Method of No-Method

(36)

To elucidate the method of no-method requires a departure from mundane discourse. Our purposes would be better served at this point by moving to afictive plane; through a time warp, we can bring our players together out oftime and space to a spot of repose and beauty conductive to high-minded discourse. Imagine, if you will, a convocation of the Immortals who (with a fine disregard for the prerogative of Emperors and followers of Confucius) meet at Tian Tang, the Temple of Heaven, in Beijing, with its ancient trees, stately walks, and noble architecture, one of the few places left the Immortals would deign to honor with their presence. This morning's meeting was on the subject of method and how to bring to those on the other side understanding of its useand misuse. The meeting has just adjourned. Outside, sitting on the steps ofthe temple, are Guo Xi, the eleventh-century landscape master, Shi Tao,Constable, Van Gogh, Monet, and Merleau-Ponty, the French philosopher, a motley crew. If we eavesdrop a bit, we might pick up their conversation --

Guo Xi is holding forth:

"Great men and learned scholars do not limit themselves to one school. It is necessary to combine (several models) and make observations on a broad basis sothat one may form a personal style and gradually reach perfection... to follow asingle school in one's study has been since olden times considered a weakness..."

Shi Tao, vehemently:

"Following old rules is death to the mind and eye, for the immortals ride on the wind, and flesh and bone compel the appearance of the divine spirit."

Van Gogh, somewhat diffidently:

"In a certain way I'm glad I have not learned painting because I might have learned to pass by such effects as this. Now I say no, it's just what I want. If it is impossible, it is impossible. I will try it, though. I do not know how it should be done. How I paint it I do not know myself. In my shorthand there may be mistakes or gaps--but there is something of that wood or that shore or figure... and it is not conventional language."

Shi Tao, still aggressive:

"I am as I am. I exist. I cannot stick the whiskers of the ancients on my facenor put their entrails in my belly. I have my own entrails and I prefer to twitch my own whiskers."

Constable, the perfect gentleman:

"The attempt to revive old styles... may appear for a time successful, but experience may now teach us its impossibility. I might put on a suit of Claude Lorraine's and walk the street. The many who know Claude slightly would pull off their hats to me, but I should at last meet someone more intimately acquainted with him who would expose me to the contempt I merited."

Monet, with his usual aplomb:

"I only know I do what I think I must do to express what I experience before nature and more often than not to be able to get out what I feel. I totally forget the simplest rules of painting if they exist at all! In short, I leave a lot of mistakes showing in order to put down my sensations..."

Shi Tao, somewhat mollified:

"To paint a picture, one should not stick to the arbitrary rules...but give thewhole picture a sense of cohesion. There should be unexpected breakthroughs toshow the strength of the artist's conception...If this sense of cohesion is established, minor faults may be forgiven..."

Merleau-Ponty, trying to sum up:

"Just when the artist has reached proficiency in some area, he finds another one where everything he said before must be said in a different way... Thediscovery calls forth a new quest. The idea of a universal painting is bereftof sense. For painters, the world will always be there to be painted, even ifit lasts a million years."

To have the last word, Shi Tao adds:

"The ancients furnish the means for insight, recognition. To develop means to know such means and spurn them... these who inherit but do not develop fail because of their limited insight. If the insight or recognition is limited to being like the past, then it is not a broad insight."

Picasso (by chance passing by):

"I would rather copy anybody than myself."

Shi Tao (responding):

"Therefore, the gentleman takes the past merely as a means of modern development. It is said the perfect man has no method. It is not that he has nomethod, but rather the best of methods, which is the method of no-method."

In the distance, lurking in the shade of an ancient, gnarled tree, are Lenin and Einstein.

Lenin can be heard:

"...in order to fulfill its task, the revolutionary class must be able to master all forms or aspects of social activity, without exception--it must beable to understand and to apply not only a new methodology and any variations thereof it can imagine-- it must be able to move from one to the other in thequickest and most unexpected manner."

Einstein, somewhat apologetically, and no little embarrassed:

"The external conditions which are set (for the scientist) by the facts of experience do not permit him to let himself be too much restricted in the construction of his conceptual world by adherence to an epistemological system. He must, therefore, appear to the systematic epistemologist as a type of unscrupulous opportunist."

In another corner of this beautiful park, Shi Tao, Hans Hofmann, and the18th-century writer and artist Shen Congqian are nodding in apparentagreement.

Shi Tao is saying:

"People know about paintings but do not understand the method of one-stroke. Forthe important thing in art is contemplation. When one contemplates the One (unity of all things) one sees it and that makes one happy. Then one's paintings have a mysterious depth which is unfathomable."

Hofmann adds:

"The magic of painting can never be rationally explained. It is in the armory of the heart and mind, in the capacity of feeling into things that plays theinstrument... the product of a sensitive mind."

Shen Congqain, in accord:

"The nature of the world is infinite, especially as seen through paintings where only subtle observation can grasp what it is about. Now this subtle penetration is not for shallow uncultured minds. Unless helped with reading,one's mind becomes crude and superficial, without depth, and, without theflavor of poets, becomes common."

Epilogue

What have we heard at our imaginary conclave? What is it that makes these collected soliloquies sound almost like conversations? To answer these questions, we must understand the connections Shi Tao makes between the methodof one-stroke and the method no-method. It appears to me that Shi Tao is saying that in the unfolding process of creation every new creation recapitulates theoriginal beginning. The one-stroke requires the method of no-method. The ancients had no models, only chaos and their will for order. They developed their own method on the basis of their own needs and world view. Those whowould really follow the ancients should follow their example and process, not attempt to copy or develop their products. Shi Tao's message is, in short, be modern! A little more than a hundred years later, halfway around the world, Delacroix is enjoining artists to follow the same path.

All the contributors to this little piece, despite their diversity of time, place, and point of view, consider painting to be a serious business. Art, for them, is not an adornment of power, but a commitment to life. As old Zhang putit: "To complete culture, help human relations, and explore the mysteries ofthe universe..."

John Loftus

from "Friar Bittermelon's Method of No-Method, an Art-Historical Docudrama and Moral Tale" 1986

[Contents] [NextPage] [ListOfPlates]