董其昌은 南北宗論을 체계화하여 南宗文人畵의 이론적 기초를 확립한 화가이다. 또한 동기창은 고대 書畵에 대한 광범위한 학습을 바탕으로 지신의 새로운 산수화 양식을 창조하여 명 말 이후 중국 문인화의 새로운 방향을 제시하였다. 동기창의 남북종론과, ‘창조적 倣論’에 대해서는 그동안 많은 논문들이 발표된 바 있다. 아울러 마이클 설리번(Michael Sullivan), 제임스 케힐(James Cahill), 리처드 반하트(Richard Barnhart)등 영미권의 중국회화사 연구자들은 동기창의 산수화에 보이는 서양화풍적 요소에 주목하여 동기창 회화에 끼친 서양의 그림 및 판화의 역할에 대하여 논의한 바 있다. 그러나 현재까지 구체적으로 어떤 서양의 그림과 판화들이 동기창의 새로운 산수화 양식에 영향을 주었는지는 밝혀진 바 없다. 따라서 동기창과 유럽 미술과의 상관관계는 여전히 가설적인 수준에 머물러 있다. 본 연구는 동기창 산수화 양식의 형성에 영향을 준 서양기하학에 초점을 맞추어 최근에 출간된 동기창 所藏 서적 목록인 『玄賞齊書目』에 주목하였다. 『현상재서목』에는 『幾何原本』(1607) 등 1607-1626년 사이에 출간된 10권의 漢譯 서양과학서가 포함되어 있다. 이러한 한역 서양 과학서에 포함되어 있는, 특히 『幾何原本』에 수록된 다양한 기학학적 圖解들을 바탕으로 동기창은 새로운 산수화 양식을 실험할 수 있었다. 동기창 산수화에 자주 보이는 複數의 수평선들, 기울어진 地面들, 삼각형 또는 오각형과 같은 산과 바위의 모습들은 『幾何原本』에 수록되어 있는 기학학적 圖解들을 응용한 것으로 판단된다. 아울러 동기창 회화의 정수로 평가되는 〈倣董源筆靑弁圖〉(1617년)와 〈江山秋霽圖〉(약 1624-1627년)에 보이는 입체적인 바위의 모습은 동기창이 명 말 중국에 소개된 유럽의 기하학적 多面體에 대한 인식을 가지고 있었음을 보여준다. 동기창이 『畵眼』에서 언급한 ‘모든 다른 각도와 측면에서 보아도 또렷하게 입체감을 드러낼 수 있는 표현 기법 〔八面玲瓏之巧〕’은 다양한 각도에서 바라본 산수 景物을 입체감 있게 묘사하는 기법을 지칭한 것으로 동기창 산수화에 보이는 입체적인 바위 형태와 기하학적 다면체 사이의 연관성을 강하게 시사해준다. 동기창이 서염하학 등 서학 전반에 걸쳐 폭넓은 관심을 가지고 있었음은 〈상우도〉에 보이는 ‘구세주 에 수’ 혹은 ‘은총을 베푸는 예수’ 도상을 차용한 그의 손동작 모습에서도 확인할 수 있다. 즉 〈상우도〉에 나타난 동기창의 독특한 손 모습은 그의 서학에 대한 관심과 지식의 정도를 극명하게 보여주는 매우 귀중한 시각적 자료라고 평가할 수 있다.
This essay explores the ways in which European science and technology, introduced to China in conjunction with Jesuit missionaries at the end of the sixteenth century, played a significant role in the formation of the art of Dong Qichang (1555-1636), a high official, renowned painter, and ambitious theorist. My primary concern is to investigate how Dong Qichang dealt with intellectual and artistic stimuli corning from Europe and how he achieved a new form of landscape painting through his active engagement with Western Learning (Xixue). Dong Qichang has been considered one of the strongest advocates of the power of China's artistic past. As a result, studies of his art have focused on his creative interpretation of earlier styles. Although such scholars as Arthur Waley, Michael Sullivan, James Cahill and Richard Barnhart have suggested that Dong Qichang could have been influenced by European prints and drawings, the entire question of the importance of European pictorial sources on his painting has remained controversial. I am returning to this matter in light of new material and scholarship. In a recent essay, Richard Barnhart has hypothesized that the innovation and transformation of Dong Qichang's painting was closely related to his contact with Western knowledge introduced by Jesuit missionaries, more specifically, Matteo Ricci (1552-1610). Within the broad context of the introduction of Western pictorial skills in late Ming China, Barnhart has analyzed the historical significance of The Wanluan Thatched Cottage, dated 1597, now in a private collection, by paying special attention to the tilted ground planes, multiple horizons, and cross-hatching techniques. Barnhart's hypothesis is inspiring and even provocative in claiming that the landscape art of Dong Qichang, the patriarch of the Orthodox School of literati painting, was inspired by certain elements derived from European pictorial techniques. He has posed a serious challenge to the established idea that Dong's innovative landscape painting was the result of his artistic efforts to achieve a great synthesis of past styles and, as a result, must be understood in the purely Chinese context of literati painting. The Xuanshangzhai shumu, the list of books in Dong's private library, has recently been published. Although we need to carefully examine when and how it was made. the list includes many interesting Western books, translated into Chinese in conjunction with Jesuit missionaries between 1607 and 1626. The list above reveals that Dong Qichang possessed almost all major Chinese translations of Western books concerning geometry, astronomy, cosmology, and geography. Whether or not Dong Qichang seriously studied Western science and technology by utilizing the books that he had collected is hard to tell. It is reasonably certain, however, that Dong Qichang had considerable interest in Western knowledge, which had an enormous impact on the intellectual life of his contemporaries Dong Qichang's Wanluan Thatched Cottage offers a most interesting example reinforcing the possibility that Dong could have seen Qu Taisu's booklet on Euclidean geometry, the first translation of Euclid's Elements of Geometry into Chinese, then issued and circulated in Nanchang, and could have acquired some knowledge of geometrical principles. In his letter to Ricci, Qu Taisu mentioned the Euclidean definition of the circle discussed in his booklet on geometry. Interestingly, in The Wanluan Thatched Cottage, we can see that several incised arcs of circles appear in the upper left. It seems that the curved surfaces of mountains and rocks represent the circumferences of the circles. The Jihe yuanben (1607) discusses the measurement of the circle and offers some diagrams explaining the concept of the angle between the curved lines. These diagrams show how the curved lines and straight lines between the two circle-segments can produce angles. The hemispherical forms shaping the circular structure of boulders and mountains in The Wanluan Thatched Cottage can provide us a compelling indication that Dong Qichang could have understood something of spherical geometry. The geometrical forms and angles continued to preoccupy Dong Qichang. One album leaf from the set of ten paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, dated 1621-24, reveals a pentagonal mountain in the background. One leaf from an album of eight paintings, ca. 1620, in a private collection presents a series of triangular forms of mountains transposed and interlocked. The triangles in the painting have various features. They appear to be isoscles, scalene, and equilateral triangles with different sides and angles. Dong's preoccupation with presenting various geometrical forms in painting is more evident in his Shaded Dwellings among Streams and Mountains after Dong Yuan, ca.1622-26. in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There are hexagons, pentagons. rectangles, and triangles brought together in the background. The active role of European geometrical solids, called mianti (multi-dimensional geometrical body) by the Chinese at that time. in the transformation of Dong Qichang's landscape art, is of great significance in understanding the relationship between Dong and European geometry In addition to texts on Euclidean geometry, Dong Qichang seems to have taken an interest in European geometrical solids, the use of which can be seen in his masterworks, Mount Qingbian after Dong Yuan of 1617 and River and Mountains on a Clear Autumn Day, ca. 1624-27, both in the Cleveland Museum of Art. The volumetric rocks in these landscapes, viewed from different angles and rendered in multi-faceted shapes, are an indication that Dong could have used geometrical solids. The cubically constructed masses in the interplay of concavities and convexities in these landscapes are further suggestive of Dong's concerns with various geometrical forms and angles Dong Qichang's knowledge about European geometrical solids and his use of them in the creation of landscapes were primarily concerned with the volumes, weights, angles, and multi-dimensional facets of mountains and rocks. Venerable Friends, a group portrait of Dong Qichang and his circle of friends including Chen Jiru, Li Rihua , Lu Dezhi, and Monk Qiutan, and Xiang Shengmo, painted by Xiang Shengmo and Zhang Qi, now in the Shanghai Museum, serves to reinforce the possibility that Dong Qichang gained a considerable understanding of Christianity. Six gentlemen are shown in a garden setting with pines and rocks. The two sitters posing more formally and frontally in the upper portion of the painting are Dong Qichang and his dose friend Chen Jiru, each holding one end of a scroll in their hands. This rare group portrait was painted in 1652, sixteen years after Dong Qichang died. What is interesting to me is Dong Qichang's left-hand gesture showing his thumb slightly bent, his index and middle fingers erect. This hand gesture bears a strong resemblance to that of the Blessing Christ, the iconography of which was known in China by Dong Qichang's time through European prints. In almost every painting and print of the Blessing Christ, Christ is depicted turning his body slightly to the light with his right hand raised, a hand gesture indicative of his blessing. Although Dong Qichang is shown seated frontally with his left hand raised rather than his right hand, the hand gesture is extremely dose to that of Christ. Dong Qichang's hand gesture could have also been closely related to that of the Salvator Mundi. The frontal view of Dong Qichang and his hand gesture strongly suggest that their source of inspiration was drawn from the iconography of the Salvator Mundi. Dong's interesting hand gesture will not only enable us to look into hitherto unknown aspects of Dong Qichang's life and art within the culture of Western Learning in late Ming China, but also provide an interesting insight into the earliest moment in Sino-European cultural interaction in the visual arts.
