ChineseStudy

48. Viewing General Cao's Painting of Horses at the Home of Registrar Wei Feng | Du Fu

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English translation

Since the founding of the dynasty, among painters of saddled horses, the miraculous one was the Prince of Jiangdu.

He sets up a predecessor as a yardstick. Before Cao Ba is named, the top of the craft is placed on the Prince of Jiangdu.

The general has held his fame thirty years, and the world sees a true Cheng Huang again.

Cheng Huang is a legendary divine horse. Another after thirty years sets Cao Ba on the seat the Prince of Jiangdu held.

He once painted the late emperor's Night Shiner, and for ten days thunder rolled over the Dragon Pool.

Night Shiner was Xuanzong's famous horse. Ten days of thunder over the painting credits the painter's power and the horse's spirit at once.

From the inner treasury a deep red agate bowl: the favourite passes the order down, a lady-in-waiting comes to ask for it.

The agate bowl brings in the palace rewards, showing what treatment Cao Ba received in the court.

The bowl is given to the general and he bows and dances his thanks; fine silk and thin gauze chase after him as he goes.

Bowing and dancing is the ritual of thanks. Rewards running after the man show the pageantry, and the glory of those years.

When the great houses and the powerful get a stroke of his brush, only then do they feel their screens give off light.

From palace rewards to great families begging for paintings. The value of the work is told through the collectors' reaction.

The Quanmao Gua of Taizong in the past, the Lion Flower of the Guo family of late.

Two famous horses, one old and one recent, set the frame of reference for the new painting to come.

Now the new painting holds two horses, and again it leaves those who know sighing a long while.

The new painting finally appears. Reaction first, then the work — Du Fu's usual order.

These are the kind that in mounted war face ten thousand alone; over the white silk a grey vastness opens out, wind and sand.

White silk is the ground of the painting. Saying the painted horses could fight is really saying what the painting's spirit is.

The other seven are superb as well, far off like smoke and snow stirring in the cold sky.

From two horses out to seven, the view pulls back. Smoke and snow is an intangible image, and the whole movement of the horses is inside it.

Hooves white with frost stamp among the tall catalpas, and the grooms and stable hands stand in grim rows.

Horses before, men and setting now. The tall catalpas line the road, and the picture suddenly has a ground to stand on.

Lovely, the nine horses vie in divine mettle, looking back, aloof and high, their bearing deep and steady.

Nine horses settles the two and the seven. Vying is motion, aloof and steady is stillness; the two sit together.

Ask who loves them with a whole heart: Wei Feng behind, and Zhi Dun before.

Zhi Dun was a monk of the Eastern Jin famous for loving horses. Tying the host Wei Feng to him praises the host and names the poem's occasion.

I remember the imperial progress to the Xinfeng Palace; the kingfisher banners brushed the sky and came east.

This line pulls the camera back to the high years of Kaiyuan. Looking at a painting before, remembering now, and the poem's scope opens.

Thirty thousand horses rearing and ranging, all of them the same bone and sinew as this painting.

Thirty thousand sets a small painting against the whole imperial stable. The nine in the picture are the thirty thousand in miniature.

Since the tribute was offered at the River Lord's court, no more shooting the dragon in the river.

Both lines use old stories to mean Xuanzong's death. The end of the high age is written obliquely, without being said.

Do you not see, in the pines before the Jinsu mound, all the dragon steeds are gone and only birds call in the wind.

The Jinsu mound is Xuanzong's tomb. The close has no men and no horses, only wind and birds; the poem ends in emptiness.

赏析 · Commentary

先说钱，再说画 · Money First, the Painting After

诗的前六句不谈画艺，谈赏赐：玛瑙碗、拜舞谢恩、轻纨细绮追着送。这些都是曹霸当年得宠的凭证。杜甫把排场写在画之前，后面夸画的时候，读者手里已经有了尺度——一个被皇帝赏过玛瑙碗的人，画出来的马是什么分量。等到诗末写他漂泊、画路人，落差就砸下来了。

The first six lines never discuss the art; they discuss rewards: the agate bowl, bowing and dancing thanks, fine silk chasing after him. All of it is evidence of the favour Cao Ba once enjoyed. Du Fu puts the pageantry before the painting so that by the time the painting is praised, the reader already holds a scale — what does a horse painted by a man the emperor rewarded with agate weigh. When the poem later has him drifting and painting passersby, the fall lands hard.

两匹和七匹 · Two Horses and Seven

这幅画有九匹马，杜甫把它们分成两拨写：先两匹，说它们是骑战里以一敌万的；再七匹，说它们像寒空里翻动的烟雪。两匹写得实，七匹写得虚。写到最后一句「九马争神骏」，两拨合成一群，前面分开的笔这才收拢。分开写的好处是，一幅画被看成了两次。

The painting holds nine horses, and Du Fu splits them into two groups: first two, called the kind that fight ten thousand alone in mounted war; then seven, like smoke and snow stirring in the cold sky. The two are written solid and the seven intangible. By the closing line about nine horses vying in mettle the two groups merge into one herd and the brush that had divided them gathers back. The gain in splitting them is that one painting gets looked at twice.

结尾落到一座陵 · The Ending Lands on a Tomb

从画马忽然跳到「忆昔巡幸」：三万匹御马、玄宗的排场、然后是他死去、天马散尽。金粟堆是他生前选定的葬地。杜甫把话题停在陵前的松柏和风里的鸟叫上，画、马、人全都退场，只剩风声。一首题画诗，最后写的是一整个时代的收场。

From painted horses the poem jumps to remembering the progress: thirty thousand imperial horses, Xuanzong's pageantry, and then his death and the steeds all gone. The Jinsu mound is the tomb site he chose in his lifetime. Du Fu stops the subject on the pines before the tomb and birds calling in the wind, with painting, horses, and men all leaving the stage and only wind left. A poem about a picture ends up writing the close of a whole age.

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