A History of the World in 100 Objects - Dr Neil MacGregor [100]
The emperor turns to reject his wife.
The verse in the illustration above reads:
No one can please forever; / Affection cannot be for one alone; / If it be so, it will end in disgust. / When love has reached its highest pitch, it changes its object; / For whatever has reached fullness must decline. / This law is absolute. / The ‘beautiful wife who knew herself to be beautiful’ / Was soon hated. / If by a mincing air you seek to please, / Wise men will abhor you. / From this cause truly comes / The breaking of favour’s bond.
39
Admonitions Scroll
Painting, from China
AD 500–800
After banqueting and gay sex in the early Roman Empire, smoking and ceremony in North America, ball games and belief in Mexico, we come to another kind of elaborate social pleasure – looking at painting. Specifically I want to look at a masterpiece of painting from China, in the form of a scroll, based on an original painted around the years AD 400 or 500. It embraces three separate art forms, in China known lyrically as ‘the three perfections’: painting, poetry and calligraphy. As a handscroll it was made to be viewed with selected friends, and as a fine work of art it was cherished by emperors over hundreds of years. It’s known as The Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies, or the Admonitions Scroll, for short, and it’s a form of ancient guide to manners, and above all to morals, for ladies of the Chinese court – it tells powerful women how to behave.
A common theme which has emerged from the objects I have described in the previous few chapters has been the changing view of what constitutes an acceptable pleasure. At different times in world history spice has turned into vice – or vice versa. But enjoying a work of art like the Admonitions Scroll has always been entirely acceptable, and the scroll itself carries the record of those who, through the centuries, have been lucky enough to look at it and enjoy it.
The scroll is cared for in the specially built East Asian painting conservation studio at the British Museum, where the entire painting can be laid out – it’s about 3.5 metres (11 feet) long. Its creation brought together artists of different periods, and since it was completed it has been continually cherished. The starting point was a long poem written by the courtier Zhang Hua in AD 292. About a century later, around the year 400, a famous painting – now believed to be lost – incorporated the poem. The Admonitions Scroll was probably completed 200 years or so after that, but it faithfully copied and captured the spirit of the original great painting, indeed there are some who think that this may be the original painting itself. Whatever its precise status, this scroll is one of the most celebrated examples of early Chinese painting to have come down to us.
About half of the scroll is made up of painted scenes, each one divided from the next by lines from the poem. As the scroll was slowly unrolled, you would have read the poem and been able to see only one scene at a time; that sense of unfolding is a key part of the pleasure. One frame shows a disturbing episode. A beautiful and seductive woman of the court harem is approaching the emperor. The billowing robes and red ribbons that she’s wearing accentuate her movement as she flutters coquettishly towards him. But, as we look more closely, we can see that she’s actually faltering: she’s just been brought up short by the emperor’s outstretched arm and hand, raised in an uncompromising gesture of rejection. The emperor is above fleshly desire. Her body twists as she abruptly begins to turn away, and on her face is the expression of a shocked, thwarted vanity.
When Zhang Hua wrote the poem in AD 292, China was in a state of fragmentation following the collapse of the Han Empire. Competing forces jostled for supremacy, constantly threatening to