?
Типология и основы эстетики традиционного китайского портрета
From the first centuries of the Common Era, portrait was one of the leading genres of traditional Chinese painting. The objective of this study is to provide an extended portrait typology and to explore the basics of portrait aesthetics in the light of the latest achievements in Oriental studies. The extensive typology of the Chinese portrait forms of the X-XIX centuries testifies to the pictorial tradition maturity. The portrayed were depicted standing, sitting and lying, appeared life-size or head-and-shoulders, and were pictured full-face or in three quarters and, sometimes, back views. The social portrait typology was composed of tomb portraits, lifetime ceremonial portraits, lifetime informal portraits, commemorative portraits, historical and didactic portraits, diplomatic portraits, compromising portraits, religious portraits, portraits of donators and self-portraits. The development of stylistics of all portrait types was based on three main principles of national aesthetics. The first principle borrowed from the xiangfa physiognomy, asserted a direct link among the structural features of the physical body, psyche and mental abilities of people, which together determined their destiny. The tradition of visual psychosemiotics did not allow the commissioner to demand that the artist change the appearance of the person being portrayed to any idealizing standards, as this was thought to result in personality substitution. The second principle was based on the concept of "body oneness" (yi ti) of the Universe, whereby each part of the human face was in energy resonance with various astronomical and landscape objects. In the portrait, a person was characterized simultaneously as part of the cosmos, society and race. The third principle concerned the spiritual content of the portrayed person’s image, denoted by the term shen. The analysis of occurrence of the term shen in treatises shows that what their authors meant by shen was a personified manifestation of the connection between the single and the Universal rather than the portrayed person’s individuality (a certain soul) and the sacral beginning (spirit).