ted roll of Ku K'ai-chih[588] shows no
trace of Indian influence and presupposes a long artistic tradition.
But Mahayanist Buddhism brought across Central Asia new shapes and
motives. Some of its imports were of doubtful artistic value, such as
figures with many limbs and eyes, but with them came ideas which
enriched Chinese art with new dramatic power, passion and solemnity.
Taoism dealt with other worlds but they were gardens of the
Hesperides, inhabited by immortal wizards and fairy queens, not those
disquieting regions where the soul receives the reward of its deeds.
But now the art of Central Asia showed Chinese painters something new;
saints preaching the law with a gesture of authority and deities of
infinite compassion inviting suppliants to approach their thrones. And
with them came the dramatic story of Gotama's life and all the legends
of the Jatakas.

This clearly is not Taoism, but when the era of great art and
literature begins, any distinction between the two creeds, except for
theological purposes, becomes artificial, for Taoism borrowed many
externals of Buddhism, and Buddhism, while not abandoning its austere
and emaciated saints, also accepted the Taoist ideal of the careless
wandering hermit, friend of mountain pines and deer. Wei Hsieh[589]
who lived under the Chin dynasty, when the strength of Buddhism was
beginning to be felt, is considered by Chinese critics as the earliest
of the great painters and is said to have excelled in both Buddhist
and Taoist subjects. The same may be said of the most eminent names,
such as Ku K'ai-chih and Wu Tao-tzu,[590] and we may also remember
that Italian artists painted the birth of Venus and the origin of the
milky way as well as Annunciations and Assumptions, without any
hint that one incident was less true than another. Buddhism not only
provided subjects like the death of the Buddha and Kuan Yin, the
Goddess of Mercy, which hold in Chinese art the same place as the
Crucifixion and the Madonna in Europe, and generation after generation
have stimulated the noblest efforts of the best painters. It also
offered a creed and ideals suited to the artistic temperament: peace
and beauty reigned in its monasteries: its doctrine that life is one
and continuous is reflected in that love of nature, that sympathetic
understanding of plants and animals, that intimate union of sentiment
with landscape which marks the best Chinese pictures.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 557: For