The Painter

Ren Yi 任頤 (1840–1895), more commonly known as Ren Bonian任伯年, was one of the most popular and innovative Chinese artists during the late 19th century.For the biography of Ren Bonian, see Ding Xiyuan 丁羲元, Ren Bonian: nianpu, lunwen, zhencun 任伯年：年譜、論文、珍存 (Shanghai: Shanghai shuhua chuban she, 1989); Van Der Meyden, Hans, “The Life and Works of Ren Bonian (1840-1896),” Oriental Art (Spring 1992), pp. 27-40. He was a native of Shanyin (modern Shaoxing) in Zhejiang province, but made his career mainly in Shanghai. His father, Ren Hesheng 任鶴聲 (zi Songyun 淞雲), a minor businessman dealing in grain, also excelled in painting. Ren Bonian’s son, Ren Jinshu 任堇叔 stated that his grandfather also practiced traditional Chinese portraiture and taught Ren Bonian the skills of this profession.

Very little is known about Ren Bonian’s early years and how he became a professional painter. Around 1861, the Taiping Rebellion swept through Zhejiang Province and Ren Bonian’s father died during the conflict. It is said that Ren Bonian was to join the troops as a flag bearer, but managed to flee and return to his hometown of Xiaoshan in early 1862.Ding Xiyuan, p. 16.

A famous anecdote, cited by the modern painting master Xu Beihong徐悲鴻 (1895–1953), tells how Ren Bonian, coming from a humble background, became one of the most influential artists in Shanghai. According to the story, Ren was making a living by selling folding fans with forged signatures of the already-famous painter Ren Xiong 任熊 (unrelated) on the streets of Shanghai after his father’s death. One day Ren Xiong came upon and was impressed by the clever forgeries and asked about the artist. Ren Bonian proclaimed that they were done by his father’s younger brother, and only then did Ren Xiong reveal his identity. Despite this awkward encounter, Ren Xiong appreciated Ren Bonian’s talent and even sent him to study painting with his younger brother, Ren Xun任薰.Xu Beihong learned about this tale from Wang Yiting 王一亭 (1867–1938), the famous Shanghai painter, celebrity, businessman, and devout Buddhist. See Xu, Beihong 徐悲鴻, “Ren Bonian pingzhuan任伯年評傳 (The Critical Biography of Ren Bonian),” in Gong Chanxing鞏產興 ed., Ren Bonian yanjiu 任伯年研究（The Study on Ren Bonian）(Tianjin: Tianjin renmin meishu chuban she, 1982), pp. 1-3. The reliability of this anecdote, however, is challenged by the fact that Ren Xiong died in 1857. If Ren Bonian went to Shanghai after his father’s death in 1862, it would have been impossible for him to meet Ren Xiong at that time. Regardless of this discrepancy in dates, Ren Bonian did meet Ren Xun, who was famous for using deliberately angular and stiff strokes to create a sense of pictorial tension, and absorbed his archaistic style, which was adapted from the late Ming painter Chen Hongshou陳洪綬 (1598–1692).

Between 1865 and 1868, Ren Bonian was sojourning in the Ningbo area, and in 1868 went to Suzhou with Ren Xun before finally moving to Shanghai in the winter of that year.Ding Xiyuan, pp. 18-25. Ren Xun introduced him to many prominent artists and patrons, such as Yao Xiaofu 姚小復 [active late 19th century; son of Yao Xie姚燮 (1805-1864)] during his Ningbo period and Hu Gongshou 胡公壽 (1823-1886), Sha Fu沙馥 (1831-1906), Jiang Shinong姜石農 (1827-1877) and others from his Suzhou period. These connections were a tremendous help to Ren Bonian in his early career in Shanghai.

In particular, Hu Gongshou, as the leader of the art world in Shanghai at that time, assisted him in settling down at the Gusxiangshi 古香室fan shop when he first came to Shanghai and introduced him to many opportunities. In appreciation for his help, Ren named his studio “Yihe xuan” 倚鶴軒, (“Studio of Relying on the Crane”), which evoked Hu’s own studio “Jihe xuan” 寄鶴軒 (“Studio of the Visiting Crane”).Ding Xiyuan, p. 27.

To compensate for his humble background and the lack of proper literary training, Ren Bonian, on the advice of Hu Gongshou, took the bird-and-flower literati painter Zhang Xiong張熊 (1803-1886) as his teacher. He also made connections by means of his skill at painting family portraits. From the late 1860s and throughout his career in Shanghai, he made almost fifty portraits of fellow artists, friends and patrons. In fact, it was quite fashionable in late 19th-century Shanghai to use portraits as a means of self-promotion. People would invite prominent figures to inscribe poems or prose on their portraits to show off their social connections and sometimes even publish the inscriptions on the portraits in the newly established media of the time—the newspaper. Thus, through his portraits, Ren participated in building a social network in the mainstream art world of Shanghai and became quite famous in the early 1870s.See Richard Vinograd, Boundaries of the Self: Chinese Portraits -1600-1900 (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), chapter 4, pp. 127-155; Yu-chih Lai, “ Portraits, Images, and Art Career: Case Study on the Portraits of Wu Changshi by Ren Bonian,” in Lu and Xuan Guangyu eds., Spirits Alive: Theses on Figures and Portraits from the Ming and Qing Dynasties (Macao: Macao Museum of Art, 2011), pp. 298-316.

Living in Shanghai, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world at the time, Ren Bonian adapted elements drawn from many different international stimuli into his art, including Western painting techniques, photography, and even Japanese woodblock prints, or Ukiyo-e.See Yu-chih Lai, “Fu liu qianjie-1870 niandai Shanghai de Riben wangluo yu Ren Bonian zuopin zhong de Riben yangfen 伏流潛借—1870年代上海的日本網絡與任伯年作品中的日本養分,” Taida Journal of Art History, no. 14 (2003), pp. 159-242; Yu-chih Lai, Surreptitious Appropriation: Ren Bonian (1840-1895) and Japanese Culture in Shanghai, 1842-1895 (Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 2005). He is said to have learned Western pencil sketching techniques from his friend, Liu Dezhai 劉德齋 (active 1880-1912), who worked in a Roman Catholic establishment in the Xujiahui 徐家匯area of Shanghai.Shen Zhiyu沈之瑜, Guanyu Ren Bonian de xinshiliao 關於任伯年的新史料, from Gong Chanxing, pp. 16-17.

Ren’s art gradually evolved from the stiffer, more rigid forms and brushwork inherited from the Chen Hongshou style via Ren Xun and Ren Xiong in the 1870s, toward a more energetic and fluent style of expression during the 1880s. His mature works of the late 1870s and thereafter demonstrate freer brushwork. By using impressionistic, swift brushwork along with innovative compositions, he created a dramatic sense of movement that fit perfectly with the pace and content of urban life in Shanghai during this era of change.

The Theme

This painting in the Seattle Art Museum, dated to the summer of 1887 and painted for an unidentified man by the name of Yuting雨亭, is typical of Ren Bonian’s mature style of the 1880s, which is characterized by the use of relatively wet, light ink, and more importantly, free and fluent brushstrokes exuberantly leaping across the surface of the paper. In the center of the painting is the back of a monk holding a staff, while to his left are two men, one leading horses and the other has a hawk perched on his arm.

The subject of the Seattle painting has long been a puzzle. The same composition copied by a follower of Ren, Ni Tian倪田 (1855–1919), in the Shanghai Museum, bears the vague title Herding Horses (fig. 1). However, why would a monk tend horses? What is the meaning of the hawk in the painting? In particular, while the monk is painted from the back, he turns his face to the right and opens one of his arms to guard the horses. The horses, along with the hawk, in contrast, stare out of the painting and look at the viewers with almost human facial expressions. The figures, including the monk, all roll their eyes and look perplexed. The painting, therefore, seems to be shrouded in enigma.

Fig. 1: Ni Tian, Herding Horses, 1917. © Shanghai Museum.

This combination of a monk with hawk and horses is, in fact, a subject called Zhidun’s Hawk and Horses (Zhidun yingma tu 支遁鷹馬圖). Zhidun (sobriquet: Daolin 道林, 314–366), was a famous monk of the Eastern Jin period (317–420) who befriended many well-known literati (mingshi 名士), including the famous statesman Xie An 謝安 (320-385) and the renowned calligrapher Wang Xizhi 王羲之 (303-361). Zhidun built his own temple, and had hundreds of followers at Mount Yan in Zhejiang province. An active participant in the culture of qingtan 清談 (pure conversation), he was deeply involved in aristocratic society of his time.Huijiao 慧皎, “Zhidun zhuan 支遁傳 (Biography of Zhidun),” in Gaoseng zhuan 高僧傳 (Biographies of Eminent Monks), juan 4, 8b-15a, in Congshu jicheng xinbian叢書集成新編 (Taipei: Xinwenfeng chuban gongsi, 1985-1986), pp. 383-385. In fact, more than forty entries about him are recorded in the most representative text of “pure conversation” culture, A New Account of Tales of the World (Shishuo xinyu 世說新語), or by Liu Yiqing 劉義慶 (403–444) of the Liu Song period (420–478). It is well-recognized that Zhidun and Daoan 道安 were among the most prominent monks in the south and north, respectively, before the coming of Kumārajīva [Jiumoluoshi 鳩摩羅什 (344-413)].

Veritable Records of Jiankang (Nanjing) (Jiankang shilu 建康實錄), written by Xu Song 許嵩 (active 8th century) in the Tang dynasty, cites The Works of Xu Xuandu (Xu Xuandu ji 許玄度集) by Zhidun’s contemporary Xu Xun 許詢 (active 4th century), which includes the following famous description about him:

“Dun, with his sobriquet Daolin, retreated to the east side of Mount Yan. He doesn’t involve himself in mundane affairs. He likes to raise hawks and horses, but he neither trains nor rides them. People once laughed at him. He said, ‘This humble monk values them for their divine swiftness.’”Xu Song許嵩, Jiankang shilu建康實錄, juan 8, 12b, in Jingyin Wenyuan ge Siku quanshu 景印文淵閣四庫全書(Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1983-1986), vol. 370, p. 335.
遁，字道林，常隱剡山東，不遊人事。好養鷹馬而不乘放，人或譏之。遁曰：「貧道愛其神駿。」

This appears to have been a widely known anecdote. A New Account of Tales of the World tells the story, but only mentions the horses:

“The monk Zhidun always kept several horses. Someone remarked, ‘A holy man and raising horses don’t go together.’ Zhidun replied, “This humble monk values them for their divine swiftness.”Liu Yiqing劉義慶, translated by Richard B. Mather, A New Account of Tales of the World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976), p. 61.
支道林常養數匹馬，或言道人畜馬不韻，支曰：「貧道重其神駿。」

Horses are for riding, and hawks are for being trained to hunt: both have practical uses in the mundane world. Zhidun evidently raised them, but not to use them. He appreciated them only for their spirit, not their function. He went beyond the concept of function in seeing things. Therefore, this example is meant to celebrate his transcendental and exceptional mind.

Just as Ma Yuan 馬援 (14 b.c.–a.d. 49), a Han dynasty general and expert on horses, once noted: “Horses are the foundation of military might, the great resource of the state.”Fan Ye范曄, Hou Hanshu 後漢書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1965), vol. 24, p. 840. This sentence is cited directly from H. G. Creel, “The Role of the Horse in Chinese History,” The American Historical Review, vol. 70, no. 3 (April 1965), p. 665. For the long tradition of imaging-making of horses in China, see Robert E. Harrist, Jr., Power and Virtue: The Horse in Chinese Art (New York: China Institute Gallery, 1997). The steed is a well-established metaphor for imperial power. Horses are often compared to talented literati, who also serve as the foundation of the state. Finding such talented people, just like finding good horses, was a key issue in imperial rule. On the other hand, in the government talented people seek opportunities to bring their skills into full play, also like good horses. These are the two forces of demand and need in the management of the state.

Bole 伯樂, the legendary judge and trainer of horses in the Spring and Autumn period (770–403 b.c.), was the prototype of a special person, usually a high-ranking official, who can recognize talent in a young man. The famous Tang writer Han Yu 韓愈 (768-824) also once wrote: “The world must first have a Bole before it can have fine horses. But there are always more fine horses than there are people like Bole!”

The mandate of talented scholars and good horses is the same—that is, to seek to serve the state. However, good opportunities or Boles are not easy to find. How, when, and where to serve, or not serve, were among the most important and constantly reoccurring issues in a Chinese scholar's life. Therefore, in addition to the connotation of a transcendental attitude, there are several other ways to interpret the story of Zhidun.

For example, a poem written by the Tang dynasty poet Sikong Tu 司空圖 (837-908), entitled Retirement (Tuiqi退棲), states: “Yanzhao was not merely showing his affection toward horses; why could Zhidun not love hawks 燕昭不是空憐馬，支遁何妨亦愛鷹?”Sikong Tu 司空圖, “Tuiqi 退棲 (Retirement), in Yuding quan Tang shi lu 御訂全唐詩錄, juan 83, 10a, in Jingyin Wenyuan ge Siku quanshu景印文淵閣四庫全書, vol. 1473, p. 461.

Yanzhao (?-279 b.c.) was king of the state of Yan in the Warring States period (476 –221 b.c.) and successfully led several military campaigns against the kingdom of Qi, one of the strongest states, creating the Golden Age of the Yan Kingdom. In achieving this, he is said to have made it a priority to recruit talented people and gather fine horses. Therefore, his affection toward horses was not only for his own amusement, but also for the greater cause of the state.

Conversely, Zhidun, a hermit monk, who supposedly should not have been immersed in such secular avocations, could also love hawks intended for practical use in hunting. For the poet, the line between the lifestyle of participating in, or leaving, the mundane world is changeable. Here, horses and hawks are seen as emblems revealing active ambitions in the real world. The two sentences cited above by Sikong Tu express his ambivalence toward his career and retiring from public life. Therefore, Zhidun’s hawk in the context of this poem is not so much about his transcendental mind, but more about care for the mundane world while leading a hermit’s life.

The combination of a monk, as icon of dwelling in seclusion, and his uncommon pets— that is, horses and hawks—embodying talents needed in the mundane world, constitutes a rich potential vocabulary for the literati to use in expressing their thoughts, and anxieties over the dilemma they constantly faced, that is, shi仕 (to take office) or yin隱 (to become a hermit).

No later than the Northern Song period, the theme of Zhidun became the subject of paintings. The most famous example is mentioned by the famous Northern Song writer Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037-1101) in the poem for his mentor, Monk Wuzhuo 無著, who traveled from Jinling (Nanjing) to visit Su Shi in Guangling (Yangzhou) and left him a painting entitled Zhidun’s Hawk and Horses (Zhidun yingma tu) 支遁鷹馬圖. Su Shi returned the painting and wrote him a poem with the lines:

“Do not learn from Wang Lang and Zhidun, who had a hawk perched on his arm and walked horses just to appreciate their spirited handsomeness [majestic divinity]. I return the painting for you to keep, which means no more than a wooden man riding on a clay ox.” Su Shi, “Yunshi Wuzhuo zi Jinling lai, jian yu Guangling, qie yi yu Zhidun yingma tu, jianggui, yi shi song zhi, qie huan qi hua 雲師無著自金陵來，見余廣陵，且遺余〈支遁鷹馬圖〉，將歸，以詩送之，且還其畫 (The wondering monk Wuzhuo came from Jinling to visit me in Guangling, and left me a painting entitled “Zhidun’s Hawk and Horses.” He is going to leave, therefore, I wrote him this poem for the farewell while returning his painting),” in Su Shi, Wang Wengao 王文誥ed. and annotated, Su Shi Shiji 蘇軾詩集 (rpt. Beijing: Zhonghua shuchu, 1982), juan 25, vol. 4, pp. 1345-1346.
莫學王郎與支遁，臂鷹走馬憐神駿。還君畫圖君自收，不如木人騎土牛

Wang Lang 王郎 (?-A.D.24) was originally a fortuneteller who claimed to be the heir of Emperor Cheng, the last emperor of the Former Han. The Former Han was ended by the short-lived Wang Mang régime. Wang Lang was supported by some members of the Han imperial clan; however, he was only on the throne for two years when the insurgent Liu Xiu劉秀 (6 b.c.–a.d.57), head of another Han restoration faction, defeated him at his capital of Handan 邯郸 in Hebei province.

For Su Shi, not only were both Wang Lang and Zhidun not worth emulation, he even compared them to “a wooden man riding a clay ox.” A wooden man riding a clay ox surely goes nowhere. The authoritative Qing dynasty annotator of Su’s poems, Wang Wengao 王文誥 (1764-?), therefore made the following comment: “The sentence about the painting on hawks and horses means ‘of no use’句謂畫鷹馬，無所用也.”Su Shi, Wang Wengao ed. and annotated, Su Shi Shiji, juan 25, vol. 4, p. 1346.

Here, Su Shi identified more with the fine horses and hawks, which did not have a chance to bring their skills into play, despite their refined talents. Su Shi wrote this poem in 1085 when he had just finished four years of exile in Huangzhou and was transferred to a new, but also humble post as Assistant Military Training Commissioner of Ruzhou (Ruzhou tuanlian fushi汝州團練副使), and stationed in Changzhou. The painting of Zhidun’s Hawk and Horses which his mentor presented was originally meant to ameliorate his frustrations in officialdom, suggesting the perspective of Zhidun—that is, one who transcends a secular view of the concept of usefulness and instead enjoys the pure essence of life. Su Shi rejected the painting and took the view of the horses, comparing it with Wang Lang’s ambitious campaign and concluding that they had not lived their lives to the fullest at the end. Here, there is a strong sense of powerlessness. Just like the metaphor of a wooden man riding a clay ox, it looks like it is going to move, but it actually is permanently stationary.

The Painting

Let us go back to the painting. Here, Zhidun—along with a hawk, three horses, one groom, and one falconer—are placed under a group of palm trees. Zhidun, looking gloomy, has his shoulder and back to the viewer, forming a wall-like visual barrier between the viewer’s world and that of the painting. Holding a staff, he opens one arm to herd the horses away from the viewer. Although the horse in the back follows his instructions submissively, the two horses in front turn their heads and look back directly at the viewer, seemingly unwilling to leave. Zhidun’s two attendants, the groom and falconer, also appear to respond half-heartedly. In particular, the perched bird, rolling its eye to one side, looks odd and solitary in nature, reminding us of the birds painted by Bada Shanren 八大山人 (1626–1705), the famous yimin 遺民 (“left-over”) painter of the late Ming and early Qing period.

Using the body of the major figure as a pictorial means to fence off the idealized world in the painting from the real world of the viewer, and to create a physical and psychological boundary between the two, is a type of composition which Ren developed in the early 1880s, as shown, for example, in Su Wu Tending Sheep (Su Wu muyang 蘇武牧羊) (fig. 2), dated 1880, which I have analyzed in a previous article.Yu-chih Lai, “Remapping Borders: Ren Bonian’s Frontier Paintings and Urban Life in 1880s Shanghai,” The Art Bulletin LXXXVI (September 2004), pp. 550-572.

Fig. 2: Ren Bonian, Su Wu Tending Sheep, 1880. Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing.

In the Seattle painting, Ren Bonian notably explores the visual effects of wash accented by a few random dashes of dark ink, making the ink of different tones and densities fuse with each other, thus creating a spontaneous and textured undertone. However, the warm and lively atmosphere seen in the palm trees stands in contrast to the overall washy pale tone, which imparts a silent mood.

What is presented here apparently is not so much about how Zhidun appreciates the spirited handsomeness of the horses and hawk. On the contrary, it reminds us of Su Shi’s resentment and helplessness at the waste of talent in Zhidun’s story. Not only are the horses and the hawk reluctant to move forward in the painting, even Zhidun himself turns his back to the world of the viewer with a concerned look as he herds his group off into the deep emptiness somewhere inside the painting—an undisturbed, yet unknown, world. What is the meaning of this tension between the world inside and outside the painting?

Ren Bonian seems to have been very interested in Zhidun’s story. He created another painting on the same theme which is now in the Shanghai Museum, dated to 1876 (fig. 3). In addition, we also find a huagao 畫稿 (painting manual) copied by his follower Yan Yuan 顏元 (1860-1934) (fig. 4),Yan Wenliang 顏文樑 ed., Yan Yuan mo Ren Bonian huagao 顏元摹任伯年畫稿 (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin meishu chubanshe, 1959), p. 45. which also depicts Zhidun’s hawk and horse story.

Fig. 3: Ren Bonian, Zhidun Loves Horse, © Shanghai Museum.

Fig. 4: Yan Yuan, Copy of Ren Bonian's Zhidun Loves Horse. Reproduced from Yan Yuan mo Ren Bonian huagao.

However, the earlier painting of 1876 in Shanghai differs from the Seattle work of 1887. The horse, which has a strong body with beautiful patterns and occupies the center foreground, elegantly turns its neck and briskly lifts its hooves, exhibiting the qualities of spiritedness and handsomeness to the viewer. Zhidun stands in the back, under the palm trees, looking calmly at the horse. Ren Bonian’s perspective on the story seems to have shifted dramatically between 1876 and 1887. What is relevant is that the real world outside the paintings did indeed go through a striking change during this period and may explain the shift in Ren Bonian's interpretation of the Zhidun story.

The optimism generated in the mid-19th century during the so-called Tongzhi Restoration (1862-74), a period characterized by officially sanctioned attempts at reform and modernization, was effectively shattered over the next decade as China encountered severe tensions and setbacks in its relations with foreign powers. These included disputes with Russia over its northern borders from the late 1870s to the early 1880s, ending with the Treaty of St. Petersburg in 1881; the break-off in negotiations with France over the sovereignty of Annam (now Vietnam) in the early 1880s, and culminated with the Sino-French War (1883-85).

In addition, there were tensions with Japan over its intent to gain control over Korea, then China’s vassal state, a conflict which can be traced back to the early 1880s. Unquestionably, one of the greatest blows suffered by China in the late 19th century was its humiliating defeat in the Sino-French War (1883-85). As a result of this defeat, China surrendered to France its claim to sovereignty over Vietnam, traditionally a vassal state. The humiliation was especially keen as this concession was made despite China’s encouraging victory at Tonkin towards the end of the war. However, still reeling from the impact of previous defeats, the Chinese government was desperate to meet France’s demands in exchange for a peace settlement.

In the eyes of many contemporary Chinese, this was an ignoble outcome that strongly compromised China’s dignity and interests. For example, Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), the leader of the revolution that finally overthrew the Qing dynasty in 1911, was convinced that China had been both humiliated by the French and betrayed by the Manchus—a conviction that sparked his and fellow Chinese revolutionary sentiments.

As my previous study has shown, Ren Bonian’s frequent depictions of paintings on frontier subjects, such as Su Wu Tending Sheep (Su Wu muyang 蘇武牧羊), Looking toward the Deserted Frontier (Guanhe yiwang xiaosuo 關河一望蕭索), and Three Chivalrous Warriors in Wind and Dust (Fengchen sanxia 風塵三俠), have much to do with the cataclysm that society was going through and that Ren had sensed so vividly.Yu-chih Lai, “Remapping Borders: Ren Bonian’s Frontier Paintings and Urban Life in 1880s Shanghai,” The Art Bulletin LXXXVI (September 2004), pp. 550-572.

What is especially noteworthy is that the reform movement, which began in 1861, aiming to “use barbarian (Western) ways to transform China” and despite its collapse due to China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, did generate a prevailing impact not only upon scholar-officials and intellectuals, but also throughout society as a whole. For example, Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 (1837–1909), a prominent politician in the late Qing period, published his famous Exhortation to Study (Quanxue pian 勸學篇), in 1898, in which he summarized systematically the core of reform thought, that is, “Chinese learning for fundamental principles and Western learning for practical application (Zhongxue weiti, Xixue weiyong中學為體，西學為用).” Here, the “practical use,” or “yong,” was seen as key to rescuing the nation. The emphasis on “use,” “usefulness,” or even specifically practical statecraft or current affairs (shiwu 時務), permeated society.

However, the content of this statecraft was dramatically transformed from traditional Confucian classics to Western learning. For example, let's consider Bizarre Happenings Eyewitnessed over Two Decades (Ershi nian mudu zhi guai xianxiang) 二十年目睹之怪現象, a popular late-Qing novel famous for its exposé of official corruption and the seamy side of life, written by Wu Yanren 吳研人 (1867–1910). First published as a serial in the magazine, New Novels (Xin xiaoshuo) 新小說, from 1903 to 1905, it contains a story about how a clever manipulator, Fu Mixuan 符彌軒, lured a wealthy young man, Longguang 龍光, from a Manchu family holding official rank, to allocate funds to establish a press company focusing on translating foreign books, but the company did not exist and the money was misappropriated.Wu Yanren 吳研人, Ershi nian mudu zhi guai xianxiang 二十年目睹之怪現象 (rpt. Taipei: Taiwan Shufang, 2003), chapter 106, p. 965. Fu reasons that “Now everyone is talking about shiwu, or current affairs,” and that owning a press for translating Western books would win Longguan a reputation of “being familiar with current affairs and being knowledgeable in both Chinese and Western learning,” a reputation that would facilitate his promotion in officialdom.

In short, despite of the fact that people might have different attitudes and thoughts about Western learning, the ability to deal with practical current affairs in a “Western” or “modern” way had become a token of success for survival in the highly chaotic and competitive society at the time. Thus, the traditional definition of “talent” for a well-educated man was challenged and went through a period of significant change.

In A New Account of Tales of the World, Zhidun was celebrated for his transcendental attitude toward functionalism. Su Shi, however, identified his frustrations in officialdom with the horses, lamenting the uselessness of those with talent. In either case, Zhidun’s world presents the idealized world based on the appreciation of pure essence. In Ren Bonian’s Zhidun painting of 1876, this ideal world celebrating anti-utilitarianism can be connected without any barriers to the world of the viewer. In the painting of 1887, however, just like the fact that the world outside had gone through dramatic change, Ren Bonian no longer could join Zhidun’s world seamlessly with the world outside, a world now highlighting shiwu, cares about current affairs, and practical statecraft with Western learning, concepts with values totally opposite to that of Zhidun.

For most of the literati of that era, it was not only a question of whether to use or not to use talent, but also a question of whether one’s “talent” could be defined as “talent” anymore. Going back to the 1887 painting, Zhidun opens his arm and uses his body to protect his world despite the fact that the horses and hawk look back, seemingly longing for the world outside. However, is that the world that recognizes their fineness? Or the world that has left them behind in history as outdated? Zhidun appears to frown. I think even he is not certain.

© 2013 by the Seattle Art Museum