Talk:Gu Kaizhi

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Political satire? No.[edit]

Section 1, Gu Kaizhi#Admonitions of the Court Instructress (女史箴圖), asserts: "This painting... illustrates nine stories from a political satire about Empress Jia Nanfeng written by Zhang Hua (ca. 232-302)."

That assertion jumps out at one a bit. Political satire is a phrase with meaning; there's an article on it; it doesn't seem like the sort of thing one writes about a living Empress in whose court one resides, and then one expects to survive the consequences pleasantly.

Now, Zhang Hua did write satires about people's manners as, say, birds' manners. But he was one of the imperial ministers, and ultimately Jia made him Duke of Zhuangwu. He depended utterly on her good will. When she was overthrown, he was killed. Do I really, really need to explain the unlikeliness of even this satirist writing a political satire about his imperial patroness in the open form of discussing court behavior, versus giving sincere and serious courtly advice in a way the Empress would not disapprove?

Not mentioned at all in this article (though it is in the main article on the Admonitions Scroll): the controversy whether Gu Kaizhi even painted it. Though it bears his signature, it is not originally recorded as having been painted by him. Even the main article fails to note this discrepancy (though Britannica catches it): "Admonitions" is a thoroughly Confucian text, while Gu Kaizhi's painting "Nymph of the Luo River" and his essay "On Painting the Cloud Terrace Mountain" were both Daoist; that's quite an eclectic spread of sentiments to express in art. – _•Raven^.talk 23:37, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]