HSIEH HO

flourished 6th century Pinyin Xie He Chinese figure painter, best remembered as the critic who collated or invented the Six Principles (lui fa) of Chinese painting, which have often been quoted and cited by painters and critics up to the present time. The Six Principles introduce Hsieh Ho's Ku-hua p'in-lu (Classified Record of Painters of Former Times), which rates 27 painters known to him in three classes of descending merit, each with three subdivisions. The Six Principles have inevitably acquired new and even different meanings through the ages, but generally they may be paraphrased as follows: creativity (or spirit resonance), structural use of the brush, proper representation of objects, specific coloration of those objects, good composition, and transmitting the old masters by copying. These became the basic standards of both the Chinese painter's training and the critic's judgment.