Rethinking knowledge in the making of modernism through the translingual practice of Qiyun shengdong

ABSTRACT

Translingual practice in a historical context conceptualizes translation as travel; when examined in a social network, translation can be perceived as an innovative force of knowledge-making. This study is concerned with the travels of a critical artistic term in Medieval China: qiyun shengdong. Predicated on their distinct connotations, Xie He combined the meanings of qi and yun to refer to the vitality evinced in the human body, as well as the beauty of the talent and elegance emanating from the posture. Sinologists such as Herbert Giles and Laurence Binyon translated and introduced the term based on the Western cultural milieu, making qiyun commensurate with “rhythm,” eventually developing the mainstream translation of “rhythmic vitality.” With an examination of the rewriting and repositioning of qiyun from Binyon to Vortex leaders Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis as well as Roger Fry, a key member of the Bloomsbury circle and the pioneering modernist and formalist, the emergence of modernist discourse is highlighted with translation as an agent. This research will expose the understated process of knowledge formation through translation across cultures by analyzing the travel and reception of the term qiyun shengdong to recapture translation as an influential aspect of artistic innovation.

KEYWORDS:

• Qiyun
• rhythm
• translingual practice
• knowledge-making
• travel

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback and insightful comments, which contributed to improving the quality and clarity of this article. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Professor Yang Feng from Shanghai Jiao Tong University for his theory of Transknowletology, which inspired my research and writing process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. The Six Canons/Laws are as follows (as translated by the present author): “What are the six canons/laws? The first is about rhythm and vividness; the second is about the use of the brush in balancing qi; the third is about responding to objects and portraying the image; the fourth is about allocating color to the category; the fifth is about arrangement and composition; and the sixth is about transferring and modelling.”(六法者何？一曰，气韵生动是也; 二曰，骨法用笔是也; 三曰，应物象形是也; 四曰，随类赋彩是也; 五曰，经营位置是也; 六曰，传移模写是也。)

2. “六法精论，万古不移。然而骨法用笔以下，五者可学，如其气韵，必在生知，固不可以巧密得，复不可以岁月到。默契神会，不知然而然也。人品既已高，气韵不得不高，气韵既已高矣，生动不得不至。所谓神之又神，而能精焉。” (Guo 2001, 7) Translated by the present author.

3. The story of Lunbian told by Zhuangzi started with the Duke of Qi Huan, who was reading in the hall when a wheel craftsman called Bian was making a wheel below the hall. This craftsman put down his axe and chisel and other tools, went up to the hall above and asked the Duke of Huan, “May I ask the King, what book are you reading?” The Duke said, “It is the book of the sage” The craftsman asked again, “Is the sage still alive?” The Duke said, “He is dead.” Bian said, “In that case, what you are reading is just the dross of the ancients.” The Duke said, “I am here reading, how can you, a craftsman who makes wheels, just talk about it? If you can tell me the truth, I can forgive you, and you are not guilty; but if you cannot reason, you will be executed.” Bian said: “Look at this from the point of view of my profession. If you make a wheel slowly, it is easy, but the wheel is not strong. If you work too fast, it is not only hard work, but the wheel does not fit the dovetails; if you don’t work too fast or too slow, you can do what you want in your mind. I can not say what I think, but I can only see it in the way I make the wheel. I cannot tell my son my skills clearly, and my son cannot inherit them from me. So, I am still making wheels, even though I am 70 years old. The ancients died along with their kind of reasoning that could not be put into words, so what you read is just the dross left behind by the ancients.”

4. In 1873, William Anderson (1842–1900) was designated Medical Director of the Imperial Naval Medical College in Tokyo. During his time in Japan, he amassed a sizable collection of Japanese and Chinese paintings, books, wood engravings, and other things. He was the source of the British Museum’s first major acquisition of Japanese and Chinese paintings in 1881. The 114 works of Chinese painting he brought from Tokyo to London formed the core of Britain’s national collection of Chinese painting and aided in the comparative study of Japanese and Chinese pictorial art. See (Huang 2010).

5. Charles Freer (1854–1919) was an American collector, the benefactor and founder of Freer Gallery of Art. Ernest Fenollosa introduced Charles Freer to Binyon, who took Freer’s invitation to visit Detroit in 1912. See (Hatcher 1995, 170–171):

6. In this book, Binyon wrote an introductory essay, and Stein reiterated qinyun/rhythm several times, such as in explaining Plate XXXVIII. See Stein (2022):

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences, under Grant [22WZWB008].

Notes on contributors

Lin He

Lin He is an associate professor at Department of Foreign Languages, Chengyi College, Jimei University, and a doctoral researcher at the Institute of Literary Studies, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China. Her major research interests lie in Translation Studies, comparative literature etc. This paper was presented at the 10^th Asian-Pacific Forum on Translation and Intercultural Studies held in Sydney, Australia.