On Chinese author Hai Ya's Hugo Award-winning novelette "The Space-Time Painter" (Part 2 of 3)
"Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it's the history of ideas, the history of our civilisation birthing itself." - Ray Bradbury
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3000ebd7-4af1-4b02-98dc-313249a61fe8_5472x3085.jpeg)
Previously…
In the previous post, this review provided a summary of Chinese author Hai Ya’s “The Space-Time Painter”, which received the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Novelette at that year’s WorldCon in Chengdu City, China. In this post, the second of a series of three, a discussion of the story’s context is provided in order to analyse its historical and cultural significance.
Note: This review is based on an English translation of “The Space-Time Painter” produced by the reviewer, which cannot be published in any form without permission from the author, for obvious reasons.
Stories behind the Story
The first question likely to be raised by readers is why the artist in “The Space-Time Painter” is surnamed “Zhao”, rather than “Wang”, as the character is apparently based on the real life and work of Chinese artist Wang Ximeng. Aged only 18 when he created the painting “A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains”, the artist is believed to have been a scion of the imperial family of the time, whose surname was Zhao. Indeed, the ruler then was Emperor Huizong of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), whose name was Zhao Ji.
Himself a highly achieved painter and calligrapher, Emperor Huizong indulged in arts and other pleasures and left the management of his kingdom to his many court officials, who inevitably fought against each other for power and dominance. The most devious among these was Cai Jing, the Grand Chancellor in the story who recommended the teenage artist to Emperor Huizong in exchange of political favours.
In the story, the teenage Zhao Ximeng grew up in his older brother's residence but was ill-treated as the son of a housemaid. He was also despised by others due to his sleepwalking during childhood, a condition that was traditionally considered to be either a disease causing anxiety and hallucination or, worse, a kind of possession by another soul. The Chinese characters for sleepwalking, li hun zheng, can be literally translated as “dispersed soul symptom”. The author describes Zhao as being able to rely on “spirit walking” to travel through the whole kingdom without leaving his studio:
He cleansed himself with burning incense and bathing before drinking as much water as he could. He then nailed shut the door and window of his room and commenced meditation on his bed... It was shocking to see the young man remained motionless for three whole days, as if he was dead through and through. It was only on the fourth day that he awakened, his cheeks sunken but his eyes sparkling bright and fierce. The artist leapt up and, grabbing his ink and brush, started painting with such a burning force that it looked like he was trying to pour the flames of his life onto the snowy white surface of the silk. Soon afterwards, he collapsed to the floor. Having struggled to hurriedly swallow a pre-prepared snack, once again he fell into a deep “sleep”. This time, it took him seven days to wake up. So the process repeated, with his meditation lasting an increasing number of days each time and his infrequent waking period totally dedicated to painting. Finally, after awakening from a 12-day “sleep”, he completed his last brushstroke on the enormous masterpiece.
And here is a description of the masterpiece:
“The grand painting on silk, 51.5 centimetres tall and 1,191.5 centimetres long, is done in a blue-green landscape technique. In terms of composition, the layout can be roughly divided into five sections, with the view changing as the viewer moves from right to left. The painter uses the traditional technique of multiple perspectives to illustrate a continuous line of mountains and hills and vast, misty rivers and lakes, with the sections echoing each other and containing detailed portrayal of water, people, sightseeing boats, fishing vessels, and bridges. The many perspectives are used alternately to highlight the variation of density, the distinction between primary and secondary, and the charming picturesque disorder. In terms of colouring and technique, azurite and malachite as primary colours are repeatedly and richly rendered against a background of ochre and cinnabar to present the bright and dark aspects of ridges and peaks, while a combination of hemp-fibre and axe-split strokes is used to outline the different textures of mountain rocks. Diverse shades of succulent green and flower blue are applied to the water and the sky in accordance with their layers, values and tones, using net-patterned mottling and wet-on-wet techniques to create a vivid and vital rhythm. The panorama is dazzling and imposing yet spirited and sprightly, a tribute to nature at the peak of grandeur...”
A digital copy of the painting “A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains”, measuring 39974x1600 pixels, can be found here. The version below gives a rough idea of how it looks:
In “The Space-Time Painter”, thanks to his “spirit walking”, Zhao is able to travel through space and time, hence the story's title. In Zhao’s words: “Observing the world from a higher dimension is like following a spiralling piece of silk, with movement up and down causing alternation of space and movement back and forth leading to transitions through time. It's all the same to me.” It is this ability that allows Zhao to foresee the forthcoming destruction of the kingdom.
History tells us how the Northern Song Dynasty was plagued by the Khitans from the northeast (the Liao Empire) and the Jurchens from the north (the Jin Empire). Manipulated by the aforementioned devious official Cai Jing, Emperor Huizong agreed to form a military alliance with the Jurchens in 1120 in order to defeat the Khitans. After that, the Jurchen invaded and seized Bianjing, capital city of the Northern Song Dynasty (today's Kaifeng in Henan Province), in 1126. The dynasty came to an end when the fleeing Emperor Huizong and his father were captured in January 1127. The remaining members of the imperial family fled to southern China and established the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) with Lin'an as capital city (today's Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province).
In the story, Zhao foresaw the shocking consequences of the kingdom's destruction. Then “he transformed into a detailed illustration the devastating misery that he witnessed”, a painting titled “A Thousand Miles of Starvation and Deprivation” that revealed “a full scale of gruesome corpses and hungry ghouls against a distant background of derelict, dilapidated palace walls”. Zhao further foresaw “the fatuous ruler will perish in the north, and the treacherous servant will die in the south”. In reality, Cai Jing was eventually stripped of his official post and banished to Lingnan in southern China (today's Guangdong Province), but starved to death along the journey in Tanzhou (today's Changsha in Hunan Province) in 1125. Then, eight years after his capture by the Jurchens, Emperor Huizong died a humiliated and broken man in far away northern China in 1135.
Matters of Life and Death
In “The Space-Time Painter”, Zhao Ximeng invites Zhou Ning to stay in the higher dimension “where all the secrets of the Heaven and Earth are revealed”, but Zhou refuses. Zhao argues further:
“Death is rest while life is hard labour. 'For the dead, there are no lords above and no servants below them, nor are there affairs of the four seasons. Their years are the Heaven and Earth themselves.' In your world there are tens of thousands of things shackling you, reducing your life to that of an ant. Why do you even bother?”
Here, Zhao is quoting the renowned Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou (also known as Zhuangzi), who lived around the 4th century BCE. In his book Zhuangzi, in a chapter titled “Ultimate Joy” (also translated as “Perfect Happiness”), the philosopher uses a parable to illustrate his view on matters of life and death. The parable describes the philosopher finding a skull by the roadside, “sun-bleached but still solid”. He uses the skull as a pillow at night, and then has a conversation with it in his dream. Having expressed the sentiment quoted above (“For the dead... Their years are the Heaven and Earth themselves”), the skull concludes that “no [living] king enjoys greater happiness than ours [the dead]”. In the end,
[Zhuangzi] said: “If I could get the Director of Fates to restore your body, with its bones and flesh and skin, and to return your children and parents and wife, and to bring back your neighbours and acquaintances, would you want that?”
The skull frowned deeply, knit its brows, and said: “Why would I abandon such kingly pleasures [among the dead] to return to the toils of the living?”
It seems fair enough that Zhao is happy with his lonesome existence in the higher dimension, having had a tumultuous life that ended with execution. Meanwhile, in the story, upon hearing Zhao quoting a philosopher, Zhou responds with his own quotation from the famous Chinese poet Cao Zhi (192-232) to explain why he refuses to stay with Zhao. Below are Zhou's words:
“Why attempt death without having lived? The 'Discourse on the Skull' says: 'Burden me without any reason with a shape and torture me with life. Now I've had the good fortune to die, so I've been able to return to my true self. Why are you so obsessed with weary toil, whereas I'm in love with untrammelled ease?' I'm a firm believer that suffering will not stop the world from becoming better.”
Unfortunately, here the author has misquoted the poet’s writing, who in his “Discourse on the Skull” also creates a conversation between man and skull. (Note: Cao's “Discourse on the Skull” is not to be confused with the “Rhapsody on the Skull” by Chinese poet Lu An [?-262].) In Cao's piece, the protagonist notices a skull “all by itself, alone and forlorn” and hopes that “just as when Master Zhuang went to Chu, it might entrust itself to a dream to communicate its feelings”. Then, reacting to the protagonist's attention, “[the skull's spirit] suddenly seemed to arrive and vaguely seemed to be present; its shadow appeared, but its face remained hidden” as it starts responding with an eloquent elaboration on the discourse of life and death.
A complete English translation of Cao's “Discourse on the Skull” can be found in Harvard University-based Dutch scholar and Sinologist Wilt L. Idema's The Resurrected Skeleton: From Zhuangzi to Lu Xun (Columbia University Press, 2014). Based on this translation, when the protagonist suggests to the skull, “let me...pray to the gods and deities to let the master of fate rescind his registers so your bones and shape can be returned to you”,
The skull thereupon heaved a heavy sigh and lamented with wide-open sockets: “Too bad! How come you are so obtuse? Once upon a time the master of great simplicity was so unkind as to burden me without any reason with a shape and to torture me with life. Now I've had the good fortune to die, so I've been able to return to my true self. Why are you so obsessed with weary toil, whereas I'm in love with untrammelled ease? Please leave, and I will return to Grand Emptiness.” That was the end of his words, the last to be heard, and the glare of his soul disappeared like a mist.
Comparing Zhou's response to the skull's words in the “Discourse on the Skull”, it is evident that the author of “The Space-Time Painter” has taken the latter's words out of context. This mistake, with Zhou quoting the skull's words rather than those of the protagonist, leads to the impression that Zhou is contradicting himself in his refusal to Zhao's invitation to stay in the higher dimension.
Finally, at the end of “The Space-Time Painter”, Zhou learns of another artist before him who was contacted by Zhao and who subsequently created a painting to explore matters of life and death. That artist is Li Song (active 1190-1230) from the Southern Song Dynasty. You can see a digital version of his silk fan painting “Skeleton Fantasy Show” here. The version below gives a rough idea of how it looks:
In the story, Li is described as having “only a smattering of understanding of [Zhao's] words” but somehow “did a painting that led to much speculation by others”. Indeed, see how the small skeleton in “Skeleton Fantasy Show” is being manipulated by the big one to play with the crouching toddler, with the child's mother watching him anxiously, her hands reaching out as if trying to stop him from approaching the skeletons. Also note how her gesture echoes the shape of the tree behind her. Meanwhile, behind the big skeleton, a woman watches on while nursing her baby calmly and contentedly. The three of them look like a travelling family that earns a living by performing tricks for the public, with a considerable amount of luggage by their side, and with the structure behind them likely to be a landmark signalling the area being “five miles” from the nearest town. (The Chinese characters “five miles” or wu li are partially hidden in the image above but clearly visible in the full version viewable via the aforementioned link.) And is that an amusing look on the big skeleton's face?
The painting provides ample opportunity for further exploration into the meaning and significance of life and death. It seems only natural that it appears in the front cover of the aforementioned book The Resurrected Skeleton: From Zhuangzi to Lu Xun by Idema. More importantly, this painting is likely to have inspired the author to have Zhou seeing the skin specialist as a skeleton in the story.
To be continued…
In the third and final post in a series of three, this review will provide an assessment of “The Space-Time Painter” in terms of quality of writing, while touching on the present and future of reading Chinese science fiction.