FINGEK-PRINT SYSTEM LAUFER. 651 



only contributed to identify an individual unmistakably but also 

 presented a tangible essence of the individuality and lent a spiritual 

 or magical force to the written word. 



Finally, I should like, in this connection to call attention to a pecu- 

 liar method of pauiting practiced by the artists of China, in which 

 the brush is altogether discarded and only the ti])s of the fingers are 

 employed in applying the ink to the paper. This s])ecialty is widely 

 knowji in China under the name cJd hua, which literally means 

 ''finger painting," and still evokes the highest admiration on the 

 part of the Chinese public, being judged as far su])erior to brush 

 paintmg. The first artist to have cultivated this peculiar style, ac- 

 cording to Chinese traditions, was Chang Tsao, in the eighth or ninth' 

 century, of whom it is said that ''he used a bald brush, or would 

 smear color on the silk with his hand." ^ Under the Manchu dy- 

 nasty, Kao K'i-pei, who lived at the end of the seventeenth and m 

 the first part of the eighteenth century, was the best representative 

 of this art. "His finger paintings were so cleverly done that they 

 could scarcely be distinguished from work done with the brush; they 

 were highly appreciated by his contemporaries," says Hii'th. On 

 ])lates 4 and 5 two ink sketches by this artist m the collection of the 

 Field ^luseum are reproduced. Both are expressly stated in the 

 accompanymg legends written by the painter's own hand to have 

 been executed with his fingers. The one representing two hawks 

 fiuttermg around a tree trunk is dated 1685; the other presents the 

 remmiscence of an instantaneous observation, a sort of flashlight 

 picture of a huge sea fish stretchmg its head out of the waves for a 

 few seconds and spurting forth a stream of water from its jaws. 

 The large monochrome drawing shown on plate 6 — cranes m a lotus 

 pond by Yo Yu-sun — is likewise attested as being a finger sketch 

 (cM mo) , and the painter seems to prove that he really has his art at 

 his fingers' ends. Hu'th is inclmed to regard this technique "rather 

 a special sport than a serious branch of the art," and practiced "as 

 a specialty or for occasional amusement." There was a time when 

 I felt tempted to accept this view, and to look upon fhiger paintmg 

 as an eccentric whim of the virtuosos of a decadent art who for lack 

 of inner resources endeavored to burn incense to their personal 

 vanity. But if Chang Tsao really was the father of this art, at a 

 time when paintmg was at the culminating point of artistic develop- 

 ment, such an argument can not be upheld. I am now rather dis- 

 posed to believe that the origui of finger painting seems to be some- 

 how linked with the practice of finger prints, and may have received 

 its impetus from the latter. The relationship of the two terms is 

 somewhat significant; hua cM, "to pauit the finger," as we saw above 



1 H. A. Giles, An Introductiou to the History of Chinese Pictorial Art, p. 61. F. Hirth, Scraps from a 

 Colloctor's Note 15ook, p. 30. 



