Fascination of Nature

Since ancient times, Chinese philosophers, poets, and artists have taken time to observe the tiniest and humblest denizens of the natural world. No subject was too small to be worth studying, none too familiar to be included. A willingness to empathize with other creatures and to study their behavior resonated with the Daoist way. In one of the most celebrated stories from his fourth-century B.C. text, Zhuangzi, the philosopher Zhuang Zhou recalls a dream in which he was a butterfly. Awaking suddenly, he was quite confused, not knowing if he had been dreaming of the butterfly or if he were a butterfly dreaming of Zhuang Zhou.

A fourteenth-century silk handscroll, its title translated variously as "Glimpses of Life in Heaven and Earth" and "Fascination of Nature" exemplifies this close attention to the natural world. Eleven inches wide, twelve feet long, and signed in 1321 by an artist named Xie Chufang, the painting is a depiction of insects' struggle for survival and perhaps an allegory of political events during the Yuan dynasty (1280-1368), when the whole of China was under Mongol rule.

At the end of the scroll are four poems by contemporary Chinese literati that seem to be oblique expressions of frustration with Mongol rule. One poem by a loyalist scholar reads:

Small insects labor to eat, each to his own.
Hiding and spying, ambushing,
   each other.
Inheritance and profit are not according to
   justice,
Their knowledge is no more than carefree
   boldness.

--Chen Shen (1260-1344)

During the Yuan dynasty, many scholars and civil servants dropped out of government service and turned their talents to painting and writing; the state examination system by which they were recruited and promoted had been suspended, and they did not wish to serve under the Mongols. Thus, the scroll's images of a lizard on the prowl, a snail steadily climbing up the underside of a cabbage leaf, the industry of ants, and a hapless cicada clinging to a weeping willow and falling victim to a predatory mantis--all may be interpreted as subversive commentaries on the oppressive authority of the Yuan dynasty.

Plant and insect painting--caochong--had been a recognized genre of Chinese art during the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127). In that period, most representations of nature carried auspicious meanings: bamboo, for example, signified resilience in the face of adversity, while the cicada, because of its long underground pupation and its supposed ability to exist only on dew, bespoke immortality. The morning glory, opening its blooms daily for only a few hours, was celebrated for its shy beauty.

One views the Robinson Scroll, as Xie Chufang's painting is known, in the traditional way -- from right to left. In midair a dragonfly, with unmistakable predatory intent, engages a much smaller insect. On the ground below, which is barely indicated by a few scattered clumps of bright green dots arranged parallel to the lower edge of the scroll, ants mill around and drag along a small butterfly (its upper and lower left wing are seen from the underside), already partially dismembered. An ant procession, with another wing in tow, leads past a fine specimen of Asian plantain--Plantago asiatica, known in Chinese as the "weed under the wheels"--shown laden with flowers and seeds. Under the largest of its leaves, already fading and worm-eaten at the tip, a toad lies in wait to prey upon a stream of ants as they pass close by. An astonishing variety of other creatures--a lizard, a snail, a tree frog, a moth, a bush cricket, as well as grasshoppers, cicadas, and wasps--are depicted in and around the flora. No one who sees the painting can fail to admire the remarkably lifelike qualities of the animals and plants.

The signature on the inner cover of the scroll, "W. Butler 1797," is that of William Butler, a writing master in a school for young ladies in London's East End. How did the scroll turn up in late-eighteenth-century England, where Chinese painting was virtually unknown (except for wallpapers and "Company paintings" of Chinese scenes, commissioned from Cantonese artists by East India Company traders)? We shall probably never know for certain, but the date suggests a possible connection with Lord Macartney, leader of the first British diplomatic mission to China in 1792-93. Following Butler's death in 1822, the scroll was acquired by Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872), whose vast collection of books (some of which had indeed come from Lord Macartney's library) included a handful of Chinese works of art. Then in 1946, bibliophile Philip Robinson purchased a large portion of Phillipps's collection.

Entranced with the scroll despite experts' dismissal of it as inconsequential, Robinson brought it into the British Museum on June 29, 1982, to ask my opinion. It was an exciting moment. Although the object was in a fragile state, I immediately recognized it as the most important discovery of my sixteen years as assistant keeper in the Department of Oriental Antiquities. Once it had undergone conservation in the museum's Oriental mounting studio, I was able, with Robinson's enthusiastic encouragement, to research the scroll's authorship and history.