An Inner Landscape Revealed--Chou Cheng's Poetry, Calligraphy and Painting

Chou Cheng was born in Lotung, Ilan County in 1941. With regular bombing raids being carried out by the American air force, the entire family moved to Erhcheng, Ilan. They lived in a mud hut, where the rising doodles on its walls reflected Chou's own growth. "When Chou Cheng was three or four, whenever he could get a pen in his hand he'd start drawing," recalls his aunt.

Chou Cheng, who began studying calligraphy when he was just five years old, inherited a long tradition of literati calligraphy upon which he left his own creative mark. Shown here is one of his works in "running" script.

Beginning with "honesty"

Chou's father, who ran a stationery store, loved to do calligraphy, and began to teach Chou Cheng when the boy was just five. Most students begin with the character 永 (yong), "eternal," which is favored for the variety of its brush strokes. But Chou's father started his son with a two-character compound meaning "honest": 誠實 (chengshi). These characters were very difficult to brush, and Chou and his two brothers put in a lot of time practicing. Through repeated copying, Chou Cheng discovered the special nature of the two characters, the horizontalness of 誠 and the verticalness of 實, and accentuated these features. His father praised his work, and despite tight family finances, bought him a pair of shoes as a special reward. By teaching these characters, Chou's father gave Chou both a moral lesson and a motto to follow for a lifetime.

After the war, Chou's father become involved in quarrying. His work often took him to such places as Nan-ao and Tung-ao on the lookout for stone, and sometimes he took his children along. When they grew out of breath and drenched with sweat from climbing a mountain trail, he would magically pull an orange out of his knapsack to quench their thirst. The young Chou Cheng's impression of the landscape was flavored with the sweet juice of citrus.

Once, on his way home from school in third grade, Chou Cheng picked up a curved branch. After he pulled off the leaves its shape resembled a snake, so he pared away some of the bark to leave a pattern resembling snakeskin. He then put it under his bed and forgot about it-until his mother came to his room to call him to supper and screamed, thinking it was a real snake.

"It may have been from that moment that I started to look at branches and rocks and imagine the shapes of other things," recalls Chou. But the light and colors of his hometown landscape is what had the deepest impact on his future art.

His A Heavenly Realm among Men, at right, depicts the scenery of Mt. Huang as seen from the Yuping Pavilion.

Calligraphy and painting association

In eighth grade, Chou's father arranged for him to join the 86 Calligraphy and Painting Association, founded by Ilan county executive Lu Tsan-hsiang, a friend of his. Under Japanese rule, Lu had hired some masters from the mainland to teach night classes in calligraphy, painting, martial arts, and Peking Opera. Chou's father had Chou go to recite classical Chinese poetry with Kang Yan-chuan, and to study calligraphy.

One of Chou's junior high classmates had opened a chop engraving shop. When Chou Cheng visited, he would first watch in wonder, then pick up a chisel and start carving himself. In 11th grade, his father imported a shipment of talcum stone. This soft rock is very easy to carve, and his father urged him to practice carving chops with it.

The young Chou first revealed his native artistic talent under his father's tutelage; then during his school years two teachers served as his artistic mentors at different times: his junior high school art teacher Yang Chien-chung and his high school Chinese teacher Chiang Chao-shen. Yang, who taught watercolors, very much liked his young student Chou and knew he was planning to apply to National Taiwan Normal University. Rural schools were ill equipped, and there were no plaster models that Chou could sketch, but Yang figured out a way to borrow some.

When he travels, Chou likes to paint from nature. Chou says of himself that he "has gone to every strange peak to make sketches," which have helped him to create large-scale marvelous landscape paintings. Shown here is his work Morning in the Emerald Bamboo Forest, which conveys the tenderness he holds for his hometown of Ilan.

Rooming with a mentor

Chiang Chao-shen, Chou's high school Chinese teacher, was a talented poet, calligrapher, painter, and bronze and stone inscriber, and a very hard working teacher. He often took essays or "Classical Literature Viewpoint" columns from the Mandarin Daily News and mimeographed them for his classes. As class proctor, Chou often brought work to Chiang's house. He recalls that Chiang would start practicing calligraphy as soon as he got home. Chou would often watch him at work, and Chiang gave him one of his own landscape paintings as a gift. Chou used it as a model to practice from. It was his first contact with landscape painting.

In 1961 Chou tested into the art department at NTNU. He visited Chiang, who had moved to Taipei and was teaching at Chengkung High School. Knowing that Chou hadn't found lodgings yet, Chiang invited him to room with him. Thus Chou ended up living at Chiang's home for a year. When Chiang was painting or writing, Chou would observe at his side. Apart from gaining a sense of the spirit of ink-wash painting, Chou also learned about forming poetic couplets and engraving chops.

Chou Cheng explains that Chiang Chao-shen taught him the importance of time management, for one can only accomplish large quantities of work if one has firm control of one's time. "Chiang was hard at work at every moment. After teaching and eating his dinner, he smoked a cigarette and immediately sat down to do calligraphy and paint. He was very efficient." Chiang's spirit of self-motivated study deeply influenced Chou. Chiang gave him classics to read, such as Spring and Autumn with Commentary, The Songs of the South, and The Historic Records, and sometimes quizzed him. Chiang's spirit of self-study made Chou realize that if he formed his own opinions, he wouldn't easily be influenced by outside fashion. It was then that Chou made up his mind to pursue a career as a landscape painter.

The red, yellow and brown strata in the cliff faces of the Grand Canyon, each only about a yard deep, represent about 500,000 years apiece. Chou found them very moving.

Gaining a moniker

As well as studying fine art, to help him understand Chiang's list of books Chou also audited night classes in NTNU's Chinese department. Recalling this today, Chou says that literature and history have the same meaning as art-that what he took from books in those years can be found in the paintings he creates today, and that books and paintings have similar structures.

"For instance, making a large painting is like writing a big book: you have to make an outline first before filling in the details. But drawing a sketch is like writing a short story or a poem-where exposing the theme is enough-such as a small boat or pagoda." By becoming well read, Chou not only grew firm roots in Chinese literature, he also developed an understanding of the methods of literature and painting.

Chiang Chao-shen help Chou pick his assumed name of Chun Po (Chun means "water shield flower" and Po "wave"). Once, Chiang returned home rather tipsy and yelled out: "Chun Po, open the door!" Chou helped him inside and made him a cup of tea before asking: "Who is Chun Po?" Chiang replied that he had made up the name on the spur of the moment. When Chiang was young one of his favorite haunts was the banks the West Lake in Hangzhou, and he loved the water shield flowers that bloomed there in the fall. He took the phrase "water shield flower waves" from a line of Song-dynasty poetry and used it to fashion Chou Cheng's moniker, since it echoes the meaning of Cheng: clear water.

Chou also learned much from his classes at NTNU: Chinese landscape painting with Huang Chun-pi, detailed representative painting with Lin Yu-shan, and chop engraving with Wang Chuang-wei. Thanks to his talent and hard work, Chou was first in his class for chop engraving one semester, won an art competition, and was asked to serve as a judge for a contest sponsored by a Japanese fine arts academy. After graduating, as well as continuing to study with Chiang, he taught part-time to leave time for his own art. He has taught at Shih Chien College of Home Economics (now Shih Chien University) and the National Taiwan Academy of the Arts, and is now an adjunct professor of fine arts at NTNU.

Those of a scholarly bent are very particular about their chops. Within each small square is a whole world that demonstrates an individual's cultivation, personality and luck. Chou Cheng, head of the Taiwan Chop Association, is a skilled chop carver.

"Mother structure," "child structure"

Finding one's own niche in a tradition of literati landscape painting that stretches back thousands of years is a challenge that all modern practitioners of the art must face. Chou's own method of self-training was to take masters with a spirit similar to his own as models. This study-such as the square, neat and sturdy clerical script of the Han-dynasty Zhang Qian stele (erected 186 AD), which he copied time and again in order to fully grasp its spirit-he refers to as the "mother structure" of his personal style.

A few years later, so as not to become too set in his ways, Chou deliberately sought out works by classical artists with an entirely different spirit from his own, such as the fun calligraphy of the Yi Ying stele (153 AD) and the flowing style of the Cao Quan stele (185 AD). After being nourished by the essence of these styles, he returned to improvise in the Zhang Qian style, using his contact with these new "child structure" scripts to irrigate his "mother structure." They thus became a natural part of his creativity.

Wang Yao-ting, director of calligraphy and painting at the National Palace Museum, once wrote of Chou's calligraphy: "To [Tang-dynasty calligrapher] Ouyang Xun's powerful calligraphic style, Chou adds a certain fullness. To the Zhang Qian style's stable construction of dots and lines, he brings ample modulations of brushstrokes. Apart from the fuller brushstrokes, his work is also more spiritually flexible. 'Spiritual flexibility' is particularly characteristic of the 'running' style of calligraphy. Chou's running style brings to mind the floating-in-air style of Song-dynasty calligrapher Huang Tingqian's brushstrokes, but without the bulkiness of the characters."

World traveler

Just as Ming-dynasty calligrapher Dong Qichang advised poets to read and travel widely to expand their horizons, Chou Cheng frequently combined travel and painting. He would collect reading materials about his planned destinations, including travelogues and poems, so that he might compare the local scenery, customs, people and relics with what he had read, and produce works of greater depth.

For instance, on the way to see the sunrise at Yushan, he passed some towering Taiwan firs with a magnificent view of the main summit shrouded in clouds. It prompted him to write: "Towering peaks reach for the sky, of steep slope and a snowy summit. The vast spring wind gurgles forth toward the morning sun. Reaching the summit, you gasp at the supernatural handiwork."

Beholding America's Grand Canyon, with sheer cliff faces 1600 meters high and red, yellow and brown strata in which a yard represents 500,000 years in the river of time, Chou wrote how he was shaken to the very core: "The vast wilderness for eons floating up and sinking down, rapids like a knife cutting deeply through it, plaintive cries that split one's gall with fright, wind, rain and frost shaping the weathered rocks, the long river gurgling like running horses, passersby hurrying by meaninglessly, smoke rising with the scorching sun-into the vast emptiness, standing by the railing, gazing drunkenly and wildly reciting poetry."

Chou Cheng's impression of the Grand Canyon is of a scorching, boundless wilderness, but trying to put this into an elegant literati-style painting isn't easy. Therefore, he started with sketches at the site, using his "living eyes" to draw what he saw. The result was a lot like an oil painting. Then he used his "inner eyes," and in the realm of the imagination added the spirit of oriental painting-for instance by including smoke and a bird returning home amid the clouds or a visitor amid the beautiful canyon. The resulting work, Sightseeing at the Canyon, is boldly impressive yet has a literary elegance.

Creation through understanding

Chou Cheng explains that when facing real scenery, he first concentrates on understanding it, organizing the special qualities of what he sees, sometimes looking at it from afar as a magnificent vista, then entering it up close, to understand its ins and outs. When he really starts to paint, he uses the point of view of Song-dynasty painter Guo Xi, perhaps surveying the vast land from a distant high place, perhaps taking in the scene from a lower angle, or perhaps considering the depth of the landscape, ridge upon ridge and river beyond river. This concentration is aimed at "understanding the landscape"-deeply absorbing the lay of the land, the lines of the rocks and cliffs, the flow of the water, the coming and going of the road, and other features of the landscape and arranging them in the painting. But the mood is something exclusive to the painter.

Wang Yao-ting, head of painting and calligraphy at the National Palace Museum, has special praise for Chou's paintings: "He uses the brush to 'create atmosphere' in the manner that Qing-dynasty scholar Cha Shipiao described: 'Hills and valleys look for what Heaven and Earth have; but brush and ink look for what Heaven and Earth lack.' Whatever sites Chou traveled to, whether in Taiwan or in Europe, America, or mainland China, they all became subjects for his paintings."

Although Chou's father imported some talcum stone when Chou was in 11th grade and encouraged him to try his hand at carving, it wasn't until Chou saw Chiang Chao-shen's engravings that he formally started learning how to engrave. While at NTNU he studied with the chop carving master Wang Chuang-wei. Chou's hands would get so sore with carving that he couldn't hold his chopsticks, but he would still stay up all night without sleeping or eating. His chop engravings had the spiritual refinement of Chiang Chao-shen's "cutting knife" but the unbridled spirit of Wang Chuang-wei's "charging knife." In 1983, Chou Cheng organized a small group exhibition with some peers, forcefully promoting China's unique metal and stone carving art.

Traditional arts: ROC vs. PRC

Chou Cheng poured his heart into painting and calligraphy, and apart from winning the Wun San-lien Award for Chinese painting, the Chung Shan Award of Literature and Arts for engraving, and the National Museum of History's art award, received an honorary doctorate from St. John's College, Oxford in 1999, making him one of a very small number of Asian artists to receive this accolade from a European university.

In recent years, Chou has several times gone to mainland China to travel or exhibit. In October 2003 his calligraphy, painting and engravings were exhibited at Beijing's Palace Museum, making him the first artist from Taiwan to have an exhibition there. Chou observes that after the ROC government moved to Taiwan, several famous mainland masters of traditional Chinese painting such as Chang Ta-chien took students in Taiwan, creating good continuity. Moreover, the NPM had an excellent collection of precious historical works of calligraphy and painting, giving those who came later abundant models to study. Furthermore, with 50 years of Western influence after the war, Taiwanese artists have learned to sift the good from the bad of the Western cultural invasion and take what suits their own styles, rather than blindly swallowing Western styles hook, line and sinker.

On the other hand, all forms of traditional art-whether calligraphy, painting or opera-were banned during the Cultural Revolution on the mainland. Some works were even destroyed or burned. Thus there was a clear break in the education and cultivation of these kinds of artists. After the liberalizations of the last several decades, mainland China has been deeply influenced by Western culture, to the detriment of traditional painting and calligraphy. As a result, painting and calligraphy have polarized into two camps: the extremely traditional and the extremely avant garde.

Even if Taiwan has an advantage in terms of educational continuity, Chou points out that the PRC government is taking steps to support traditional art: Every province has a painting academy, and the government is providing money to support artists to practice and teach. In comparison, the ROC government has been cool in its support of artistic creation and has not paid enough attention to the creative environment.

Less is more

From finding a "mother structure" of artistic technique close to his own personal tendencies, to overcoming the staid or bewildered aspects of his art and nurturing a "child structure" opposite to his own basic character, Chou's own perspective on life has changed, so that he has become smoother in the way he deals with people.

He explains that all painters frequently encounter obstacles-which is to say that the power of one's eyes surpasses the power of one's brush. At such times, it's important not to keep on grinding away, but rather to change direction in order to discover a broader perspective. When he encounters a bottleneck, he puts down his painter's brush and instead does calligraphy or goes outside to play ball or go hiking: these are all good ways to gain a new frame of mind. Chou shuttles between the modern and the traditional. "My life is like a circle: Painting, calligraphy, engraving, reading, exercise, travel... it's like one big cycle, where all the separate activities influence each other."

Having done much with his life and traveled far and wide, Chou has blended different styles of landscape painting in his mind. Still practicing calligraphy for two hours each night, finding enlightenment in each stroke, melding the various elements of the landscape on the tip of his brush, his paintings have become part of his own vast inner landscape.