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- During the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), when a foreign regime sought to weaken the Chinese bureaucracy, the examinations were shifted from their previous analytical foundation to one based on memorization and literary skills. This was reminiscent of the first major Chinese imperial regime, over two thousand years ago, shifting political critics to literary criticism, setting the pattern for an emphasis on literary skills for the scholar- officials ever after.
Thus the entire Chinese aristocracy came to be composed of a non-hereditary meritocracy based on education and skill in literature chosen through written examinations. All of Chinese scholarship, literature, and the arts came to be found within this select group of scholar-officials. For example, Sima Guang (1019-86), twice prime minister, wrote the standard Chinese history to his time still in use today, and is considered one of the greatest Chinese essayists of all times. His protege, Su Shi (1037- 1101), leader of the conservative faction of the government, remains one of China�s most famous poets and a noted essayist, and, along with his friend Mi Fu (1052-1107), is founder of literati aesthetics in both calligraphy and painting.
Because the examinations were the only socially recognized means to success, all who could studied for them. Passing even the first of the examinations led to a change of social status, special garments, and different treatment in the judicial system. Passing the national exam guaranteed one being treated with deference throughout the nation. Even with a pass rate of only 10%, still there came to be far more degree holders than there were positions. Many of those without office spent their lives dedicated to the Three Treasures: poetry, calligraphy and painting. Some of those who attained government positions retired early and devoted their lives to the arts or scholarship. In each major town and city there would be a social circle focusing on the arts, consisting of officials holding local offices, retired officials, those who passed the examinations but were otherwise unemployed, physicians, wealthy merchants, and hereditary, educated Daoist priests. These were the wenren (literally: highly literate, cultured persons), the literati. Both the civil service system of government and the resultant literati culture spread to Korea, with little change, Japan, where it developed its own distinctive features, and Vietnam.
Aesthetics
The shi, the scholar-officials, were by profession and training experts with the brush; hence, in their leisure time and in retirement, their avocation also focused on the brush. This is the essence of wenren, literati, culture. At the core of literati aesthetics is the understanding that brushwork is more important than the content of calligraphy and painting. It is understood that brushwork primarily expresses the mind of the wielder of the brush. This is why calligraphy became part of the civil service examinations. What is sought by the literari-connoisseur in looking at literati calligraphy and painting is an entree into the mind of the literati artist, to a mind-to-mind communication. As Chinese characters are written in a fixed sequence of strokes, so one looks at calligraphy and painting according to the sequence of strokes in its creation. Hence, one is looking not at a finished product, but a work in the process of creation, similar to watching a piece of calligraphy or painting being created at a party, where many of them were brushed.
For mind-to-mind communication to take place, the brushwork must be free of artificial constraint. The aesthetic ideal is ziran (literally: that which comes of itself: ��spontaneity,� ��naturalness,� ��nature� itself). The literati practiced brushwork so often
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