PULSE PROFILE: Palpating Dots and Strokes

Shuhua (calligraphy and painting) art has evolved along remarkably diverse paths in modern and contemporary East Asia. The very emergence of the term “shuhua art” suggests that calligraphy and painting had long been taken as forms of art. In art academies, museums, and gallery spaces, many works labeled contemporary shuyi (calligraphy art) and contemporary shuimo (ink art) are, apart from their materials, almost indistinguishable from modern painting, often incorporating mixed media, installation, performance, video, and other new media practices. Meanwhile, with the ever-widening spectrum of artistic languages, the essence of shuhua has become progressively harder to discern. This prompts a fundamental question: has the artistic language of shuhua art genuinely undergone a revolutionary expansion in the span of a single century? Or, in the course of mastering the artistic vocabularies of modern painting, contemporary art, and new media, has shuhua gradually lost sight of the expressive language that it once spoke so fluently?

In other words, when we speak of contemporary shuhua, what exactly is the object of our creation, appreciation, and discourse? Is it the shuhua art of the contemporary era, or contemporary art discoursing on shuhua? Without hastily privileging either position, the distinction outlined above is by no means trivial, as it largely determines whether, in evaluating a work or exhibition, we have adopted an appropriate frame of reference. Furthermore, it invites a deeper inquiry: Is contemporary art discoursing on shuhua the only possible path toward the modernization of shuhua art? That is, under the agenda-oriented paradigm of contemporary art, must shuhua art secure its continued relevance solely by aligning itself with the diverse agendas of contemporary and new media art? Even among viewers well-versed in the traditional language of shuhua, those with the most open and tolerant sensibilities may still, amid a sense of reassurance, experience a faint trace of regret when confronted with the flourishing development of contemporary calligraphy art and contemporary ink art today.

Therefore, the questions we must reopen—or perhaps ask whether it has ever truly been posed—are: What is contemporary shuhua art? Is shuhua art at all? When did shuhua begin, and how did it become art? Is the modernization of shuhua to be understood as modern pictorialization, just as its contemporization is to be understood as contemporary artification? If not, what other possible pathways might exist for shuhua toward modernization and contemporization? Or do the two temporal consciousnesses of the “modern” and the “contemporary” never truly constitute a problem for shuhua, and is it only because our questions are misframed that we persistently arrive at answers that stray from the point? If Europe’s temporal consciousness is shaped by its technological consciousness, and thereby structures its problematic of the modern and the contemporary, then for shuhua the central question may no longer be: “What are the modernity and contemporaneity of East Asian art and culture?”, but rather: “What is the ‘techno-temporal consciousness’ of East Asian art and culture?”

If we are willing to reorient our inquiry, we may not only loosen the grip of the oppressive burden of agenda-driven creation dictated by the era that frames shuhua in terms of modernization and contemporization, but also open a space for its critical reflection, and thus return to a question that is perhaps seldom raised today: the question of its essential nature. For critics firmly situated within the shuhua tradition, the question of its essential nature may be practically reduced to the question of bimo (brushwork and ink). What is bimo? It receives far less attention today than the question “what is contemporary shuhua?”, yet the former can, through the citation and interpretation of a substantial body of ancient texts, yield relatively clear and determinate conclusions. Therefore, regarding the question of bimo, the key perhaps has never lain in “how to understand bimo,” but rather in how to determine its status within the narrative of classical shuhua, while at the same time situating the role it ought to play in the development of modern and contemporary shuhua art. Simply put, the debates among researchers and practitioners of contemporary shuhua may have consistently circled the external questions of bimo, rather than engaging its internal ones.

In light of this, the exhibition aims to reopen the question, “What is bimo?” within the philosophical horizon opened up by the inquiry into “What is the ‘techno-temporal consciousness’ of East Asian art and culture?” and, in doing so, to outline a possible trajectory for rethinking the contemporaneity of shuhua. Where, then, should we begin? The exhibition starts by foregrounding the question of how bimo might be reinterpreted through the lens of the techno-temporal consciousness of East Asian art and culture. When we speak of bimo, what exactly are we talking about? When Liu Kuo-sung called out such striking slogans as “overthrow the centered tip rule” and “dethrone the brush,” what concept and vocabulary did he use to replace the notion of bimo? It was: “bi refers to dots and lines, mo to color and surface, and cun (texture strokes) to surface texture.” Liu chose to translate the traditional concept of bi into dots and lines, the latter also known as xiantiao. However, as Yan-chiuan He pointed out, “xiantiao was in ancient calligraphic theory mostly referred to as dianhua (dots and strokes); xiantiao is a modern term.”[1] In fact, xiantiao is not simply a modern noun, but may also be a product of Europe’s techno-temporal consciousness. Or, put more precisely, it is the very concept of xiantiao that gave rise to the distinctive temporal consciousness known as modernity. So, what exactly is the difference between dianhua and xiantiao?

In Europe’s techno-temporal consciousness, xiantiao is understood as the trace left behind by movement. For instance, although Tim Ingold is aware of the particularity of calligraphy, he still understands it as “an art of rhythmic movement,” in which “every line is a trace of the subtle gesture of the hand holding the brush.”[2] Ingold clearly views calligraphy through the concept of xiantiao. Meanwhile, dianhua points more toward the body that enables movement to occur. For instance, it is said that historian and calligrapher Cai Yong proposed “applying strength when lowering the brush, so that the strokes possess the beauty of skin and flesh,” while calligrapher Zhong You is said to have learned through arduous pursuit that “those with abundant force and rich sinews are masterful; those without force or sinews are flawed.” From the very beginning of calligraphic brushwork development, such accounts already attempted to use bodily images such as “skin and flesh” and “abundant force and rich sinews” to describe the qualities of dianhua produced through applying strength when lowering the brush. By the time calligrapher Feng Fang articulated the idea that “calligraphy possesses sinew, bone, blood, and flesh,” Yan-chiuan He further observed that from Feng Fang and Bao Shichen to Kang Youwei, these four elements were consistently treated as the constitutive foundations of calligraphic brushwork, none of which could be omitted.[3] How should we think about the cognitive differences that emerge when Europe and East Asia, through their respective techno-temporal consciousness, confront the same object—namely, bimo within the practice of shuhua?

Shigehisa Kuriyama’s comparative study of ancient Greek and ancient Chinese medical traditions may help us further ruminate on the question raised above. Kuriyama observed that “it is noteworthy in itself that both ancient Greek and ancient Chinese physicians ultimately settled on the wrist as the site of diagnosis,” and that “the technique of pulse-taking appeared in both Greek and Chinese medicine,” yet “two people placing their fingers on the ‘same’ spot might feel something entirely different. Greek doctors measure the pulse, while Chinese doctors diagnose the pulse or meridians. This difference is not only theoretical, but also empirical.”[4] The exhibition is interested in whether the distinction between pulse and meridians might provide an analogy through which to understand the difference between xiantiao and dianhua. It is worth noting that Ingold once indicated that “the vascular and nervous systems can also be understood as bundles of intricately interconnected lines.” What we are curious about is whether, for Ingold, pulse can also be understood as a kind of line, just as blood vessels can. Across the two mindsets and practices of techno-temporal consciousness found in Europe and East Asia, what differences emerge between pulse and meridians, and between xiantiao and dianhua, as they present themselves to us?

From Kuriyama’s research, it can be seen that the pulse emphasized in ancient Greek medicine was generally understood as “the expansion/dilation and constriction/contraction of the arteries.”[5] The measurement of the pulse is “easy to imagine but not easy to perceive. We can readily imagine the expansion and contraction of blood vessel walls and effortlessly analyze their size, speed, frequency, and rhythm in geometric terms in our minds. It is much more difficult to perceive all of this through the sense of touch.”[6] In other words, within Europe’s techno-temporal consciousness centered on geometry, the pulse was imagined and practiced as a means of measuring motion. So, does Europe also understand xiantiao in the same way, as Ingold broadly divides lines into threads and traces, defining the latter as “any enduring mark left in or on a solid surface by a continuous movement”?[7] In contrast, the meridians in ancient Chinese medicine do not directly correspond to arteries and veins in the anatomical sense, nor do they take the heart in the anatomical sense as a starting point or ending point[8]. Instead, ancient Chinese medicine holds that if the position where the fingers are placed differs, then the meaning contained in the perceived movement also differs, highlighting the importance of pulse positions.[9]

We know that three pulse positions—cun, guan, and chi—are located very close to one another, yet the organs and viscera they correspond to differ significantly, and their floating pulse and deep pulse also vary. Beyond just the pulse positions, ancient Chinese medicine seeks to distinguish various pulse manifestations (mai xiang), including floating (fu), hollow (kou), flood-like (hong), slippery (hua), rapid (shu), abrupt (cu), bowstring (xian), tight (jin), deep (chen), hidden (fu), leather-like (ge), replete (shi), minute (wei), choppy (se), fine (xi), soft (ruan), weak (ruo), deficient (xu), scattered (san), moderate (huan), slow (chi), knotted (jie), intermittent (dai), and stirred (dong) pulses. When we turn to the pulse diagrams in Shi Fa’s Chabing Zhinan (Guide to Examining Illness) in order to understand pulse manifestations, readers familiar with the history of shuhua may find themselves immediately reminded of Ma Yuan’s Water Album. These extremely subtle changes perceived through the fingertips also bring to mind the various finger techniques of the guqin, as well as the various brushwork techniques in calligraphy and painting. Kuriyama reminds us: “Those who only notice the beating and the pauses will miss the many whispers of the pulse, and will hear only an indistinct, murmuring sound.”[10] We can think analogically: a person who only notices dots, movement, and traces—what whispered secrets of dianhua would they miss? And what would they only hear? The muffled, indistinct murmuring of xiantiao?

The exhibition invites viewers to reflect: if we provisionally understand ancient Greece and ancient China—across cultural expressions ranging from medicine and music to the visual arts—as products of two distinct techno-temporal consciousnesses, might this serve as a conceptual entry point for rethinking bimo, a notion long confined within a particular framework of the scholar’s studio, technical paradigms, and historical sensibilities? It further asks whether such an approach might allow us to engage it in a mode of inquiry that both moves beyond fixed imaginaries and remains responsive to its specific contexts, repositioning it within both longstanding historical traditions and contemporary cultural conditions, and thereby reopening a dialogue. That is to say, can we borrow the mode of thinking embodied in palpation (pulse diagnosis) to observe dianhua produced by both traditional brush techniques and contemporary tools and technologies? Can we temporarily set aside the absolute standards of traditional brushwork technique, while also not too hastily conceptualizing it as some abstract definition, but instead rethink together with contemporary shuhua artists and their works what exactly dianhua—dots and strokes—means for us today? I have proposed the term “pulse profile” to name this subtle perceptual approach to the textural diversity of dianhua.

It is worth noting that, if we tentatively limit our discussion of contemporary shuhua art to two-dimensional works, an intriguing phenomenon emerges. Within the postwar development of shuhua art in Taiwan, two major trajectories can be identified: the replacement of xian (line) with dian (dot), and the replacement of xie (writing) with hua (painting). Might there already exist, beneath the many practices continually discussed today, a coherent yet largely unarticulated thread: a form of shuhua art that treats pictorialization as modernization and artification as contemporanization? With this in mind, twelve contemporary shuhua artists, including WU Tseng Jung, E.Y.Shih-Chih YANG, YU Peng, LIN Chuan-Chu, WU Yiming, LIU Hsing Yu, TSENG Chien-Ying, YANG Yu-Ning, LEE Kai-Chen, Matěj MACHÁČEK, CHIU Wei-Hsiang, and WANG Hsiang, are invited to take part in the exhibition under the title Pulse Profile: Palpating Dots and Strokes. Through the introduction of concepts such as reading the pulse and dianhua, the exhibition seeks to reopen discussions on bimo and to expand the intellectual and practical horizons surrounding issues of scriptural quality and painterly quality in contemporary shuhua art.