The Six Skills of Master Kung

In a comment to my post "The Four Arts", Greg from unurthed pointed out that the famous taijiquan adept Professor Zhèng Mànqīng (Cheng Man-ch'ing in the Wade Giles system) was known as Master of the Five Excellencies (poetry, martial arts, painting, traditional chinese medicine, and calligraphy). He also suggested that perhaps there was some sort of precedent in China's past.

The topic deserved further investigations. Here is what I found: Zheng once said of himself that he was 70% Confucian, and 30% Taoist. Perhaps the key was in Confucius himself and his exemplary life, a model for Zheng and countless of other followers of the Confucian Way. Indeed, that was the case, with an interesting twist: Confucius actually practiced six arts, Rites, Music, Archery, Charioteering, Calligraphy, and Mathematics, and so did many of his students. As it turns out, the six arts were the recommended skills to be acquired during the Zhou Dinasty (1123 BC-256 BC), in order to qualify for the status of perfected gentleman.

It is worth noticing that the Six Arts eventually morphed into the four which I discussed in my previous post, leaving out important components, such as mathematics and martial prowness. Evidently, from The Zhou to the T'ang society had undergone deep changes. Martial arts and math were now for lower classes (fighters and accountants), and the gentry contracted its ideal accordingly. This phenomenon is not expecially chinese: all nobility is, at its inception, noblesse d'épée (nobility of the sword), as the french used to call it. Similarly, all archaic priesthood has mathematics at its very core (astrology, geomancy, etc.). Both nobility and priesthood later forget their roots and intents, as the social system becomes more sclerotic. China was apparently no exception.

Be that as it may, I am quite happy with the Six Arts as a template for excellency. The compleat polymath should strive to imitate great Master Kung, and diligently develop body, soul, and spirit, day by day.

The Four Arts: Polymaths in Imperial China

The Four Arts ( 四藝 in pinyin si yi), or Music-Board Game-Calligraphy-Painting ( 琴棋書畫 qin qi shu hua ), were the traditional four skills that the well-rounded chinese scholar and gentleman was supposed to master, since at least the Tang dynasty (618 CE-907 CE).

The idea of packaging these four traditional Chinese arts together was first mentioned in the writings of Zhāng Yànyuǎn, a polymath who was at once an art historian, a painter, and a calligrapher.

The qi in qin qi shu hua is actually the game of wei qi, or GO. Everyone who has played GO a few times will immediately know why it was made one of the Four Arts: it is a great tool to develop strategy skills (I shall return in another posting to the intriguing connections between GO and Chinese politico-military strategies).

The first time I heard of the Four Arts I was a bit disappointed, as martial arts were not in the list, at least as far as physical training goes. I make no claims to be anything more than an amateurish sinologist, but I will venture an interpretation for this omission. Martial Arts, or wushu,were practised as a way of living only by members of the lower classes, hoping through their prowess and acquired martial skills to make a name for themselves, and ultimately gain a position in the army or as private guards. It is perhaps this association that made wushu unfit for the gentleman's official repertoire. Nevertheless, it is well documented that some noblemen and scholars did get martial art training, as witnessed by the fact that, as late as the nineteen century, kung fu stars such as taijiquan Master Yang Luchan were making a very good living training high-level officers at the imperial court.

I do not know how much of this noble ideal has survived in modern China. I am afraid very little, especially after the devastation of the Cultural Revolution. It is nonetheless a testament to the greatness of chinese civilization, and a great example for all candidate renaissance men and women, that such well-balanced polymathy was for so long at the very peak of their educational system.