Lars Gustafsson

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Lars Gustafsson


(Picture: ndbooks.com)

Jiang Song (attributed to), Taking a lute to visit a friend (picture: britishmuseum.com)

The Ming Painting of Uncle Sven

Uncle Sven has practical intelligence. Little surprising that he is an engineer. But he has also wit, but I would say that this wit, perhaps also a trifle of waggishness, does not show very directly. It does show, and it does appear that it is coming completely naturally, in Uncle Sven being earnestly dedicated to doing things. With dignity. And in adapting to circumstances very intelligently. And with dignity. Showing a very serious dedication to things. For example if discussing with his American wife, if the Swedish climate could be the appropriate climate for a rose garden. Or if advising Chinese engineers – in China and during the Cultural Revolution – as to a particular way of manufactering large-scale steel elements to be used in ships.
And it might be that due to his intelligent advising, or due to his flexible (waggish?) adapting to circumstances (the general reading and ostentacious appreciating of the writings of chairman Mao), or due to both the steel work that had invited him, during the Cultural Revolution, did present uncle Sven with a Ming painting. And the fabulous story by Lars Gustafsson does conclude with uncle Sven’s American wife brushing the dust off that painting, while (sadly?) being and remaining completely unaware of its, the painting’s (real, symbolical, historical) value. For her, it seems, it is enough to appreciate the character of uncle Sven, her husband.

The story, or its author, Swedish writer Lars Gustafsson, does leave it to the reader to think about the painting’s value, and to the art historian to think about, if this giving the Ming painting to uncle Sven might have been a sort of rescue mission, that is: an evacuating of that particular Ming painting, necessary due to the Cultural Revolution. And if this were so a deep understanding between uncle Sven (his dignified practical intelligence and dedication to doing things) and his Chinese collegues would show (and I believe that people being able to commit on such a level to other people may be truly be called ›happy people‹).
The author, Lars Gustafsson, does name a precise title of that painting (›Heading, with a Lute, to See a Friend‹), and he does give a brief description, but it seems reasonable not to look for this particular, literary painting, for long (if it does exist in reality). And I believe that we may assume that the Ming painting of that story (Uncle Sven and the Cultural Revolution is the first story of the 1986 Stories of Happy People) is an (more or less) imaginary Ming painting. And in that an imaginary Chinese painting, born from the head of a Western author.
Similar paintings, of course do exist, and we may even be inclined to put together a small collection of such paintings, that have for their subject the coming together of friends (or the announcing of a coming together, which does spell out in the imagination of the beholder, because it is only announced or alluded to within the painting itself).

Or we might be inclined to raise the question (or be inclined to imagine) how Chinese authors would be inclined to tell such a story, including the inventing of a Western painting. With or without a lute. But also imagining a coming together of friends. Or we might, if we allow our imagination to run riot, even be as bold as to imagine that particular Western paintings were, in fact, an invention of Chinese writers (see below), and painted by Western writers (authors) only on the basis of such (literary) descriptions.
But we would like to conclude with raising the more rhetoric (but also on a level of art history: interesting) question, if Giorgione or Titian ever did paint a ›Heading to see a Friend‹. Or: if the below shown painting in fact does show a ›Heading to See a Friend‹, because what we do see is, or had to be called (against convention), the mental anticipation of a coming together and not the actual ›having come together‹ (with fancies spelling out as we see them, in that particular moment, that would be the moment these fancies actually do spell out, and not their anticipation on a way, to see a friend).

Having Arrived (with a lute) at a Fried (with both – or are we? – contributing fancies that are even spelled out)

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