Here again, it is striking to see how Western artists often arrived at similar conclusions by purely intuitive and empirical means. Flaubert, for instance: “What seems to me the highest (and the most difficult) thing in Art, is not the ability to provoke laughter, or tears, or to make people horny or angry, but to act like Nature does.”[11] Or again, Claudeclass="underline" “Art imitates Nature not in its effects as such, but in its causes, in its ‘manner,’ in its process, which are nothing but a participation in and a derivation of actual objects, of the Art of God himself: ars imitatur Naturam in sua operatione.”[12] Picasso put it more concisely but no less explicitly: “The question is not to imitate nature, but to work like it.”[13]
It is in the theories of qi and of its action that we can find the best descriptions of the relation between artistic creation and cosmic creation. These theories occupy a central position in Chinese aesthetics. At first the concept of qi might easily appear rather esoteric and abstruse to Western readers; in fact, it must be emphasised that it is also a concrete, practical and technical notion that can be effectively demonstrated and experienced. Thus, for instance, successful transmission and expression of qi can be directly conditioned by technical factors, such as correct handling of the brush, movements of the wrist, angle of contact between the tip of the brush and the paper, and so forth. Qi in itself is invisible, but its effects and action are as evident and measurable as, for instance, the effects and action of electrical energy. Like electricity, it is without body or form, and yet its reality is physicaclass="underline" it can be stored or discharged; it pervades, informs and animates all phenomena. Although to fully grasp this concept would require us to refer to Chinese philosophy and cosmology, its aesthetic applications present universal relevance. Once more, the Chinese have analysed more systematically and more deeply a phenomenon of which Western painters did not remain unaware: a painting must be invested with an inner cohesion that underlies forms and innervates the intervals between forms. In a mediocre painting, forms are separated by dead intervals and blanks are negative spaces. But when a painting is charged with qi, there are exchanges of current that pass between the forms; their interaction makes the void vibrate. A painter should aim to turn his painting into a sort of energy field where forms constitute as many poles between which tensions are created; these tensions — invisible, yet active — ensure the unity and vital dynamism of the composition. All these basic notions have been experimented with and explored by Paul Klee, for instance. What is perhaps one of the best descriptions of the role of qi was provided by André Masson without any reference to Chinese painting: “A great painting is a painting where intervals are charged with as much energy as the figures which circumscribe them.”[14]
It is in the art of painting that the concept of qi found some of its most obvious applications; yet in literature it plays a role that is no less important. Han Yu (768–824) described its operation with a striking image: “Qi is like water, and words are like objects floating on the water. When the water reaches a sufficient level, the objects, small and big, can freely move; such is the relation between qi and words. When qi is at its fullness, both the amplitude and the sound of the sentences reach a perfect pitch.”[15] As we can see, the qi of literature is essentially the same as the qi of painting: in both arts, it is an energy that underlies the work, endowing it with articulation, texture, rhythm and movement. (Flaubert, labouring on Madame Bovary, was precisely seeking to let this invisible yet active current pass through his book, as it was only this inner circulation that could bring breath and life to the words, sentences and paragraphs and make them cohere; as he himself wrote, one must feel in a book “a long energy that runs from beginning to end without slackening.”[16])
It should be noted, incidentally, that the action of qi can be observed nowhere more clearly than in these purely imagist verses (two examples of which were given above), where syntax completely disappears and grammatical connections dissolve. There we see the fleet of words, all moorings having been cast loose, which is set unanimously in motion; the swell, rocking them on a common rhythm, alone ensures their cohesion.
For any artist, whether a painter or a poet, it is thus imperative that he be able first and foremost to grasp and nurture qi, and to impart its energy to his own creation. If his works are not vested with this vital inspiration, if they “lack breath,” all the other technical qualities they may present will remain useless. Conversely, if they are possessed of such inner circulation, they may even afford to be technically clumsy; no formal defect can affect their essential quality. Hence, also, the first task of a critic will be to gauge the intensity of qi expressed in any given work of art.
The unique emphasis put on the expression of qi has important consequences: originality and formal invention are not valued per se. So long as the artist is able to transmit qi, it is quite irrelevant whether the formal pretext of his work is original or borrowed. Theoretically, one can conceive of a copy that may be superior to its model, to the extent that it succeeds in injecting more qi into its borrowed composition.
Primacy of expression over invention is thus a fundamental aspect of Chinese aesthetics. The best example can be found in calligraphy,[17] which — as everyone knows — is considered in China as the supreme art of the brush. No other art is more narrowly governed by formal and technical conventions, leaving less room to the artist’s imagination and initiative: not only are calligraphers not allowed to invent the form of any written character, but the number of brushstrokes and the very order in which the brushstrokes must follow each other are rigorously predetermined. On the other hand, paradoxically, calligraphy is also the art that can afford an individual with the greatest scope to display in a direct and lyrical way his unique personality, mood and temper, and all the subtle, intimate nuances of his sensibility.
A similar phenomenon is to be found in painting and in poetry. For a layman, at first sight, Chinese painting may appear rather limited and monotonous; landscapes, for instance, are invariably built on a combination of mountains and rivers, organised on the basis of a few set recipes. These stereotyped formulas are themselves filled with conventional elements — trees, rocks, clouds, buildings, figures — whose treatment is standardised in painting handbooks that are straightforward catalogues of forms. The range of poetry is equally narrow: it uses a rigidly codified symbolic language, a set of ready-made images (the song of the cuckoo that makes the traveller feel homesick; the wild geese that fail to bring news from the absent lover; the east wind with its springtime connotations; the west wind and the funereal feelings of autumn; mandarin ducks suggesting shared love; ruins of ancient monuments witnessing the impermanence of human endeavours; willow twigs exchanged by friends as a farewell present; moon and wine; falling flowers; the melancholy of the abandoned woman leaning on her balcony). In a sense, one could say that Chinese poetry is made of a narrow series of clichés embroidered upon a limited number of conventional canvases. And yet such a definition, although it would be literally accurate, would nevertheless miss the point; a deaf man could as well describe a Bach sonata for cello as a sequence of rubbings and scratching effected upon four gut-strings stretched over an empty box.