How art keeps its memory

"Light as a startled swan, graceful as a swimming dragon." That was how Cao Zhi (192-232), a gifted poet and a frustrated prince, described his imagined rendezvous with the Goddess Luoshen beside a river in the 3rd-century literary classic Luoshen Fu, or The Ode to the Goddess Luoshen.

More than a century later, celebrated painter Gu Kaizhi (348-409) transformed Cao's poetic vision into a timeless masterpiece on a silk scroll. He gave vivid form to the ideal beauty imagined by Cao, inspiring generations of artists to create copies in homage to the work.

Time has obscured the whereabouts of the original. But when a Song Dynasty (960-1279) copy appeared in a new exhibition at the Hall of Literary Brilliance of the Palace Museum in Beijing, visitors marveled at the extraordinary refinement and antiquity of its brushwork. It is elegant, subtle and mesmerizing.

The Tang (618-907) and Song dynasties are widely regarded as two of the great cultural peaks of ancient Chinese history, and their calligraphy and paintings offer an especially vivid window into the spirit of those eras.

After two years of preparation, Defining the Classics: A Journey to Tang and Song Calligraphy and Paintings opened to the public last week. Running through Nov 1, the exhibition presents 107 rare works in two phases, spanning calligraphy, landscape, figure, and bird-and-flower paintings. Together, they offer a systematic overview of the development and maturation of artistic standards in Tang and Song painting and calligraphy.

"The exhibition shows how the master artists established models and paradigms that exerted a lasting influence, providing foundations for generations of artistic innovation," says Wang Zhongxu, curator of the exhibition.

Luoshen Fu, for example, is generally considered to have established a figure-painting technique known as "a portrayal like spinning silk". Characterized by thin lines defining figures and fluttering ribbons on their clothes, this technique was later emulated by generations of artists as a form of admiration for antiquity. The late art historian Jin Weinuo (1924-2018) praised this Song facsimile as the closest in style to the work of Gu Kaizhi's time.

Visiting the exhibition is, in many ways, like meditation — or a journey through time, tracing the evolution of Chinese art.

Youchun Tu, or Spring Excursion, is another key exhibit that appears in almost any textbook on ancient Chinese art. In this pioneering blue-and-green landscape painting, Zhan Ziqian, active in the second half of the 6th century, vividly portrays literati and court ladies on a leisurely outing. The balanced arrangement of figures, trees and mountains marks a significant stage in the maturation of Chinese landscape painting.

Du Mu (803-852) is known in history as a major Tang Dynasty poet. Recalling the hardship-filled life of his confidante Zhang Haohao, he dedicated a long poem to her on a scroll. Yet, the calligraphic work Zhang Haohao offers more than an anecdote about a celebrity's life; it is also an important reference for art historians.

Jiao Donghua, an associate researcher at the Palace Museum, explains that the work written in xingshu (running script) helps fill a gap in the study of calligraphic evolution from the peak of the Tang Dynasty, around the mid-8th century, to the Song Dynasty.

"His brushwork is undulating, vigorous, and unrestrained," he says.

The subtly different ethos of the Tang and Song dynasties is thus revealed through the exhibits.

"Tang art was disciplined and magnificent, emphasizing form, which embodies a vigorous, grand, inclusive, and open-minded style," curator Wang says. "Song art became more diverse. People emphasized elegance, refinement, and everyday charm in urban life."

But Wang adds that the exhibition also goes beyond the inheritance and evolution of brushwork techniques to explore the ideas, social conditions, and humanistic spirit embedded in these paintings, revealing how art reflected the historical contexts in which it was created.