The Six Principles of Chinese Art
‘Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk’, 12th century, which is a copy of a lost original created by a Tang Dynasty artist, Zhang Xuan.
The Six Principles of Chinese Art are criteria that assess the visual language of art, which were put together by the Chinese art historian Xie He, written well over a thousand years ago. Xie He lived during the sixth century, in which he wrote the book ‘The Record of the Classification of Old Painters.’ It is in this book which he briefly outlined six points of critical thinking when judging a piece of art. These principles are:
1. Spirit Resonance
Engender a sense of movement through spirit consonance. It is the overall energy of the art.
2. Bone Method
Use the brush with the bone method. This refers not only to texture and brush stroke, but to the close link between handwriting and personality.
3. Correspondence to the Object
Responding to things, shape and line, depict their form.
4. Suitability to Type
Describe appearances; colour, layering, tone, value.
5. Division and planning
Positioning and arranging, such as composition and depth.
6. Transmission by Copying
Conveying earlier models through copying and transcribing. Referencing the old masters.
Details of ‘The Five Stars and 28 Heavenly Abodes’, by Zhang Sengyou, created during the Liang Dynasty.
Due to art’s natural evolution and cultural interest, some aspects of these ideas have also evolved. While some critics disregard or make their own changes to the list, they have been repeatedly used by others as a standard to strive for both the artist and the art critic. Even today, a lot of people use a list of criteria similar to this. A large reason as to why some may ignore these principles can be due to the translation of the original writing itself: “The problem lies, of course, in the terseness of the original Chinese, where each principle is stated in but four characters… Each period of Chinese painting has its own special way of interpreting the six principles… their application is fluid, varying according to period and artist.” Because of this, every artist and art critic has translated and interpreted the meanings in their own way. Another reason is due to the profound changes that Chinese art has gone through over centuries of development.
‘Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk’, 12th century, which is a copy of a lost original created by a Tang Dynasty artist, Zhang Xuan.
