PREFACE This book is an attempt to formulate the Chinese cultural traits and to analyze their expres-
sion in pictorial principles. Because it has been impossible to find satisfactory English equiva-
lents for the Chinese terms, transliterations of the main terms have been inserted into the text
for greater accuracy. It has also been difficult to select a single term for a specific pictorial
idea because the terms themselves have been reinterpreted in different periods and because
the Chinese writers have not been consistent in their use. It is illuminating to note that Chinese
terminology has been rich in dealing with the nature of art and very limited in describing
principles of design, probably because the latter were handed down as the accepted rules
without the need for formulation into conceptual terms. To us the notions of unity, coherence
and emphasis are basic in any composition, but the Chinese tend to describe each process
instead of defining them by single terms (see List of Terms). The handling of the Chinese cultural orientations has been equally troublesome. Comparisons
with western attitudes are apt to be more misleading than helpful, and yet the Chinese
approaches to experience defy our understanding unless we relate them to western orientations.
In discussing each cultural attitude, the device has been adopted of establishing two western
polarities between which the Chinese have functioned. Only in this way can we avoid the
pitfalls of interpreting the Chinese spirit in terms of western idealism, naturalism, subjectivism,
romanticism or modernism. For example, because Chinese painting and "modern" painting
are both more intuitive, abstract and suggestive than western painting has been since the
Middle Ages, it does not follow that these superficial similarities stem from similar motivations.
Chinese intuition is far removed from contemporary subjectivism; the abstract quality of
Chinese design arose from simplification and elimination rather than from mechanization
or distortion of forms; and suggestion in Chinese painting, although used to heighten the
awareness of the unknown, seldom departs from the laws of nature. Today our painters strain
after the new and the startling, while the Chinese artists built upon the old and the mature.
If we look at Chinese painting through "modern" eyes we will miss its meaning. It should be
our constant endeavor to escape from ourselves and from our machine-minded and psycho-
logically intense age. Only then will we reach the inner harmony of the Chinese spirit which
has revealed itself so supremely in Chinese painting. The first edition was illustrated from the collection of Dr. DuBois S. Morris, generously
presented to Princeton University in celebration of its Bicentennial. Obviously, no single col-
lection, whether public or private, is comprehensive enough to illustrate the scope of this text.
Therefore, examples for the second edition have been selected from many sources. These
paintings have been chosen for their quality, appropriateness of subject matter, and coverage
of all periods of Chinese painting from Han to modern times. GEORGE ROWLEY Princeton University, 1959 | 
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