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49. A Song of Painting, for General Cao Ba | Du Fu

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English translation

The general is a descendant of Emperor Wu of Wei, and today he is a commoner, a house of no means.

One line gives the blood, one the present state. The fall packed into commoner, a house of no means is the ground the whole poem stands on.

The hero's carving of a kingdom is over, yet the letters and bearing still remain.

The first half says the ancestor's work is done, the second that his own gift survives — the family's decline set beside the man's talent.

Learning the brush he first studied Lady Wei, and only regretted not surpassing Wang the General.

Lady Wei and Wang are both masters of calligraphy. This is groundwork: he studied it too, only never outdid them.

In painting he does not notice old age coming on; wealth and rank are to me a floating cloud.

From calligraphy to painting. Noticing old age not is being sunk in it; a floating cloud is everything else let go.

In the Kaiyuan years he was often brought before the throne and many times, by favour, went up to the Nanxun Hall.

The Kaiyuan era names the time. Lineage and temperament before, and here his glory begins.

The meritorious ministers of Lingyan had faded, and the general's brush gave them new faces.

Lingyan is the hall where Taizong hung portraits of his worthies. The old pictures had dimmed and he repainted them; the changing of the guard is done in one line.

On the good minister's head the cap of worthies; at the fierce general's waist the great feathered arrow.

Two kinds of men in two lines, one cap and one arrow, lifting the people and objects out of the portraits.

The hair of Duke Bao and Duke E stirs, dashing and bright, as if they were coming to fight.

That the painted men's hair stirs credits the painting with being alive. Writing Cao Ba, Du Fu always works from the effect.

The late emperor's heavenly horse, the Jade Flower, and painters thick as a mountain painted it unlike.

Painters thick as a mountain presses down and lifts at once: the more of them there are, the more his single difference shows.

That day it was led below the red steps and stood far off at the palace gate, raising a long wind.

The palace gate is also the gate of heaven. The horse is not painted yet and already there is a wind; this is the living horse.

The order comes for the general to wipe the white silk, and his design is laboured through in painstaking care.

Painstaking care is the hardest stretch before the painting. The horse's spirit was written before; here it is the man's labour.

In a moment the true dragon comes out of the ninth heaven, washing ten thousand ages clean and emptying them of common horses.

In a moment is fast, set against the painstaking care of the line before — the labour and the stroke of genius inside one couplet.

The Jade Flower is there on the imperial couch, and the one on the couch and the one in the courtyard stand facing each other.

The turn of those two words registers the illusion: the painted horse and the real one cannot be told apart. The hardest praise of the painting in the poem.

The emperor smiles and hurries the gold reward; the grooms and the master of horse are all cast down.

Cast down describes the bystanders: the living horse has been outdone, and the men who tend horses feel it.

The disciple Han Gan entered the inner room early, and he too could paint horses, running through all their shapes.

Entering the inner room means studying deeply. Turning to the disciple sets up the criticism that follows.

Han Gan paints the flesh and not the bone, and lets the fire of a fine horse wither.

Paints the flesh and not the bone is the poem's most famous judgment, and a mirror held up to Cao Ba.

The general's goodness in painting lies in the spirit, and meeting a fine man he will do his likeness too.

From horses back to people, bringing in portraiture and preparing the last stretch about the man's own life.

Now, drifting through the years of war, he often paints ordinary passersby.

Ordinary passersby is the sharpest phrase here. Once he painted the emperor's horses; now he paints men on the road.

At the end of his road he is looked at askance by common eyes; there is no one in the world as poor as you.

Looked at askance is the eye of contempt. His talent was written before, his circumstances here, and the gap sits inside one line.

Only look at the great names of old — all their days ill fortune clings to them.

The close pushes from one man out to the great names of old and turns a case into a rule, and the weight lands.

赏析 · Commentary

一开头的落差 · The Drop in the Opening Line

第一句就说血统：魏武帝的后代。第二句就说现状：如今是平民，是清寒人家。两句之间没有过渡，落差直接摆着。杜甫把这一落放在最前面，后面所有关于画艺的夸赞、关于赏赐的排场，都是在往这个底子上堆。全诗最后写他漂泊、贫寒，正是回到起手这句话。

The first line gives the blood: a descendant of Emperor Wu of Wei. The second gives the present: a commoner now, a house of no means. No transition between them, the drop simply stands. Du Fu puts the fall first, and everything after — the praise of the art, the pageantry of rewards — piles onto that floor. The poem's closing on his drifting and poverty is a return to the opening line.

「意匠惨澹」和「斯须」 · Painstaking Care and In a Moment

画马那一段，杜甫把动笔前的苦思和落笔的迅疾并排放在上下句：「意匠惨澹经营中」是慢，是熬；「斯须九重真龙出」是快，是神来。一慢一快，中间没有转语。这样写比单夸天才结实：他既写了曹霸下的功夫，也写了那一下子有多漂亮。

In the passage on painting the horse, Du Fu sets the labour before the brush against the speed of the stroke in adjoining lines: painstaking care is slow, a grinding; in a moment the true dragon comes out is fast, inspired. Slow and fast with nothing between them, and it proves more solid than praising genius alone. He writes both the work Cao Ba put in and how fine that single moment was.

韩干那一笔 · The Stroke About Han Gan

写曹霸的正题里，杜甫忽然插进来写他的弟子韩干，还说了一句难听的评语：只画肉不画骨。这句评语后来成了画史上的公案。放在诗里，它的作用是把标准亮出来——连入室的弟子都差在骨上，曹霸的骨是什么样，就不用再夸了。批评别人，是把师傅托得更高。

Inside the praise of Cao Ba, Du Fu inserts his disciple Han Gan and hands him a harsh judgment: he paints the flesh and not the bone. That line later became a case argued in painting history. Inside the poem its work is to hold the standard up — if even the disciple who entered the inner room falls short on the bone, no more words are needed about what Cao Ba's bone is. Criticising the pupil lifts the master higher.

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