While enjoying the calligraphic beauty of the couplets, experienced Chinese viewers recite the rhythmic, poetic lines to themselves. As a natural result, they are saturated with the romance of both the poetry and the calligraphy.
That seems a little difficult for visitors who do not read Chinese. But never mind. In the exhibition, the excellent translations of most of the couplets enable visitors to share this pleasure. And, there are many more things for them to enjoy or think about.
Art and life
Experts such as Ronald Egan, a professor from the University of California at Santa Barbara, for instance, points out that viewers should be aware of the fact that a lot of the artists and calligraphers were actually political figures who played significant roles in Chinese history in the 18th and 19th centuries. Such politicians include Liu Yong, Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, Li Hongzhang and Kang Youwei. Obviously, it adds interest to know about how these calligraphic couplets were related to the lives of the people who created them.
"The great majority of the calligraphers represented in the Lechangzai Xuan Collection, as well as the recipients of their inscribed couplets, were members of the official bureaucracy in one capacity or another. The aesthetic values and pursuits that are so prominent in the couplets are a manifestation of these men's desire to foster an area of their life that was not sullied by officialdom," remarked Egan.
"We may say that the aestheticized life celebrated in so many couplets may appear to be dilettantish and shallow, concerned only with beauty and enjoyment. In fact, it is a vision of life that is imbued with principles and pride, which are, however, cloaked in unworldly pursuits."
Viewers who visit this exhibit will have a remarkable chance to share these men's inner aspirations.
(China Daily February 9, 2004)
