A Brief Talk On Buzhi In Traditional Chinese Landscape Painting

Abstract: In classical treatises of the Chinese painting, the term buzhi does not only mean'arrangement', but also involves with many other aspects of the Chinese art. Taking Hua Yuntaishan Ji ( Notes of Depicting Mt.Yuntai ) by Gu Kaizhi ( c.344-406 ) as a starting point, this paper aims at giving some analyses to the problems associated with buzhi in the traditional Chinese landscape painting.In my opinion, Hua Yuntaishan Ji is the earliest extant article about landscape painting in China. Although Gu Kaizhi's subject matter was derived from a Taoist story, the landscape in his imagination was not merely a'backdrop'of the event. The emphasis of buzhi in the text is concerned in'making scenary'or'making illusion', which deffers with the composition in the Western art and is the essense of the Chinese landscape paiting. In pursuing a leisured life-style, the Chinese literary elite travelled among mountains and waters. As they observed the nature with a'moving sight', the Chinese painters broke the limits of light, colour, perspective and modelling, so their works were not objective representations of actual scenary or topographical landscapes but expressions of their inner experiences.Through'making scenary'or'making illusion', the Chinese painters created marvelous spectacles beyond the nature. Against the actual scenary, the Chinese landscape painting is illusory landscape between reality and imagenary. This is just the spirit of the Chinese art.