Gu Kaizhi (; c. 344–406),

courtesy name A courtesy name (), also known as a style name, is a name bestowed upon one at adulthood in addition to one's given name. This practice is a tradition in the East Asian cultural sphere, including China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.Ulrich Theo ...

Changkang (), was a Chinese painter and politician. He was a celebrated painter of ancient China.Cihai: Page 1846. He was born in

Wuxi Wuxi (, ) is a city in southern Jiangsu province, eastern China, by car to the northwest of downtown Shanghai, between Changzhou and Suzhou. In 2017 it had a population of 3,542,319, with 6,553,000 living in the entire prefecture-level city a ...

and first painted at

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Map Romanization, alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and t ...

in 364. In 366, he became an officer (Da Sima Canjun or Assistant to the Minister of Defense, 大司馬參軍). Later he was promoted to royal officer (Sanji Changshi or Gentleman in Waiting to the Emperor, 散騎常侍). He was also a talented poet and calligrapher. He wrote three books about painting theory: ''On Painting'' (), ''Introduction of Famous Paintings of Wei and Jin Dynasties'' () and ''Painting Yuntai Mountain'' (). He wrote: "In figure paintings the clothes and the appearances were not very important. The eyes were the spirit and the decisive factor."Cihai: Page 1846. Gu's art is known today through copies of several silk handscroll paintings attributed to him.

Biography

Gu Kaizhi was born in

(in modern

Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with it ...

) where his father served in the imperial secretariat as an assistant. At about nineteen he was employed as aide to the Grand Marshal Huan Wen. He held a succession of minor official posts under various leaders of the Eastern Jin court. One emperor under whom Gu Kaizhi served was Huan Xuan. An enthusiastic art collector, ahead of his accession Huan Xuan ordered a big boat to store paintings and other treasures so that they could be easily transported to safety in case of war. Gu Kaizhi entrusted to the emperor a sealed chest with his most precious works. The emperor broke open the box, stole the paintings, then repaired and returned it to the artist with the seals intact. Upon discovering his loss, Gu Kaizhi said that, "the marvelous works partook of divine power, transformed themselves and vanished, like men ascending to join the immortals."

Works

''The Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies'' (女史箴圖)

This painting, dated between the 6th and 8th century AD - probably an early

Tang Dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

copy - illustrates nine stories from a political satire about

Empress Jia Nanfeng Jia Nanfeng (257 – 13 May 300), nicknamed Shi (峕), was a Chinese empress consort. She was the daughter of Jia Chong and first wife of Emperor Hui of the Jin dynasty and also the granddaughter of Jia Kui. She is commonly seen as a villaino ...

written by

Zhang Hua Zhang Hua (232–7 May 300According to Sima Zhong's biography in ''Book of Jin'', Zhang Hua was killed on the ''guisi'' day of the 4th month of the 1st year of the ''Yongkang'' era of his reign. This corresponds to 7 May 300 永康元年夏四 ...

(ca. 232-302). Beginning in the eighth century, many collectors and emperors left seals, poems, and comments on the scroll. The ''Admonitions'' scroll was stored in the emperor's treasure until it was looted by the British army in the

Boxer Uprising The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by ...

in 1900.Cihai: Page 1846. Now it is in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

collection, missing the first three scenes. There is another surviving copy of this painting, made during the

Song Dynasty The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the res ...

and is now held in the

Palace Museum The Palace Museum () is a huge national museum complex housed in the Forbidden City at the core of Beijing, China. With , the museum inherited the imperial royal palaces from the Ming and Qing dynasties of China and opened to the public in ...

in Beijing. The Song version is complete in twelve scenes. The painting is on silk and is a polychrome. "The figures, whose countenances are at once solemn and tranquil, are described with a thin, unmodulated brush-line.... The brush-mode...has been described as 'spring silkworms spitting silk'".

''Nymph of the Luo River'' (洛神賦)

''Nymph of the Luo River'' is a painting by Gu which illustrates a poem written by

Cao Zhi Cao Zhi (; ; 192 – 27 December 232), courtesy name Zijian (), posthumously known as Prince Si of Chen (陈思王), was a prince of the state of Cao Wei in the Three Kingdoms period of China, and an accomplished poet in his time. His style ...

(192-232). It survives in three copies dating to the Song Dynasty. One copy is now held in the Palace Museum in Beijing, and another one is now at the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. The third was brought to Manchuria by the last emperor Pu Yi (1906–1967) while he was the puppet emperor of

Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 after the Japanese ...

under Japanese rule. When the Japanese surrendered in 1945 the painting disappeared. After ten years the Liaoning Province Museum recovered it.

''Wise and Benevolent Women'' (列女仁智圖)

''Wise and Benevolent Women'' survives in a 13th-century copy dating to the Song Dynasty, and is today located in the

in Beijing. It illustrates a subset of the women described in the Han dynasty work '' Biographies of Exemplary Women''. The 5 meter long scroll is divided into 10 sections, with each section containing a short description.

Notes

References

* * Ci hai bian ji wei yuan hui (). Ci hai (). Shanghai: Shanghai ci shu chu ban she (), 1979.

External links

The Admonitions Scroll in the British Museum洛神賦图在线高清展览
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gu, Kaizhi 344 births 406 deaths Jin dynasty (266–420) painters Jin dynasty (266–420) politicians Painters from Wuxi Politicians from Wuxi 4th-century Chinese painters 5th-century Chinese painters