Elusive Cloudland

The Chinese say that their painting is "like vapors and clouds which rise into space, gather around cliffs and drift over wide expanses. ..."

Westerners often have trouble catching the drift of these painted vapors. One who has no trouble is Princeton's George Rowley. His Principles of Chinese Painting (Princeton University Press; $15), on sale last week, is a well-illustrated and well-reasoned study of this elusive cloudland. Summarizing the Chinese approach to painting, Author Rowley lists four "categories of greatness":

Chiao (clever). "Clever" Chinese are slick at rendering the "outward formal likeness"; they know the "rules." As Old Master Ching Hao put it: "The skillful painter carves out and pieces together scraps of beauty."

Miao (wonderful). "Wonderful" painters have no idea what makes them so. Their work is moving but it is apt to look "strange, queer, and have neither reason nor resemblance. This is the result of having brush (pi) but not thought (ssu)."

Shen (divine). The "divine" painter penetrates "with his thoughts the nature of everything in heaven and earth, and thus things flow out of his brush in accordance with the truth of the motif." No artist can be "divine" who is not something of a mystic. Some Chinese critics--understandably--think the "divine" is as much as any artist can hope to achieve.

I (effortlessness). "This kind of excellence can only be found in the seers, the saints, and the greatest artists. . . . Perhaps untrammeled is the one word which comes closest to suggesting this ultimate quality. ... If [the painter] has attained depth and breadth of character, then he is ready to aspire to that highest kind of freedom, the freedom of effortless creation."

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