Taoism and its Influence on the Arts of China

Much as Christianity has informed the development of the arts in the West thematically as well as compositionally, Taoism, one of the key philosophical systems to emerge out of China in the sixth or fifth century BCE, has left its stamp on Chinese art, literature and music. Leading translator of Asian spiritual literature, Thomas Cleary, pays tribute to the enormous impact of Taoist thought on the development of culture in China in the introduction to his translation of The Inner Teachings of Taoism by Chang Po-Tuan, in which he states that “So pervasive has the influence of Taoism been that it is difficult to name a single facet of Chinese civilization that has not been touched by it in some way” (211). Before we can begin to explore the impact that this esoteric ancient wisdom has had on the classic arts of China, specifically landscape painting, poetry and music, however, it is necessary to attempt to define Taoism, a challenge to be sure when we consider one of the most recognizable of Taoist maxims found in the Tao Te Ching attributed to Lao Tzu: “The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao.” Despite this caveat, there is an enormous body of specialist literature on Taoism as scholars in the East and the West have attempted to explain the Tao and the system of thinking that arose out of a belief in it. Cleary discusses the difficulty of “decoding such a literature” (211) and Alan Watts, In Tao: The Watercourse Way, while attributing initial difficulties faced by those in the West to the problems of language and translation, also advises the student to approach it by both studying the literature and periodically departing from it; it is only when the mind is quiet that one can enter the flow of the Tao through nature for, as Watts sees it, “Taoism is the way of man’s cooperation with the natural world whose principles we discover in the flow patterns of water, gas, and fire” (Preface xiv). This advice to approach Taoism through both study and practice is a good starting point for a brief analysis of the philosophy as it encapsulates the essential idea at the basis of Taoist thought, that of the yin-yang polarity and the interdependency of opposites. To alternately engage in thought and the intellect, on the one hand, and perception and behavior on the other, implies the balance and harmony of complements that is at the core of any discussion of the Tao and which is known as the yin-yang.