Prior to the eighteenth-century Chinese paintings were produced within a limited geographic area either by ethnic (Han) Chinese or by those significantly absorbed into the culture. In the fourteenth century, under the Mongol rule of the Yuan dynasty, Han Chinese might have been a bit sniffy about describing what Mongol artists produced as ‘Chinese’ but subsequent art historians could comfortably treat them as such. The Mongols were sufficiently impressed by the culture they had conquered that rather than destroying it completely they embraced it sufficient to allow continuity in the cultural mainstream after their relatively brief rule. The brief conquest may have encouraged some minor changes within the painting tradition but it did not threaten it at any significant level.

The same is true of what happened in 1644 when the Manchus, conquered the Chinese Ming dynasty that had displaced the Mongols in 1368. Again, such changes as were introduced did not significantly affect the ink-painting tradition and left mainstream culture enriched and revitalized rather than overwhelmed. Manchu’s were educated as Chinese scholars, and Manchu visual art became distinguishable from its Chinese counterpart mainly by some surface details of subject matter (clothing, hair-style, and accoutrements) and by signature. Subsequent art historians have treated their works as Chinese paintings. Allowing a Mongol or Manchu status as a Chinese painter presented no problems as long as they painted within the Chinese mainstream artistic tradition. It was transculturalism but only as a hint; the cultures were less distinctly separated than those of the West and China.

Giuseppe Castiglione (Lang Shining 1688-1766) in the eighteenth century can be seen as the first truly transcultural artist to contribute significantly to the Chinese ink-painting tradition. He was an Italian lay-Jesuit, one of many who ended up at the Chinese court during the first half of the Qing dynasty. For the missionaries the goal was to convert China to Christianity; for the Chinese it was to benefit from the many talents of the eager, proselytising Christians. The monotheism of Christian Europe held no appeal to a culture dominated by philosophical systems such as Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism, where any religious expressions were just lower-level attempts to explain the mystery of a transcendent ideal to the mystified. The missionaries were selected because of their skills granting them access to the highest levels of influence. Castiglione was an artist highly trained in technical drawing and oil painting and with a European outlook, who quickly adopted and mastered Chinese ink painting. The realistic and highly detailed depiction of flora and fauna owed something to his western training, but overall he fitted comfortably enough into the tradition, indeed became one of its greatest eighteenth-century masters. Again, art historians include his works under the rubric of Chinese painting and accept him as having enriched the mainstream of Chinese art.

The obvious conclusion from this is that ethnicity is not a governing factor in deciding Chineseness or Chinese nature (Zhongguó xìng 中国性) in art. If ethnicity is the overarching criterion then it would be impossible for a foreigner to produce Chinese art, or a Chinese to produce western art.¹ It would also imply that Yoyo Ma cannot make any contribution to the Bach canon of interpretation, since although my focus here is the tradition of the brush, the same applies equally to any art form. What matters is not ethnicity but whether an artist has absorbed the essential elements and concerns of the culture and can contribute to its evolving mainstream.

This remains true today; it has just become more pressing to understand what it means with the exponential globalisation of recent centuries that have provided far greater opportunities for artists to culture-straddle.

We are no longer faced with the occasional anomaly, such as Castiglione and his fellow artistic Jesuits, but with an ever-increasing number of ethnic Chinese trained as western artists, influenced by the western tradition of art and its modern revolution, and producing works in western media and, although currently still far rarer, the obvious corollary of westerners deeply steeped in Chinese culture choosing to contribute to its ink-painting tradition and aspirations. I am one such, and although our number may be small at present, we do represent the vanguard of an inevitable outcome of transculturalism once the precocious maturity of Chinese painting is fully accepted.

Ethnic Chinese artists borrowing from western art and ideas in an attempt to ‘modernise’ Chinese art arises out of a first generation of twentieth century Chinese artists who went to Europe, or in some cases, Japan, to study western painting, returning home to teach. One could barely get a job in China’s art academies in the first half of the twentieth century without a beret and a bow-tie. These academies taught western drawing and painting skills to a level being gradually abandoned in the West. A second, similar wave has recently flourished as China opened up to the world following Nixon’s visit in 1972, and the policies of Deng Xiaoping after he came to power in 1978. That movement is ongoing and has led to some exciting developments, although hardly a revolution as such. It is more sensibly viewed as East-West transculturalism, where in order to ‘modernise’ the Chinese tradition, artists felt the need to absorb the media, formats, ideas and styles of the modern western revolution in the arts that had caused such a stir world-wide. This raises the question as to what extent they are yet truly producing Chinese art or western art created by Chinese artists.

As transculturalism fulfils its promise this will become a matter only of art-historical significance but at this point in time it is a question worth raising. In the short term it hinges on whether the mainstream of the Chinese painting tradition is enriched from within or from without, and if from outside, how long it will take to significantly enrich the Chinese mainstream.

Gazing into my misty crystal-ball of theory, I see the ink-painting tradition of China, with its ideals, media and sophistication, as coming to play a dominant rule in any truly transcultural, global art, but the timeframe and how this plays out remains uncertain. I very much doubt I shall be around to witness the outcome, albeit aspiring to contribute to it happening as quickly and efficiently as possible.

For the time being we can consider the question of what is Chinese art today as transculturalism begins to be taken more seriously as more than a nod to transcending a well-established western, academic hegemony.

By shifting from an object-based to a process-based aesthetic the means of identifying Chineseness in art becomes more complex, but more sensible. We are not judging from a single criterion as in a question of ethnicity, but multiple criteria; nor does any single criterion provide the answer. The binary approach will no longer serve, we must take a syncretic one and accept that the process may throw up multiple interpretations. Nor need we agree on them, since with the process we are dealing with individual interpretations, but the approach itself makes sense and will resolve the issue even if not at a simplistic, binary level

Shifting focus to the process of art we relegate the art-object to just one aspect of that process, prompting a different range of questions. In order to do that, we need to understand the various aspects of the process instead of assuming that the physical work of art alone can sum it all up. This also has the advantage of allowing for different, even contradictory answers from different aspects of the process, which helps to cut through the confusion when we address the art-object with such antiquated queries as ‘is this art or not?’

As an initial division (dealing with the visual art of painting to represent all arts) we can separate the medium, from the message, from the marketplace.
The medium is the physical entity, the art object; the message is the meaning (in its myriad possible forms) the physical work of art conveys, and the marketplace is where medium and message are dealt with thereafter, whether commercially or academically. Thus fully including the audience as an integral and essential part of the overall process.

Each of these then has its own multiple facets which, as we progress into the dendritic complications of each, may become increasingly difficult to pin down intellectually. But in the theory I propose, the ultimate goal of art, and of consciousness, is to transcend the descriptions of the intellect to realize for ourselves what lies beyond its limitations. Hence my recently published theory of art and consciousness to replace a separate theory of art.²

The physical work of art consists of its material components, collectively known as the medium, which can mostly be identified and understood as precisely as a painting can be measured. With the benefits of scientific analysis we can understand a great deal more about its makeup than ever before, right down to the source and age of some of the components and whether, for instance, there is another image beneath the surface that has been overpainted.

The message is more complex and less susceptible to precise description. It includes whatever the artist knowingly intended – such as any representational subject matter and symbolism with any specific agenda, gestural intentions, etc. Beyond this it includes subliminal, socio-cultural meaning the artist may have been largely or even completely unaware of. It also includes meaning that only emerges from extended audience input. Art historians today’s are in a position to understand a Renaissance painting quite differently from its original, target audience. Quite apart from having access to far more comparative images to work from, historical context and significance can only be understood in retrospect. This is part of the ongoing, unlimited potential for interpretation by the audience. Audience creativity is an important aspect of the process of art if it is to efficiently serve its role as one of our most efficient meta-languages in evolving consciousness. Everyone will approach the physical work of art with individual socio-cultural input, emotional baggage, and personal prejudices. The point is that including the audience as part of the process opens the message to indefinite discussion and revision.

Beyond all of this, part of the message remains beyond the capacity for intellectual interpretation and cannot be precise explained and that is a very important part of art in evolving consciousness. When the sum of the parts we have analysed comes together as a whole, beyond the intellect, but as a powerful, undifferentiated form of meaning the process of art is fulfilling its highest role in lifting us beyond the fragments. That process precisely reflects that of attaining the Dao - and you don’t have to be a Daoist or subscribe to its religious aspects in order to realize the Dao, it is just the Chinese term for the Enlightenment experience. When we look at a masterpiece we have come to know and understand in all its intimate details, we can rise above them as they are subsumed within unified experience. That is when art works its final magic on consciousness.

In the marketplace we enter the arena where art is a commodity, both commercial and intellectual. Dealers, auctioneers and collectors treat the physical object as their coin; while the same participants joined by academics, art historians and curators deal with the message, context and subtext as their currency. Any participant may delve into these aspects of meaning for a variety of reasons. Nor can we neatly specify which currencies apply to which participant: a dealer may be more interested in the academic side of a particular painting in the same way as an academic may apply his skills in studying it mainly in order to gain fame or commercial recompense.

In the marketplace every accretion to the work of art also affects its importance, its commercial, academic and emotional value and, therefore, its impact on the art world. This includes knowledge of its history of publication and exhibition; its provenance as it moves from the artist through the hands of patrons, dealers and collectors; its history of value as a commodity, even its notoriety in being stolen, damaged, or otherwise finding its way onto the front pages of newspapers. Together all these make up the undefinable ‘oomph factor’ of a work of art and although the art object is the pivot, what happens on both the artist’s and the audience’s side are crucial. The physical work may remain relatively fixed, but our understanding of both artist and meaning are constantly open to revision.

Another aspect of the process that touches on the medium, message and marketplace is purpose in becoming involved in art. Here authenticity, rather than being confined to the art object, is recognized in the artist’s purpose, vision, and technique as well as in the audience’s. That level of authenticity in every aspect of the process is essential to profundity in art.

Art plays many roles from the utterly banal to the transcendentally profound. The multi-faceted aspects of art and the manifold reasons for becoming involved are, of course, interdependent, but by recognizing their lower-level independence in order to deal with them we resolve a great deal of confusion.

Understanding to which aspect of art we address our questions allows us to arrive at a sensible, if always temporary, assessment of the overall place in the hierarchy of arts of any particular work. How long it may take for the consensus to endorse any such realization is another matter.

Consensus eventually coalesces into some sort of meaningful definition, but consensus, by definition, takes time – one reason why dealing with contemporary art as it is being produced is such a minefield of an investment, both materially and intellectually; exciting, yes, but dangerous. Materially, if enough is collected, of course, and the risk-factor is smudged-out across many works, some are likely to be spectacularly rewarding even if many are more of an embarrassment.

In arriving at a viable understanding of Chineseness, we need to ask separate questions of multiple aspects of the art. In this case, the marketplace impacts upon it to a lesser extent than the medium and the message, since its Chineseness is, eventually, established once the art object is produced even if it may take some time for consensus.

The medium, as always, provides us with the easiest aspect to understand. If an ethnic Chinese works in traditional western media (oils, or acrylics on canvas, board, or a plastered wall, for instance), that is one count in favour of it being more western than Chinese. Conversely, if an artist of a different ethnicity works in traditional Chinese media, with brush, ink and water-colours on absorbent papers or finely woven fabric such as silk or satin, that is one count in favour of Chineseness.

Turning to the more complex meaning conveyed, we can first ask about the artist’s intention. Is medium and style simply being borrowed for a shallow, perhaps temporary, purpose? Is it being appropriated rather than absorbed? If so that barely qualifies for a tick in that particular box. Conversely, if the artist has been trained in the adopted artistic tradition, become committed to it over time, and worked in it consistently as a matter of choice, that would indicate greater depth of cultural meaning. Tick that box emphatically.

A key factor would be to question to what extent the artist is steeped in the culture and can express it’s more profound levels of meaning? Is the style, subject matter, and mode of expression all drawn from adopted culture? Does the artist successfully convey its aesthetic focus?

Much of this hinges on the ephemeral question of sensibility; that quality that encompasses the sum total of an artist’ understanding, vision and expression. That adds up to something we can recognize as a quality but struggle to adequately explain.

We keep asking questions of all such aspects as they occur to us, mentally ticking boxes, until we arrive at a balance where we can easily see which side carries more weight. We may not, of course, arrive at an answer that is 100% one way or the other, which will increasingly be the case as transculturalism governs artistic production as well as Academe. The western preference for the intellectual explanation even over what is being explained will give way to the traditional eastern view with its language scepticism. The first tends to understand mainly through the filter of language, preferring binary interpretation; it is more comfortable with a fragmentary response that something is either one thing or another, one idea or another. The second sees language as a tool of intellect, and intellect as an essentially limited domain, so in seeking to transcend it, such fragments are taken far less seriously. When transculturalism is established, rather than espoused intellectually, we will end up with a more sensible assessment of what is Chineseness in art.

We are contrasting China and the West here, for convenience and to avoid unnecessary confusion and excess ink. On a global stage the balance we will arrive at is constantly changing and as separate cultures clash, accommodate, and merge, we will begin to see a global culture where a clear understanding of the art of all former separate cultures is common and the best of each is subsumed into a global art.

Who then is the more Chinese artist if we take one of the better-known ethnic Chinese of the present generation painting in western style (Chen Danqing, b. 1953) and compare him to what I have been doing for the past fifty years. I pick hesitantly on a particular Chinese artist as it might offend, but I do not suggest that Danqing is not Chinese, and can make no contribution to Chinese culture; I am stating only that his art as we know it so far is more western than Chinese. (A disclosure: I know Danqing and we once spent a very pleasant sojourn at my home in the Sussex countryside in the 1990s along with Liu Dan and the poet, Mu Xin, so I am sure he will forgive my using him as an example.) Conversely, I can hardly offend myself by claiming that I am culturally more Chinese than western.

Like Danqing, my friend Liu Dan also has the drawing skills of an Ingres or Raphael. Many of his friends have exquisite pencil portraits of themselves and their children dashed off with consummate skill and no fuss on social visits. Many modern western artists would be unable to match the drawing skills of either artist.

Danqing was trained in western style drawing and painting techniques to an extraordinary level of skill. His paintings, often on a large scale are realistic, reminiscent of the works of pre-modern western masters. I use Chinese media and tend to mount my works as Chinese works have been mounted over the centuries. I also favour handscroll and album formats, and attenuated hanging scroll formats, without any limiting, fixed, scientific perspective. My works mostly consist of the so-called ‘three perfections’ of the ink-painting tradition (painting, calligraphy and poetry) and although I write in English, I do it with a Chinese brush and with the same inflections and aspirations that govern Chinese calligraphy. Any poetic response has been wholly inspired by Chinese poetic modes. I also have a number of seals that I use, some of my names (real or assumed, such as the art-names, or sobriquets of the Chinese tradition); some of meaningful sayings, some pictorial. They also constitute a part of the meaning conveyed in the works, lexically, philosophically and formally as in the Chinese tradition.

I was brought up from childhood with Chinese art and have studied it all my life. The many books and articles I have written over the years have been almost exclusively about Chinese art, which is also true of my many lectures and discussion groups. I am steeped in the culture to a far greater extent than I am a product of my own. As a collector and formerly dealer, my focus was entirely Chinese art. The content of my artworks convey an entirely Chinese message of syncretism, Daoism and the search for transcendence and I knowingly try to convey a deeply Chinese understanding of such matters. In my view the sensibility conveyed is far more Chinese than western; as is my use of the primacy of line and brushwork, the use of abstraction within figuration, the choice of subject matter. Traditionally, western artists have had a greater tendency to paint from life, or at least begin with an image or idea in their minds and then proceed to impose it on a relatively intractable surface. Chinese artists have traditionally been more inclined to allow the materials fuller partnership, to dance with the medium. All the components of the medium and its implements (ink, papers, colours, brushes) are design as partners in an exciting aesthetic dance rather than as tools to be imposed. At the level that matters in Chinese art, beneath the surface subject matter, lie layers of abstraction and expressive brushwork which are the real art, albeit harmoniously integrated with the subject matter, and in those inner languages there is a much greater tendency in traditional Chinese art to let the magic happen and follow it, dance with it and see what happens – mature art tends to shift from painting what one sees to seeing what one paints. I follow this method, and indeed, have devoted decades to exploring its ongoing possibilities, as have several ethnically Chinese modern artists such as Liu Kuo-sung, Wang Jiqian, and Chen Chi-kwan, to name but a few.

In my mind there is no doubt that I am a Chinese artist, not a western one, even when I am working on western water-colour paper. But sophisticated western papers share a lot in common with Chinese papers and provide a high level of the unexpected if one knows how to treat (or in my case, mistreat) them as I often wash off layers, sometimes in the process attacking them with a soft or even hard brush in order to get certain, usually unexpected and partly uncontrollable effects.

Whose art, therefore, is more Chinese?

If I have offended Danqing, perhaps when he visits Sussex again - and I issue an open invitation for him to do so - we shall meet in the mist of dawn for a duel, brushes at twenty paces, loaded with ink in my case, oil paints in his. Given his proclivity to video everything – which he did during his last visit – he will, no doubt, set up a camera to record the event.

Hugh Moss
At the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat, October 2023.