The chinese notion of fugu, "to return to the past," and the closely related idea of ku-i, "the sense of antiquity," are both concerned with how a contemporary art work situates itself in relation to the works before it. The stance an artist takes, or attempts to take in a work, has a wide effect that ranges from the way an audience receives a work, to the specific type of audience a work will attract. As Ernst Gombrich notes, during certain periods in history, the particular style a work (or performance) aligns itself with could even have moral and political repercussions, effectively declaring the artist's allegiance with a certain group not necessarily related to art, and also positioning the artist against other groups (161).
Zhao Mengfu's conception of ku-i held that an artist should study the traditional forms of the ancient masters and sift out the most essential, simple and pure forms which had this "sense of antiquity." In these two paintings, one by the Ming dynasty artist, Wang Lu (right) and another
by the later, Qing dynasty artist, Gao Qi Pei (lower left), there is a clear sense that the artists are drawing on past tradition in the manner of fugu. In Wang Lu's landscape painting, the composition and use of floating perspective is reminiscent of Gao Xi's canonical Early Spring. The composition, of course, is much simpler and direct. Its lines are thicker and outline sharper shapes. But the bold rock formations, with what Cahill might call their 'exaggerated and swollen rotundity,' recalls Gao Xi's aesthetic. Perhaps this painter, working roughly 250 years after Gao Xi's time, intended to imitate, and indeed abbreviate the forms of the old master in pursuit of a ku-i, that a rough aesthetic which is yet "beautiful in it antique simplicity" (Bush, 122).
One dynasty later, Gao Qi Pei produces a painting even more similar in composition to
Early Spring. Again we see the use of floating perspective, the similar rock formations with only sparse shrubbery clinging to the top. Again, there are distinct differences. Gao Qi Pei's lines are thick like Wang Lu's, but lack the latter's sharpness and boldness in outline and detail. These lines are blurry and indeterminate, lacking much of the intricacy and detail that can be seen in Gao Xi and Wang Lu as well. Yet, the sense of antiquity in this piece is strong, recalling aspects of Yuan dynasty painting which Wang Lu may have missed. Gao Xi obtains a dreamlike effect with his precise yet wavering lines and the use of whitespace which mists over and obscures much of the landscape. Gao Qi Pei obtains similar effects by abbreviating the form, reducing Gao Xi's techniques into a hazy, unelaborate line which blends details together and at times nearly fades into the paper.
Zhao Mengfu's conception of ku-i differs very much from Ernst Gombrich's thoughts on artistic style. Much of the difference may simply come from perspective. As a creator of art, Zhao Mengfu is naturally more concerned with form than context. By contrast, Gombrich attempts to explain style in terms of its physical context--be it spacial, historical, social, technological or political. Although he is wary of the unitary, holistic approach that Hegelian art historians like Heinrich Wolfflin, Gombrich admits that such perspectives are 'seductive.' All this goes to show that Gombrich is much more concerned with explaining style than with classifying them. Therefore, he might be inclined to take Zhao's claims about antiquity and form at face value, but would strive to go further into the socio-historical situation of the Yuan dynasty artist. While Bush is perfectly clear when she says that "For the Chinese scholar, age had precedence over beauty," Gombrich would ask just why age had such precedence, how long it had this privileged status, whether certain groups valued things other than age, and so on and so forth. Only an investigation that asked such questions, in Gombrich's view, could ever hope to explain that thing we call "style."
