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Ch'Ien Hsüan and His Figure PaintingsAuthor(s): James CahillSource: Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America, Vol. 12 (1958), pp. 10-29Published by: University of Hawai'i Press for the Asia SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20067006 .
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Ch'ien Hsiian and His Figure Paintings
James Cahill
Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.
A recent acquisition of the Freer Gallery of Art provides an opportunity to raise once more the problem of Ch'ien Hsiian.1 The works of this artist fall into three more or
less distinct groups: 1) birds-and-flowers, "cut branches," fruit, etc.; 2) figures, with or without landscape setting; and 3) landscape proper. The first group has been treated by Richard Edwards, in connection with the scroll attributed to Ch'ien Hsiian in the Detroit Institute of Art;2 any consideration of the third is hampered by a scarcity of
materials.3 The second group, figure paintings, has received little attention, and it is this
group which I shall consider here. I should like to begin, however, by supplementing the
scanty information about this artist which is available in Western-language sources.
The exact dates of Ch'ien Hsiian's birth and death are not known; he was probably born around 123 5, and died shortly after 1300.4 The basic source of information about him is the short notice in Tru-hui pao-chien, compiled by Hsia Wen-yen, whose preface is dated 1365. Hsia writes:
"Chfien Hsiian, tzu (style) Shun-chii, hao
(literary name) Y?-t'ana (Jade Pool), was a
native of Cha-chfuan.5b During the Ching-ting era of the Sung dynasty (1260-1265), he took his chin-shih degree through the Village ad vancement' system.6 He was good at figures,
landscapes, flowers and trees. In [painting] ani
mals and birds, he followed Chao Ch'ang; in
blue-and-green landscapes, he followed Chao
Ch'ien-li [Po-chii]. He was also good at doing cut branches. On his best-realized works, he
would inscribe a poem of his own composition."7
Other sources add that in figure painting, he
followed Li Kung-lin. Besides the names men
tioned by Hsia Wen-yen, Ch'ien also used the
following: Sun-fengc (Southeast Peak), Ch'ing chfu Lao-jend (Pure and Emaciated Old Man) and Hsi-lan Wenge (Habitual Sloth Greybeard), the last taken from his Hsi-lan-chai (Studio of
Habitual Sloth). He practiced painting from an
early age, according to the younger brother of
Chao M?ng-fu, Chao M?ng-yii, who writes in a
colophon on a Ch'ien Hsiian landscape:
"Shun-ch?, while he was still a child, loved to
play at painting, drawing flowers and grasses so
that they looked just as if alive. People contended with each other to get them. In his late years he
aspired increasingly to [the qualities of] plain ness and placidity, and did many landscapes."8
Chao goes on to comment that although the
painting at hand was modelled upon the manner
of Tung Yuan, Ch'ien had made significant alterations in this manner, thus "forming a sepa rate school of his own" (tzu chreng i chia) ,f and
that he can therefore be properly classed as "with
out predecessors." A fairly standard statement,
this interests us chiefly, perhaps, for what it
adds to the large body of evidence at variance
with a frequently-made assertion: that admira
tion for originality and innovation played no
great part in Chinese evaluations of art. The ref
erence to Tung Yuan (Ch'ien himself states in
11
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his inscription that the painting was based on a
Tung Yuan landscape) has other implications, however, which will be noted below.
Several writers remark that although Ch'ien
was best known to his contemporaries as a
painter, it was rather for his scholarship that he
deserved renown. Huang Kung-wang writes in
a colophon, dated 1348, on the Dwelling on
Floating Jade Mountain scroll (Fou-yii shan-chii
fu)s:
"Cha-ch<i Weng [Ch'ien Hsiian] of Wu-hsing was a man of broad learning. The classics and
histories were strung together like beads within
his breast. No one of his time, however, knew
this. It was only with Ao Ch?n-shan9 that he
would discuss [classical literature, philosophy, etc.] and exchange cups of wine; together they
would penetrate to the innermost principles.
"Chao W?n-min [M?ng-fu] once studied under him ? not studying his painting in par
ticular, but rather all manner of things, ancient
and modern. [Ch'ien] was also profoundly versed in the study of the tones of music. So
lofty was his personal quality! Nevertheless, the
people of his time usually praised him [only] as a painter. This was paying undue attention to
his play [i.e., to his avocation] while obscuring his real studies."10
Another Yuan writer, Hu Chang-ju, makes
the same observation, stressing also the remark
able technical facility which was probably a
chief cause for Ch'ien's being confused with
professional artists. Hu's colophon is dated 1300.
"Shun-chii, when young, was given to drink
ing wine, and was fond of music. He was also
good at painting; his superior works attain the
point of being indistinguishable from those of the ancients. Once he borrowed from someone a
picture of a gyrfalcon, copied it and remounted
it during the night, and the next morning re
turned the copy. The owner didn't know the
difference.
"Now he is old, and his paintings are becoming more and more hard to get. Those of the people of Hu-chou who have at one time or another
been under the guidance and tutelage of Shun
chii all praise him for his ability as a painter. But
Shun-chii is [more] lofty [than they know]."11
To a picture of Clustered Chrysanthemums by Ch'ien Hsiian, an unidentified Yuan writer who
signs himself "Tan-ku"h added the following colophon:12
"Ch'ien Shun-chii of Wu-hsing was regarded
by his contemporaries as an artisan painter; but
he was nothing of the sort. In the early years of
this dynasty, he was associated with such famous
persons as Chao Sung-hsiieh [Meng-fu], Hsien
yii Yin-Hsiieh [Shu], Li Hsi-chai [K'an] and Hs? Jung-chai [Yuan].13 He took no interest in official service and advancement, but read books
and composed poems, living in leisurely poverty. He took pleasure in painting; when in a state of
exhilaration, he would do it vigorously.14 At
first, he wouldn't [even bother to] choose a
[suitable] scroll of paper, and his pictures all attained a wonderful refinement. Later, when he
tried for this quality consciously, he couldn't
catch it again. Common artisans have been
usurping his name and competing with each
other in turning out forgeries to deceive people. But the difference is as plain as that between
jade and stones ? how could anyone confuse
them?"
Like so many other painters, Ch'ien Hsiian did
not always await the spontaneous occurrence of
this fine state of exhilaration, but frequently evoked it with wine. On one of his pictures he
inscribes this wry quatrain:15
"Last year, alas! I had no fields to plant,
And so this spring I lack the stuff for wine.
From somewhere near, the birds and flowers
laugh?
Pretended-drunk, I lie in my upstairs room."
12
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Hs? Ch'ien, who lived a generation after
Ch'ien Hsiian, goes so far as to claim that Ch'ien
was incapable of painting while cold sober:
"Ch'ien Hsiian of Wu-hsing was a capable
painter. He was fond of wine; when not drunk
with wine, he couldn't paint. But when he was
completely drunk, he couldn't paint either. It
was only when he was about to be drunk, but
before he became hopelessly inebriated, that his
mind and hand were mutually attuned?this
was the time propitious to painting. When a
painting was finished, he spent no time on exam
ining it in detail, and so his pictures were often
carried off by collectors. People nowadays have
[paintings on which] the seals are fresh and
bright, and alongside which are attached garru
lous poems and crude labels; these are all for
geries, not from his hand. Or, if they are from
his hand, they aren't his best-realized works."16
A fifteenth century writer, Hsia Shih-cheng,
suggests that in Ch'ien Hsiian's later years there
were so many imitations being produced that
the artist inscribed all his later works to distin
guish them from the forgeries.17 From these
statements and from Tan-ku's colophon, it is
apparent that forgeries were current in large numbers even during Ch'ien's lifetime; and we
would be foolish to adopt Tan-ku's confidence
in regard to the ease of detecting the fakes.
Which is not to say that the effort to distinguish them is futile; but such remarks must lead us to
view with some suspicion even those candidates
which appear to date from the Yuan period.
Of special interest is the statement made by
Huang Kung-wang that Chao M?ng-fu studied
under Ch'ien Hsiian. Huang, in support of his
contention that Ch'ien should not be thought of
primarily as a painter, is careful to explain that
it was not only painting which Chao studied; but
Huang's friend Chang Yii, in a colophon which
precedes Huang's on the same Dwelling on Float
ing Jade Mountain scroll, and is likewise dated
1348, writes:
"The late Wu-hsing [Chao M?ng-fu], in his
early years, learned painting technique from
Shun-chii. Shun-chii mostly painted figures and
birds-and-flowers; therefore, his landscapes were
rare [even] in his own time."18
Chao M?ng-fu was born in 1254, and so was
about twenty years younger than Ch'ien; it is
reasonable to suppose that during Chao's youth,
the two stood in the relationship of master and
pupil. Later, however, they seem to have asso
ciated on a more equal footing, and formed, with
six friends, a scholarly coterie known as the
"Eight Talents of Wu-hsing."19 The group was
dispersed in 1286, when Chao M?ng-fu was
called to court to hold an important position as
minister under Yuan Shih-tsu, or Kublai Khan.
Most of the others accompanied him and ac
cepted official positions. Ch'ien Hsiian remained
behind. The late Yuan and early Ming scholar
and painter Chang Yii (not to be confused with
the earlier Chang Yii quoted above) inscribed on
a Ch'ien Hsiian landscape a poem about this
event, and added to it the following account in
prose:
"In Wu-hsing, at the beginning of the Yuan,
there were [eight scholars] known as the 'Eight
Talents.' Tzu-ang [Chao M?ng-fu] was gener
ally considered their chief, but Ch'ien Hsiian was
of equal status. During the Chih-yiian era,
Tzu-ang was recommended [for official service] and went to the imperial court.20 The other gen
tlemen all attached themselves to him, and were
given government positions and advancement.
Shun-chii alone felt otherwise, and did not join them. He devoted his time to poetry and paint
ing, and thereby spent the remainder of his
life."21
Chao's was doubtless a vexing decision; he was
still young when the Sung fell, and waited a
decent interval before accepting a position; but
he was a descendant of one of the Sung emperors,
and was never entirely forgiven by later genera
tions for the choice he made.22 For Ch'ien, a
13
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locally-respected man of about fifty years of age,
the renunciation of this road to wealth and pres
tige, the decision to remain in comfortable
obscurity, was surely easier.
Chao M?ng-fu and Ch'ien Hsiian are the par
ticipants in a famous conversation, which is,
however, probably apocryphal. The best-known
version is the one related by Tung Ch'i-ch'ang
(1555-1636), and runs as follows:
"Chao W?n-min asked Ch'ien Shun-chii
about painting: 'What can one say of the "gen
tleman's spirit"?' [Ch'ien] said, 'It is [painting
in] the //' manner [i.e., the manner of li-shu, the
"official script" of calligraphy]. If a painter can
manage this, then he can "fly without wings"; if
not, then he descends into evil ways, and the
more skilful he is, the further he is from it.' "23
A different account of the conversation, how
ever, appears in Ko-Ku yao lun, a work compiled
in 1387:24
"Chao Tzu-ang asked Ch'ien Shun-chii, 'What
sort of thing is scholar-gentlemen's painting?'
Shun-chii answered, 'It is the painting of the
li-chia1 (amateurs).' Tzu-ang said, 'But look at
Wang Wei, Li Ch'?ng, Hs? Hsi, Li Po-shih
[Kung-lin] ?
they were all lofty and respected
scholars, yet their paintings transmit the spirit of
the [depicted] object, completely capture its
wonderful qualities. As for people of recent
times who do scholar-painting, how very mis
guided they are!' "
This version two centuries earlier than Tung
Ch'i-ch'ang's, is of more interest and signifi
cance; whether or not the conversation ever took
place, the opinions expressed in it by the two
artists are not at all inconsistent with their posi
tions in the history of Chinese painting. To
better understand these opinions, we may digress
a bit and review the background of the archaist
movement in which Ch'ien and Chao played
major roles.
The concept of painting as the transmission of
the spirit or "soul" of the object in nature, re
ferred to in Chao M?ng-fu's remarks, was the
traditional and orthodox view in China; it was
not until the eleventh century, when a specifi
cally w?n-)?n hua (literati painting) theory was
first put forth, chiefly by Su Tung-p'o (or Su
Shih, 1036-1101) and the group of scholars around him, that this concept was seriously con
tested. The new attitude, adopted by most sub
sequent literati painters and critics, was that the
expressive content of a painting depended more
upon the nature and the state of mind of the art
ist himself than upon any qualities of his
subject.25
Related to this new concept, but of earlier
origin, is an anti-traditional movement in paint
ing style, which produced the i-prin ("untram
meled class") painting of the late T'ang, Five
Dynasties and Northern Sung, as well as influ
encing strongly some of the styles practiced
chiefly by the literati from the late Northern
Sung onward.26 By departing more radically
from observed appearances, by allowing more of
individuality and eccentricity, and by assigning a less representational and more independently
expressive function to brush line, breaking down
the traditional Chinese insistence on firm and
elegant lineament to allow highly unorthodox
kinds of brushwork?in short, by shifting em
phasis from the subject of the art work to the
work itself and its creator?this movement al
lowed, even necessitated, a rethinking of funda
mental issues in art theory.
However, while the "retreat from likeness,"
often combined with a deliberate "awkward
ness," was the dominant tendency within the
literati painting movement, it was not followed
by all the scholar-painters; even among the
founding fathers were some?notably Li Kung
lin and Wang Shen?who continued to work in
careful, manifestly competent manners which
were confusingly like those of the much-abused
professionals and academicians. Prof. S. Shimada,
14
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after pointing out the influence of i-pHn paint
ing on eleventh century w?n-j?n hua, describes
this sub-tradition as follows:
"Of course, the painting style which had been
correct and orthodox since the Six Dynasties
period was also carried on by the literati artists of
this age. Li Kung-lin, who was singled out by
Yuan dynasty literati critics as the leading artist
of the Sung period, was completely representa
tive of the literati painting of his time, but was
famous for the excellence of his classical line
drawing (pai-miao) in the manner of Wu
Tao-tzu . . . Chao M?ng-fu, spearhead of the
w?n-j?n hua movement in the Yuan period, is
said to have revived the orthodox, classical style.
A special kind of chaste, refined pai-miao paint
ing, even though it belonged to the orthodox
style, was considered to be worthy of the culti
vated man . . ,"27
The special feature of this sub-movement
which distinguished it from most of the contem
porary professional painting was its element of
archaism; it aimed at the revival of old styles which had fallen into disuse, and was thus
dependent upon the connoisseurship and close
acquaintance with earlier painting in which the
literati painters, many of whom were themselves
collectors, excelled. Li Kung-lin followed T'ang
modes of figure painting, and did horses and
grooms in the manner of Han Kan. Wang Shen
painted landscapes in the Kuo Hsi manner, but
also revived the blue-and-green landscape style of
the T'ang artists Li Ssu-hsiin and Li Chao-tao; in
this he was followed, a generation later, by Chao
Po-chii.
To return to the conversation: it is, in fact, a
succinct statement of the point of view held
within this orthodox (perhaps it would be better
termed "anti-unorthodox") branch of w?n-j?n
hua. Chao asks the nature of "gentleman
scholar's painting." Ch'ien, in answering, avoids
any characterization which would distinguish it
stylistically from other painting; he defines it
only as that painting which is done by amateurs.
A truism even at that time, no doubt, and more
meaningful for what it does not say than for
what it does. Chao then rounds off the exchange
by naming great scholar-painters whose works
were acceptable by traditional criteria as well as
by the new standards, and contrasts them with
painters of more recent times. While we lack
materials for the investigation of w?n-j?n hua in
the Southern Sung period, and are thus at a loss
to account for the obscurity into which this tra
dition fell during the intervening centuries, we
may speculate that, as Chao suggests, its chief
fault may have been an extreme of wilful hetero
doxy, perhaps akin to the "viciousness" and "lack
of ancient method" for which the Ch'an Bud
dhist artists of the late Sung and early Yuan
(including the now much admired Mu-ch'i) were condemned by literati critics. The efforts
of Chao and Ch'ien were perhaps directed in part
at correcting such abuses.
Tung Ch'i-ch'ang, either misunderstanding or
(more probably) deliberately distorting Ch'ien Hsiian's reply, changed the term li-chia (ama
teurs) to li-fi, i.e. the // style of script, to accord
with his own belief that "scholars who paint
should do it in the manner of the tsrao and //'
scripts and unusual characters."28 He also aug
mented Ch'ien's answer to make of it a dis
paragement of the employment of skill in paint
ing, which is just the reverse of its real implica tion.29 Tung, one feels, would have liked to
equate literati painting, insofar as possible, with
his "Southern School"; he may, accordingly, have been reluctant to accept from Ch'ien
Hsiian, a literatus above reproach (Tung some
times deals harshly with Chao M?ng-fu), the
suggestion that the amateur's art was not at all
incompatible with styles of painting which were,
in Tung's system, decidedly "Northern."
What Ch'ien Hsiian and Chao M?ng-fu reju
venated, then, was not so much the styles of the
T'ang masters as such, but the reinterpretation
of them within the "orthodox" branch of literati
15
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painting, the practice of cultivated archaism.
Ch'ien's figure paintings are said to have been
based, not upon Wu Tao-tzu or some other
T'ang artist, but upon Li Kung-lin; his blue
and-green landscapes, not upon Li Ssu-hsiin, but
upon Chao Po-chii. Chao M?ng-fu has received
the chief credit for this revival, perhaps because
he was of a less self-effacing disposition than
Ch'ien Hsiian; in a number of inscriptions, he
points out to his contemporaries the affinities
between his own and earlier painting, with an
outspokenness which suggests an immodest desire
to occupy the center of the stage. In one famous
passage, for example, he castigates other painters of his time for concentrating on delicate drawing and bright colors, and thus losing the "antique
conception" (ku-i). "Now, my painting," he
says, "although it may look simple and rough, will be recognized by the perceptive viewer as
being close to the ancients, and is therefore to be
considered as [really] excellent."30
Ch'ien Hsiian is nowhere excepted from Chao's
scornful generalizations of "contemporary
painting," nor does Chao ever acknowledge any
indebtedness to Ch'ien Hsiian as a painter. The
only words of praise for his teacher which we
have from him are directed, perhaps signifi
cantly, toward Ch'ien's flower pictures, the only
category of painting which Chao himself seems to have had no interest. "The wonderful thing about Shun-chii's flower paintings in color," he
writes, "is their air of vitality and fleeting move
ment. Of late, however, he spends his days and
nights deeply immersed in the 'village of drunk
enness,' and I'm afraid there will be no opportu
nity to get such paintings any more."31 This is a
harsher judgment than Ch'ien receives from the
other Yuan writers quoted above; nowhere else
is it suggested that his fondness for wine pre
vented him from painting. If we suppose Chao's
inscription to have been written in the old age
of Ch'ien Hsiian, after Chao and his six followers had departed from Wu-hsing, perhaps we might read into it an unkind implication that Ch'ien had remained behind for reasons other than
purely ethical, and a diversion of attention from
Chao's own somewhat equivocal position.
We may wonder, in any event, whether Chao's
enthusiasm for T'ang modes of figure and horse
painting, for archaic landscape manners, for
elegant pai-miao drawing, was not included
among the "all manner of things, ancient and
modern" which he learned from his teacher. The
surviving paintings of Ch'ien Hsiian surely sug
gest that it may have been. Chao is usually cred
ited also with the revitalization of the Chiang nan landscape tradition of Tung Yuan and
Chii-jan, another tradition which had been re
discovered by the eleventh century literati
painters, chiefly by Mi Fu; but, as we have seen
in a quotation above, Ch'ien Hsiian admired and
imitated Tung Yuan as well. The Dwelling on
Floating Jade Mountain handscroll mentioned above (cf. note 10) appears to be an attempt at
creating a new landscape style combining some
elements of the Tung-Chii manner with a spe
cifically "literary" archaistic awkwardness. This
is an exception, however, among the paintings of
Ch'ien Hsiian; his typical works all belong to the fine-line manner. The fashion for "a special kind
of chaste, refined pai-miao painting" had been
set earlier by another native of Chekiang Prov
ince, Chao M?ng-chien (1199-1295), in his
pictures of narcissus and other flowers; Ch'ien
Hsiian stands, perhaps, as an intermediate figure between the two Chaos in the renewed develop
ment of this taste.
It was a fairly new taste for the time, and no
doubt still limited to a small circle of scholars and connoisseurs; we need not be surprised that
Ch'ien's neighbors missed the subtle distinction
between careful, relatively realistic painting done
by an orthodox-archaistic literatus, and superfi
cially similar painting by the conservative pro
fessionals of the day. There was doubtless little use in explaining that while the latter followed Southern Sung styles, the former set out to paint as if the Southern Sung had never existed; to the
non-style-conscious eye, a picture was either a
16
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convincing representation of a figure or a
flower, or it was not. The distinction, however,
cannot be dismissed as specious and purely intel
lectual; all that we know of later Southern Sung
painting will not serve to account for the styles
of Ch'ien Hsiian, as it will for those of, e.g., Sun
Chiin-tse and Meng Y?-chien, early fourteenth
century conservatives of the class with whom
Ch'ien was confused. Wu Sheng, seventeenth
century compiler of Ta-Kuan lu, recognizes this
distinction when he writes of Ch'ien Hsiian:
"Although there are, among his late works,
some 'carved paintings' [i.e., pictures in a stiff er
manner], even these are imbued with antique
method, and are thus completely in the scholarly
spirit."32
The Southern Sung period is generally ignored in the Chinese critics' tracing of the sources of
Ch'ien's and Chao's styles, both in figure paint
ing and in landscape. Chao himself claims to have
passed over the whole of the Sung period, and to
have returned to T'ang modes. "The figure
painting of the Sung artists is vastly inferior to
that of the T'ang," he writes. "I have made a
point of studying the T'ang artists, and have
tried to rid myself absolutely of the techniques (lit., "brush and ink") of the Sung men."33 But
a sixteenth century writer, Ho Liang-chiin,
assigns Li Kung-lin his proper place in this devel
opment, writing:
"Now, every painter belongs to a tradition or
school, and these don't intermix. In figure paint
ing, for example, there are two kinds of pai-miao
(ink-outline drawing). Chao Sung-hs?eh
(M?ng-fu) derives from Li Lung-mien (Kung
lin), and Li Lung-mien from Ku K'ai-chih.
Theirs is the so-called iron wire drawing. Ma
Ho-chih and Ma Yuan derive from Wu Tao-tzu;
theirs is the so-called orchid leaf drawing."**
An inscription by Huang Kung-wang on a
picture of the Taoist immortal Hung-yai (cf. note 49) attributed to Yen Li-p?n is also of
interest in suggesting that while Ch'ien Hsiian's
figure paintings were not by any means close
imitations of T'ang styles, it was with T'ang
painting that they were compared:
"In former years, whenever I saw a painting of
the Immortal Hung-yai by Ch'ien Shun-ch? or
Kung Ts'ui-yen (Kung K'ai), the figures always
bore some resemblance to those on this scroll, but
in their brush line and use of color, they each
differed somewhat [from T'ang painting]. Now
when I see this picture, the execution of it is all
according to the T'ang method; it's nothing that
Ch'ien or Kung could do, but is a genuine
antiquity."35
The new acquisition of the Freer Gallery fits
neatly with most of these observations (Fig.
1-2).36 Even the subject is, on the surface at
least, antique and orthodox. It represents Yang
Kuei-fei, famed concubine of the T'ang emperor
Hsiian-tsung (popularly known as Ming
huang-ti, 68 5-762, reigned 713-756), mounting a horse, while the emperor, already mounted, sits
waiting. Various T'ang artists had represented
the activities of this illustrious pair; several such
pictures are recorded in the catalog of the Sung
emperor Hui-tsung, Hsiian-ho hua-pru. Han
Kan, who served under Hsiian-tsung as a painter
of horses, had also depicted Yang Kuei-fei Mounting a Horse; his version, which, either in
the original or in a copy, was still extant in the
late Ming dynasty, had a colophon by Chao
M?ng-fu, and may thus have been known to
Ch'ien Hsiian.37 Still another version, by Chao
M?ng-fu himself, was in the possession of the
sixteenth century collector Yen Sung, who also
owned Ch'ien Hsiian's painting.38 The two Yuan
artists may have based their compositions on
Han Kan's; but since, so far as I know, only Ch'ien Hsiian's is extant, there is no way of de
termining the extent of his indebtedness to the
T'ang master.
No way, that is, except through style; and
the stylistic evidence certainly suggests an eighth
17
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&?'*#- m ?- - til ?s.. '1 i -F"4
F/g. 1,2. Ch'ien Hsiian: Yang Kuei-fei Mounting a Horse. Freer Gallery of Art (57.14).
century origin for the design. The lack of any
landscape setting in the picture might be seen as
an archaic feature; the prevailing tendency in
Sung and later figure compositions was toward
integration of the figures into a suitable environ
ment, whether landscape or architectural,
whereas numerous examples of figures set against
such a neutral ground as this are to be found
among T'ang paintings or copies of T'ang paint
ings. The arrangement of the figures in space,
with the groups set diagonally, moving back and
forth within a shallow stage, is paralleled in the
similar zig-zag composition of the famous Tun
ing the Lute and Drinking Tea scroll in the
Nelson Gallery, Kansas City, attributed to the
eighth century master Chou Fang. The faces of
the women suggest a mid-T'ang model; in par
ticular, that of the servant-girl at extreme left,
turned slightly away from the viewer, has close
counterparts both in the Chou Fang composition
just mentioned and in another, attributed to the
same artist, in the Freer Gallery of Art (see Siren,
Chinese Painting, vol. Ill, pi. 109 and 110, for
these two pictures). As for the horses, the prob lem of depicting them from the front or back
seems to have occupied T'ang painters more than
later ones, even though they seldom if ever solved
it with any greater freedom from awkwardness
than Ch'ien Hsiian displays here.
Whether or not it is derived from a T'ang
composition, however, the Freer picture surely
represents Ch'ien Hsiian's paraphrase of the
orthodox T'ang style of figure and horse paint
ing. But between Ch'ien and his model stands Li
Kung-lin. The horses are closer relatives to Li's
Five Horses** than to the famous portrait of
Ming-huang's favorite steed Shao-yeh-po, attrib
uted to Han Kan, in the collection of Sir Percival
David.40 The depiction of the dappled flank of the imperial concubine's mount is closely paral leled in the treatment of the first of Li Kung
lin's horses,41 and the two animals have other
features in common?the folds of the necks, the
bodily proportions. We may note also the resem
blance of the face of Ming-huang to that of one
of the grooms in Li's scroll (Fig. 5 ), and the sim
ilarity in the drawing of clothing?sleeves, caps,
shoes?in the two paintings. While Ch'ien Hsiian's
reference to T'ang styles extends, as Li Kung
18
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:m:y # ̂ w^c^^?"?9: ^-. w fmn
f"M
Fig. 2
lin's does not, to a suggestion of shading, espe
cially in the clothing of several of the figures,
there is no such use of modelling with the aim of
creating a real illusion of solidity as we see in the
Han Kan horse or in parts of some figure paint
ings which reveal or reflect T'ang styles: the Yen
Li-p?n Portraits of the Emperors in the Boston
Museum of Fine Arts,42 the scroll attributed to
Chang S?ng-yu in the former Abe Collection,
Osaka,43 and others. Ch'ien Hsiian has restored to
the T'ang manner the element of color which Li
Kung-lin, who characteristically painted in ink
only, usually omitted;44 but Ch'ien's technique is
still essentially outline-drawing with color washes
added?a technique which was carried on by the
followers of Chao M?ng-fu, and presumably by Chao himself, although the most reliable of his
extant works are in other manners. Chao
M?ng-fu's son Chao Yung, for example, copied a section of Li Kung-lin's Five Horses, following Li's lineament closely but adding color (Fig. 6).
Another picture in the Freer Gallery (31.3),
showing horses crossing a stream, attributed to
Chao M?ng-fu but probably by a close follower,
is in the same manner, and a number of others
are known from this period.
The imperial pair, in Ch'ien Hsiian's painting, are about to set off with their retinue on a hunt.
Two youths lead the way, one carrying a bow in
a bowcase, both with quivers slung from their
shoulders and swords from their belts. The
emperor, flanked by two attendants, sits
astride a white horse ? Shao-yeh-po?
? and
looks back, showing no sign of impatience. The
horse also regards the proceedings, with an ex
pression of greater concern. This first half of
the picture is a scene of activity suspended, in
which everything waits and watches; the atten
tion of all the participants, and so of the viewer,
is directed toward the group which next appears as one further unrolls the scroll.
The well conceived and beautifully drawn
main group, the focus of their attention, is any
thing but static; a minor problem in engineering is being undertaken (Fig. 3). The portly favor
ite, she who set the fashion for plump pulchri tude in the later T'ang, stands on a stool, while
two ladies-in-waiting help her to keep her bal
ance. She has inserted one foot into the stirrup; a
groom pulls on the opposite stirrup, to prevent
the saddle from slipping leftward. As we know
19
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F/g. 4. Ch'ien Hs?an: Yang Kuei-fei Learning to Play the Flute. Courtesy Dr. Osvald Sir?n.
from tomb figurines, the T'ang ladies scorned
the side-saddle seat of their Occidental sisters. An
older attendant, perhaps a palace eunuch, stands
at the horse's head. Two youths with broad fans,
and two girls, one with a fly-whisk and the other
with a smaller fan and a furosbiki-\ike bundle,
complete the procession.
There exists another painting by Ch'ien Hsiian
of a related subject, the Ping-ti Tru,2 which rep
resents Ming-huang teaching Yang Kuei-fei to
play the transverse flute, while one attendant
accompanies with wooden clappers and two
others look on in astonishment (Fig. 4).45 The
similarities between the drawing of the figures, and especially of the face of the emperor, in the
two pictures strongly support the assumption
that they are indeed from the same hand. A bit
of probing into the sub-surface implications of
the subjects of the paintings, moreover, reveals
that there is more to link them than points of
style and a common dramatis personae. Both are,
in fact, pictorial renderings of Chinese euphe misms for erotic activities. One must keep in
mind this emperor's reputation for extravagant
dissipation, and the part he and his concubine
play in Chinese popular tales. The two paintings
may have belonged to a set representing, in sym
bolic guise, the amorous amusements of Ming
huang and Yang Kuei-fei. "Riding a horse"
(shang-ma)^ is a vulgar term for sexual inter
course, but may have had some more specific
meaning;46 "playing the flute" has equally im
proper implications, which cannot be elaborated
here.47
We may expect to find some ambiguity and
dotible-entendre in the inscriptions, and we are
not disappointed. The poem on the Freer picture
might be rendered as follows:
"With jade bridle and engraved saddle, he favors T'ai-chen;
Year after year, with autumn past, he rejoices in the Floriate Clear [Palace].
With four hundred thousand horses in the
K'ai-yiian [Imperial Stables]; What brings him, now, to mount a mule, to
ride off on the road to Shu?"
T'ai-chen, "Great Verity," is the name by
which Yang Kuei-fei ("Precious Consort Yang") was known before she received the latter title.
The Floriate Clear Palace (Hua-ch'ing Kung) was built at the hot-springs near Ch'ang-an, at
the present Lin-t'ung-hsien; the emperor's in
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Fig. 5. Li Kung-lin: Five Horses with Grooms (detail). (From Hatada, Pageant of Chinese Painting.)
fatuation with Yang Kuei-fei began when, in
738 A.D., he saw her bathing in these springs. He
named the palace Hua-ch'ing Kung in 747, and
between that year and Yang Kuei-fei's death in
756, the two spent every winter, usually three
months, seeking pleasure there.4S "The Road to
Shu" refers to the tragic ending of the story: the
emperor and his consort are driven from
Ch'ang-an by the insurrection of An Lu-shan
and flee toward Szechwan (Shu) ; on the way,
Yang Kuei-fei is put to death at the demand of
the disgruntled soldiery. The allusion to a mule
may refer to the fact that Yang Kuei-fei was
childless, the concluding couplet then implying:
"Why of all the lovely ladies available to him, does he choose this woman for his favorite con
sort, when she is not only barren, but also brings about his political downfall?"
The poem is signed "Ch'ien Hsiian, Shun-chii, or Wu-hsing." Three of the artist's seals follow.49
The painting bears, besides these seals, only those
of the Ch'ien-lung, Chia-ch'ing and Hsiian
t'ung Emperors; it is recorded or mentioned,
however, in a number of books, the earliest dat
ing from the sixteenth century.50
The poem on the other picture is even more
oblique than that on the Freer scroll:
Fig. 6. Chao Yung: Horse and Groom, after Li Kung-lin (detail). Freer Gallery of Art (4532).
"A new melody for the jade flute?
In its marvelous features it surpasses all else, as
the parrot knows.51
It seems that the emperor should attend to
court, but the days of dissipation are
sweet?
When all nine parts of the flute music are
completed, the phoenix comes."52
This Playing the Flute picture is unrecorded until modern times, but has on it, besides the
seals of the Ch'ien-lung Emperor, those of two
famous earlier collectors, Pien Yung-yii (1645
1712) and An Ch'i, or An I-chou (b. 1683).53
Among the other figure paintings which have
been reproduced as works of Ch'ien Hsiian are
some which may be dismissed quickly.04 Others,
along with the two scrolls described above, de
serve more serious consideration, either as prob able originals or as fairly accurate copies which
may be used as evidence for his figure style. Three of his figure compositions which have been
widely recorded in the various catalogs appear to
be preserved either in originals or in copies. One
of these is Shih Lo Reverencing the Buddha (Fig. 7).i>D Of four versions of this picture which I
have seen, the best, and perhaps the original, is
the one reproduced here, in the collection of Mr.
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4* ^1
is-S S ?s
;> fe.
00
.00
22
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J. D. Ch'en, Hongkong.56 Another is Hung-yai
Moving His Residence (Fig. 8) .57 The third rep resents the Sung dynasty poet Lin Pu gazing at a
branch of flowering plum (Fig. 9) .58 Two others
might be added, which, although unrecorded, seem sufficiently closely related in style to the
above-mentioned pictures to merit some atten
tion. One is the handscroll depicting the poet T'ao Ch'ien (T'ao Yiian-ming) walking with a
staff (Fig. 10).59 The other, which is (unlike any of the others) a hanging scroll, is said to
represent the fourth century flute player Huan I
cleaning his fingernail.60
These pictures are drawn in a fine, precise
lineament of generally even thickness; only a
few of the shorter lines, mostly to be seen in the
folds of the drapery, display that swelling at corners and ends which is often loosely described
as "calligraphic." The delineation of clothing
seems, in comparison with that of much other
Chinese figure painting, fairly free of manner
ism; hems hang naturally, sleeves rumple con
vincingly, interior lines are meaningful, with
little that strikes us as empty elaboration. There
can be a wide variation in hardness or softness
of line within a single picture. Several of the
attendants in the Freer scroll are drawn quite
heavily, others in lineament so thin and dilute as
to be nearly invisible. It appears to be the value
of the color bounded by this lineament which determines its strength; an area of purple, for
example, will be enclosed by harder outlines, a
white area by the very faintest.
The colors applied in washes within this linear
drawing are by no means subdued. That fond
ness for bright mineral pigments?reds, greens,
blues ? which is displayed in Ch'ien Hsiian's
landscapes is very evident in those of the figure
paintings which I know in the originals, and
perhaps in some of the others. A further richness
is given to the Freer picture by the use of pow
dered gold in decorative motifs on belts, horse
trappings, various accessories, on Yang Kuei-fei's
gown, and elsewhere. This use of gold, like the
gold outlines used with heavy mineral colors in
the green-and-gold landscapes, may be a tech
nical allusion to T'ang painting. The landscapes and figures of Ch'ien Hsiian are, in their color
ing, more florid than his flowers; in the bird and flower pictures, color is usually limited to less
intense, more dilute hues, often neutralized with
a thin admixture of ink. Subtler colors appear
also, however, in the figure paintings ? on the
Freer scroll, notably in the soft violets, blues and
greens of the attendants' costumes.
The dominant mood, especially of the prin
cipal personages, is of calm and dignity. A degree of animation in some minor figures?notably the
prancing dwarf in the Playing the Flute scroll?
only heightens this mood with incidental con
trast. The faces are, on the whole, sober, an
occasional slight smile being the only break in a
general impassivity. Expression of states of mind
is accomplished instead, as it usually is in Chinese
figure paintings, through posture and gesture:
the purposeful stride of T'ao Yiian-ming, the
obeisant stance of Shih Lo.
That this quality of calm, along with a "plain ness and placidity" (pring-tan) in the drawing,
marks a departure from the main tradition of
figure painting directly preceding Ch'ien Hsiian's time, is immediately apparent if we
align the works of some Southern Sung academy artists and compare them with those of Ch'ien
Hsiian (Fig. 11-13). From Li T'ang through Liang K'ai, lineament was usually more articu
lated and restless, faces and gestures more emo
tionally charged.61 Figures were often caught in
momentarily-arrested action. The drawing was
imbued with a kind of liveliness by means of
pronounced fluctuations in thickness of brush
line, by traces of swiftness of movement, by
vigorous thrusts, even where the effect of these
devices is not especially appropriate to the sub
ject: the jaggedness of outline in the robes of Ma
Yiian's Four Old Men (Fig. 12) is a bit distract
ing, for example, when one expects a glimpse into the unruffled lives of noble recluses. Liang
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!?1
Fig. 13.
K'ai, in his imaginary portrait of Wang Hsi
Chih (Fig. 13) seems to have aimed at a more
suitable air of supple, scholarly elegance in the
brushline, but really only exchanges one kind of
linear agitation for another, and the result is
perilously close to mannerism.62
The distinction between the lineament in
these paintings and Ch'ien Hsiian's line drawing is without doubt the same distinction made by
Ho Liang-chiin, between "iron wire drawing" and "orchid leaf drawing"; the "orchid leaf"
surely refers to that swelling and diminishing in
thickness of line seen in the Southern Sung
academy works.63 But the figures of Ch'ien
Hsiian differ from these works in other ways as
well: in a coolness and composure of mood, a
restraint upon expressiveness of face and gesture in the depictions of major personages; and,
except in the case of the Shih Lo picture, in an
absence of landscape or other setting. We are thus
led by the surviving evidence to go back further
than the Southern Sung period in our quest for
probable origins of Ch'ien Hsiian's figure style, and come, inevitably, to Li Kung-lin. The draw
ing of the Yang Kuei-fei Mounting a Horse
belongs with that of the Five Horses scroll, and
nothing known from the later twelfth or thir
teenth centuries properly belongs between. We
conclude, then, by returning?as I think we
often will?to a point of substantial agreement
with the Chinese critics: Ch'ien Hsiian seems,
indeed, to have followed Li Kung-lin in his figure paintings, and to have taken a leading part, along with his pupil Chao M?ng-fu, in the late Sung and early Yuan revival of the orthodox
archaistic branch of literati painting.
Fig. 11. Li Vang: The Two Virtuous Brothers (detail). Peking Museum. (From Chung-kuo hua, No. 1.)
Fig. 12. Ma Yuan: The Four Old Men of Shang-shan (detail). Courtesy of the Cincinnati Art Museum.
Fig. 13. Liang K'ai: Wang Hsi-chih Writing on a Fan. (From Siren, Chinese Painting, 111, plate 327.)
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NOTES
(Note: I have not given Chinese characters or bibliographical ref erences for catalogs included in Ferguson's index of recorded
paintings, Li-tai chu-lu hua-mu, Nanking, 1934, or for some other
well-known books.)
1. Yang Kuei-fei Mounting a Horse (Fig. 1-3). See note 36.
2. "Ch'ien Hsiian and 'Early Autumn,' "
Archives VII, 1953, pp. 71-83.
3. The handscroll illustrating T'ao Ch'ien's "Homecoming" ode
(Kuei-ch'?-lai t'u) in the Metropolitan Museum, New York; the Fou-y? shan-ch? fu ("Dwelling on Floating Jade Moun
tain") and Shan-ch? fu ("Dwelling in the Mountains") handscrolls, both of which I know only through photographs
(detail from the latter in T. Nait?, Shina kaiga-shi, PI. 67); and a handscroll representing Wang Hsi-chih Admiring the
Geese, in the collection of Mr. C. C. Wang, New York, are
the only pictures known to me which reveal the landscape style of Ch'ien Hsiian. The first, third and fourth of these
agree with the statement in T'u-hui pao-chien (quoted below) that he employed the blue-and-green manner of Chao Po-ch?, and the landscape setting in the Shih Lo scroll (cf. note 55) is in a somewhat similar manner.
4. The standard Chinese reference work on birth and death
dates, Li-tai ming-j?n sheng-tsu nien-piao, p. 91, says that he was probably born in the Tuan-p(ing or Chia-hsi eras of Sung
(together covering the period 1235-40), and died in the Ta-te era of the Yuan period (1297-1307). Arthur Waley, in his Index of Chinese Artists, writes: "Born about 1235, died about 1290," and these dates have been adopted by some
other writers. The only dated inscriptions known, however, are both from later years; one from 1292 (Ta-kuan lu XV/ 40a and elsewhere), the other from 1300 (Chring-ho shu-hua
fang VI/45b). Also, Hu Chang-ju (see note 11), in a colo
phon dated 1300, writes, "Now he is old . . .", indicating that Ch'ien was still alive at that time.
5. South of Wu-hsing, in Chekiang Province.
6. Hsiang-kung,1 a system by which the scholar receives his
degree in his district, without going to the capital for the
regular examination.
7. Tfu-hui pao-chien, ch. 5 (Kuo-hs?eh chi-pen ts'ung-shu edi
tion, p. 97).
8. Chao Meng-y?,m colophon on Ch'ien's Shan-ch? fu; see
Ta-kuan lu, XV/4lb. The word tan,n here translated as "pla cidity," interchanges in this phrase with tan,0 "insipid, flat."
P'ing-tanv is especially difficult to render because such words as "tasteless, insipid, bland," while reasonably faithful to the
Chinese, are hardly words of praise in the Occident, and mis
lead the reader into thinking that the writer is condemning the paintings for dullness. Actually, the literati critics applied the term pHng-tan to works of painters whom they especially admired, such as Tung Yuan, Chii-jan, and the Four Great
Masters of the Yuan period. The suggestion that Ch'ien Hsiian
sought this quality of "plainness" in his late years is in keep ing with the report that he imitated Tung Yuan during those
years ( see below ).
9. Ao Chiin-shan? was Ao Chi-kung,r a scholar of the classics who lived in Wu-hsing, and who, along with Ch'ien Hsiian, is said to have been Chao Meng-fu's teacher. See Chung-kuo j?n-ming ta-tz'u-tien (cited hereafter as JMTTT), 983.
10. Colophon on the Fou-y? shan-ch? scroll; see Shan-hu wang hua-lu, ch. 7. The colophon, along with the painting, is still in existence, although its whereabouts is unknown to me.
11. Hu Chang-ju,s 1238-1314 (JMTTT 692). This passage is
found in his colophon on Ch'ien's Lieh-n? fu ("Portraits of Famous Women," see T'ieh-ivang shan-hu Hua/lll/27b), and is also quoted, in curtailed and slightly variant form, from his
collected literary works in P'ei-wen-chai shu-hua p'u, 53/4a.
12. Since he speaks of "the early part of [this] dynasty" (kuo
ch'u) he must himself be a Yuan figure, but I have been
unable to locate him. For this colophon, see Ta-kuan lu,
XV/50.
13. Hsien-yii Shu* (JMTTT 1709), 1256-1301; scholar, connois
seur and calligrapher. Li K'an (JMTTT 409), 1235-1320, famous painter of bamboo. Hs? Yiianu (JMTTT 791), scholar in the Hanlin academy during the Chih-yiian era.
14. Literally "brandishing the ink," a curious variant of the com
mon "brandishing the brush." I do not think it can mean
that he painted directly with the ink-stick, although this prac tice was known in China as early as the T'ang dynasty; see
Shimada, "Ippin gaf? ni tsuite." ("Concerning the i-p'in
style of painting," Bijutsu Kenkyu 161, pp. 264-290) p. 270.
15. Ta-kuan lu, XV/45a.
16. Hs? Ch'ienv (JMTTT 1040), 1270-1337. Quoted from his
collected works in P'ei-wen-chai SHP 53/3b.
17. Hsia Shih-chengw (JMTTT 746); see Ta-kuan lu, XV/51b.
18. Chang Yiix (JMTTT 941), 1275-1348; poet, calligrapher, occasional painter; friend of Huang Kung-wang, Ni Tsan and
other noted artists of the age. See Shan-hu-wang hua-lu, ch. 7, for this colophon.
19. The other members were Chang Fu-hengy (JMTTT 955), scholar and poet; Mou Ying-lungz (JMTTT 277), 1247
1324; Hsiao Tzu-chung,aa Ch'en Wu-i,ab Ch'en Chung-hsin,ac and Yao Shih.ad The last four are otherwise unknown.
20. More accurately, in the twenty-third year of Chih-y?an, 1286.
Chao was thirty-two years old at the time.
21. Chang Yiiae (JMTTT 931), 1333-1385. This colophon ap
pears in his collected literary works, Ching-ch? ch?A? (Ssu-pu
ts'ung-k'an reprint of the edition of 1491), III/7b.
22. An extremely interesting analysis of acceptance or refusal of
official position by Yuan scholars, with some attention to
Chao M?ng-fu in particular, is found in Frederick Mote's
study, "Eremetism in the Intellectual Life of the Yuan
dynasty," delivered at the Third Conference on Chinese
Thought, Stockbridge, Mass., in 1957, and published in
mimeographed form. Revealing and moving is Dr. Mote's
translation of a poem composed by Chao for a painting illus
trating T'ao Ch'ien's "Homecoming" poem. Chao states that "Each person lives his life in this world according to his own
times," and praises T'ao for withdrawing from official service, in contrast to others who, like himself, "remain, irresolute, in
this dusty world."
23. Jung-fai chi,a? preface (by Ch'en Chi-ju) dated 1630, III/49a.
24. Ko-ku yao-lun,'dh compiled by Ts'ao Chaoai in 1387. I have not seen the original edition; but, as pointed out by John Pope (Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washing ton, D. C, 1956, p. 39), the edition which appears in 1-men
kuang-tu,^ a collectanea compiled in 1597, appears to be a
reprint of the 1387 original. It is in three ch?an, as was the
original, and does not contain the passages designated as "ad ditions" in the edition revised and augmented by Wang Tsoak in 1456-59- I am indebted to Dr. Pope for a photostat of the 1-men kuang-tu edition. The Ch'ien-Chao conversation, under the title "Scholar-gentlemen's Painting" (Shih-fu hua), occurs on p. 13a of the first ch?an. It is to be found also in the Tu shih hua-pfu*1 (III/7a), compiled by Tu Chiinam in the six
teenth century and included in his Tu-shih ssu-p'u,**1 a copy of which is in the Library of Congress (see Wang Chung-min,
25
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A Descriptive Catalog of Rare Chinese Books in the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C, 1957, vol. I, p. 593.) A large part of the Tu-shih hua-p'u is merely a reprint of material from the section on painting in Ko-ku yao-lun, with minor
changes. The Tu-shih hua-p'u is later reprinted, with a false attribution to the painter T'ang Yin (1470-1523), as the
Liu-ju ch?-shih hua-p'u3-0 (to be found in Mei-shu ts'ung shu
11/9 and elsewhere); the conversation thus appears in virtu
ally identical form in that book (III/7a).
25. I have discussed these two concepts at length in an unpub lished study of w?n-j?n hua theory, and so omit detailed dis cussion here.
26. The definition of the i-p'in as a term used in reference to
style, the application of it to a particular group of artists and
pictures, and the recognition of its vital role in the rise of both w?n-j?n hua and Ch'an painting, are the important con tributions of S. Shimada in his article cited above (note 14).
27. Shimada, op. cit., p. 287.
28. Hua-ch(an-shih sui-pi,^ 11/1.
29. The two versions of the conversation are discussed by Aoki Masaru in his Chuka bunjinga-dan ("Talks on Chinese Liter ati Painting," Tokyo, 1949, p. 8). Aoki, evidently following the Liu-ju ch?-shih hua-p'u, attributes the earlier version to
Wang Ssu-shan, or Wang I,a(l a Yuan dynasty portraitist and author of an essay on portrait painting, the Hsieh-hsiang pi-ch?eh. However, the reason for this false attribution is
easily seen if we compare the Liu-ju ch?-shih HP with its
source, the Tu-shih HP (see note 24). In the Tu-shih HP, it
appears without attribution to any author. It would seem that the copyist who reproduced this work as the Liu-ju ch?-shih
HP simply attached to each anonymous passage the name of the author of the last attributed passage before it; so that
Wang I, a part of whose Hsieh-hsiang pi-ch?eh occurs as the last quotation in Tu-shih HP which is ascribed to any author,
was mistakenly credited with all that followed (some twenty quotations in ch. 3). Two earlier passages, in ch. 2, are ascribed in the Liu-ju ch?-shih HP to Ching Hao through the same error. These misattributions are repeated in some later
books, such as the Chieh-tzu-y?an hua-chuan, and it is useful to clarify the matter here.
Aoki is the first, so far as I know, to point out the true
meaning of li-chia in this passage; he establishes that the terms li-chiai and hang-chiaar (the former written with various characters for li) were current by Yuan times, and were used
by Chao M?ng-fu himself. It is interesting to note that the
original edition of Ko-ku yao-lun, the earliest source of this
conversation, uses the same character for li in li-chia1 as Chao
M?ng-fu uses in the passage cited by Aoki; whereas the aug mented edition of the fifteenth century uses the other lias which occurs also in the Tu-shih HP and Liu-ju ch?-shih HP, as well as in the phrase li-fiat (li style of script) of Tung Ch'i-ch'ang's version.
30. T'ieh-ivang shan-hu, shu-p'in V/23a. Chao also painted in the
rougher manner of the other branch of w?n-j?n hua, as is re vealed in several extant bamboo-and-rock pictures, and it is this manner to which he refers here.
31. Ibid., the inscription which follows the one quoted above.
32. Ta-kuan lu, XV/34a. About Ch'ien Hsiian's calligraphy, how ever, his contemporaries may have felt somewhat differently; the late Yuan scholar T'ao Tsung-i writes: "His hsiao-k'ai
(small standard script) is not without method; but it hasn't
yet succeeded in sloughing off the decadent and debilitated
spirit of the end of Sung." See his Shu-shih hui-yao,an VII/6b. I am not certain that "carved paintings" is the right rendering for k'o-hua, the term used by Wu Sheng; it may be related to
k'o-ssu, pictorial tapestry weave, and refer to paintings in a
fine, rather hard manner, which resemble woven tapestry."
33. Yii Chien-hua, Chung-kuo hua-lun lei-pien, Peking, 1957, p. 92. Quoted from T'ieh-wang shan-hu; I have been unable to locate the passage there, however.
34. Ho Liang-ch?n, Ssu-yu-chai hua-lun,axv sixteenth century. Mei-shu ts'ung-shu (III/3), 8b.
35. Tieh-wang shan-hu, I/lb. Two paintings are extant which are,
according to the inscriptions, copies by Ch'ien Hsiian of works
by Yen Li-pen and his brother Yen Li-t?. The latter repre sents Barbarians Bringing Animals as Tribute; it is now owned
by Mr. Ch'eng Ch'i, Tokyo, and will be published in a scroll
reproduction by the Institute for Humanistic Research, Kyoto. The other, after Yen Li-p?n, appears to be made up of
part of the same composition, somewhat rearranged; see Siren, Chinese Painting, vol. VI, pi. 32, top. I have not seen either
painting in the original.
36. Freer Gallery of Art, 57.14. Handscroll, colors on paper; height: .295 m. length: 1.170 m. Inscription and two seals of the artist, plus eleven other seals, on the painting.
37. See Nan-yang ming-hua piao by Chang Ch'ou, early seven teenth century. For a Sung dynasty version of the same sub
ject, see a fan-shaped album leaf in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, reproduced in Tomita, Portfolio of Chinese Paint
ings in the Museum, Boston, 1933, plate 73.
38. Recorded in T'ien-shui ping-shan lu and Ch'ien-shan-fang shu-hua chi; see note 50, below. Also mentioned in Chang Ch'ou's Chen-chi jih-lu, 11/38.
39. Osvald Siren, Chinese Painting, III, PI. 191-2.
40. Ibid., PI. 99.
41. Ibid., PI. 191, bottom.
42. Ibid., PI. 72-75.
43. Ibid., PI. 16-17.
44. But see Hou-ts'un fi-pa,ax by Liu K'o-chuang,ay early twelfth
century, IV/8b, where a copy by Li Kung-lin of a Han Kan horse painting is described. Kung-lin, says the author, usually paints in ink on paper; but here he has worked in colors on silk. Why is this? he asks, and answers: because he wanted his picture to resemble Han Kan's; if he had done the horses in ink on paper, they would have been Li Kung-lin's horses, not Han Kan's. This concept of copying is hardly orthodox for the w?n-j?n hua school; but the passage indicates that Li did use colors and silk on occasion.
45. Formerly in the National Museum, Peking; present where abouts unknown.
46. See R. H. Van Gulik, Erotic Colour Prints of the Ming Period, I, 229; also p. 221, the description of picture 17 in the book Hua-ying chin-chen, "Reining the Green Bridle," which
suggests that the term may refer to a particular mode of intercourse.
47. Ibid., p. 183.
48. See Edward Sch?fer, "Bathing in China and the Floriate Clear
Palace," Journal of the American Oriental Society 76, 1956, pp. 57-82.
49. The seals read: a) Shun-ch? yin-changa an intaglio seal; b) Shun-ch?, relief; and c) Ch'ien Hs?an chih yin,ha intaglio. It is worthy of note that the signature and seals match perfectly those on a generally accepted work of Ch'ien Hsiian in the
Chinese National Collection, Taichung, depicting an autumn melon (see Ku-kung shu-hua chi, 16). I am indebted to Messrs. Li Lin-ts'an and Chuang Yen, Taichung, for compar
ing the inscription and seals on this picture with a photo graph of those on the Freer painting, and reporting to me the exact correspondence between them. The inscription and seals on the Playing the Flute scroll are not shown in the photo graph I have. Nor could I locate any other painting attributed to Ch'ien Hsiian which bears impressions from these same
seals; the impressions on all other paintings appear to vary to some degree.
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50. The picture is recorded in T'ien-shui ping-shan lu, p. 236; this is a list of objects confiscated from the famous collector and corrupt minister, Yen Sungbb (JMTTT 1768) in the
year 1565. Several other books mention the picture, quoting from the same source; see Ch'ing-ho shu-hua fang (1616) IV/25; Shan-hu-wang hua-lu (1643) 23/28; P'ei-wen-chai SHP (1708) 98/27; Chu-chia ts'ang-hua pu (ca. 1800). It is also recorded, with complete description, in the catalog of the Ch'ien-lung Emperor's collection, Shih-ch'? pao-chi, Part
II, Y?-shu-fang section, 19a. Although it was presumably among the paintings taken to Manchuria by the Hsiian-t'ung Emperor, it is not listed in the register of paintings and callig raphy lost from the Ku-kung collection (Ku-kung i-i shu-chi shu-hua mu-lu ssu-chung),bc but is mentioned in the volume of annotations and supplement to that book by J. D. Ch'en, (Ku-kung i-i shu-hua mu chiao-chu,hd Hongkong, 1956, p.
38a.) The painting was evidently owned at one time by the con
temporary painter and collector Chang Yuan (Ta-ch'ien), who copied a section of it and indicates in his inscription that the original was then in his possession (see Tchang Ta-ts'ien, peintre chinois, Paris, 1956, pi. 17). Another painting of the same subject attributed to Ch'ien Hsiian, painted on silk, and
with a somewhat different poem, is recorded in Jang-li-kuan kuo-yen lu (1891) V/13.
51. I miss the allusion here; perhaps it is to a poem by Tu Fu about a parrot, which includes the line: "Still the red beak
betrays too much knowledge." See Wm. Hung, Tu Fu, China's Greatest Poet, Cambridge, Mass., 1952, vol. I, p. 236.
52. The last line is quoted, with minor changes (chiu-tsoube for
chiu-ch'eng,M simply f?ng instead of f?ng-huang for the
phoenix) from the Shu-ching, III AI 9. See Legge, The Chinese
Classics, HI/1, p. 88; also Karlgren, "Glosses on the Book of Documents" (BMFEA 20), pp. 141-143, and "The Book of Documents" (BMFEA 22), p. 12. Karlgren renders the line, "When the shao-music of the Pan-flutes is achieved in 9 parts, the male and female phoenixes come and (arrive=) put in an appearance." One Chinese commentator understood the last part of the line as "The male and female phoenixes come and mate," and perhaps it was this interpretation which
Ch'ien Hsiian had in mind.
53. Three seals of Pien Yung-yii; two of An Ch'i. The painting is
not, however, recorded either in Pien's Shih-ku-fang shu-hua hui-k'ao (1682) or in Ans Mo-y?an hui-kuan (1742). More
mysterious still, it fails to appear in Shih-ch'? pao-chi. There is no reason, however, to doubt the authenticity of the
Ch'ien-lung seals, as the painting was certainly in the Ch'ing imperial collection; it is recorded both in the catalog of cal
ligraphy and paintings formerly in the imperial palace at Mukden (Sheng-ching ku-kung shu-hua lu, 1924, III/18a)
and in the catalog of the former Ministry of the Interior Mu seum in Peking (Nei-wu ku-wu ch'en-lieh-so shu-hua mu-lu, 1925, IV/24b). A suggested explanation for the absence of references to it in other catalogs is that the crypto-erotic sub
ject matter made the collectors hesitate to introduce and de scribe the picture in the catalogs of their collections. The fact that the Ministry of the Interior catalog does not print the artist's inscription or the colophons, as it does in the cases of other paintings, is perhaps due to a similar embarrassment. The other catalog (Sheng-ching ku-kung shu-hua lu) includes the colophons; the first is by the noted Yuan period scholar and bon-vivant Yang Wei-chen.
54. Among them are the following, which may, I think, be re
jected as works of Ch'ien Hsiian: a. L? T'ung Brewing Tea. Ku-kung, 6. b. Washing the Elephant, after Chang Seng-yu. One version
reproduced in Kokka, 259, now in the Art Institute of Chi
cago; another reproduced in Ferguson, Chinese Painting, p. 146, now in the Freer Gallery of Art (11.1630- An ex
panded treatment of the subject in hanging scroll form, sup posed to be after Li Kung-lin, is reproduced in Ku-kung shu hua chi, 31.
c. The Emperor T'ai-tsu of Sung Playing Soccer. Repro duced in To so Gemmin, 144. Purports to be Ch'ien Hsiian's
copy of an earlier picture. d. T'ao Y?an-ming Drunk. Reproduced in Ta-feng-fang
ming-chi, v. IV.
e. A Taoist Magician. Reproduced in Ku-kung chou-k'an, 20. Small and unclear reproduction.
f. Horse and Groom. Reproduced in Ku-kung, 38. g. Mounted Nobleman with a Bow. British Museum; re
produced in Venice Exhibition Catalog, no. 784.
55. Shih Lo ts'an fo t'u.*? Shih Lo (A.D. 273-332; see Giles, Biographical Dictionary, 1720) ruled the state of Chao in northeastern China from 319 until his death. The painting is recorded in Ch'ing-ho shu-hua fang, VII/27; Shan-hu-wang hua-lu, 23/28; Ch'ien-s h an-fan g shu-hua chi (another cata
log of objects confiscated from Yen Sung, cf. note 42; com
piled by the painter Wen Chia [1501-1583]), 14; and other books.
56. Reproduced in color in Chin-k'uei ts'ang-hua chi (Chinese Paintings from King Kwei Collection), v. 2, pi. 13. I do not
agree with Mr. Ch'en in the attribution of this picture to an
anonymous Sung artist. The other versions known to me are in the former Abe collection, Osaka (S?raikan, 11/33), a version which lacks the background landscape; the Freer Gal
lery of Art (11.210), and a private collection, New York.
57. Hung-yai i-ch? fu.bh Hung-yai (JMTTT 671) was a legend ary Taoist alchemist and immortal. A published version in the Y?rinkan, Kyoto, appears to be a close copy, from the
similarity of the drawing to that of more reliable pictures; see Y?rin Taikan, 3. According to J. D. Ch'en (Ku-kung i-i . . ., cf. note 50, p. 38b), another version, unpublished, for
merly in the Ch'ing Imperial collection, is now in the Tung pei Po-wu Yuan, China; this may be the original.
58. Lin Pu,bi better known as Lin Ho-chingbj (965-1026, see
JMTTT 587). The painting is recorded in Ch'ing-ho shu hua fang, VI/46; T'ieh-wang shan-hu, III/27; Shan-hu
mu-nan, VI/21, and various other books. It is presumably in some mainland Chinese collection at present, and is repro duced in Hsieh Chih-liu, T'ang Wu-tai Sung Yuan ming-chi, Shanghai, 1957, pi. 92.
59- Reproduced in T?s? Gemmin, 142; a telescoped reproduction in Chung-kuo ming-hua, 9.
60. Huan I,bk tzu Yeh-wangbl (JMTTT 810). The painting is
reproduced in the auction catalog of the Kawasaki collection, Ch?shunkaku . . ., 1936; also in Kokka, 66. It bears a "Shun ch?" seal. I do not accept it as an original, but it may well be after a Ch'ien Hs?an picture.
Another figure painting attributed to Ch'ien Hs?an, copied (according to the inscription) from a work by the T'ang
master Yen Li-t?, has recently come to light in Japan. It is owned by Mr. Ch'eng Ch'i, and is to be published in facsimile in the near future. I know it only from photographs, and do not wish to make any judgment of it, beyond saying that it appears quite likely to be a genuine work. But since it seems to have been copied closely after the T'ang picture, showing little of Ch'ien's own style, it is in any case of less interest to our present investigation.
61. The intensification of expression in the faces is carried further
by some of the Ch'an Buddhist artists of the late Sung and
early Yuan, becomes distinctly repellent in some paintings attributed to Yen Hui in the later Yuan, and continues in
figure paintings by the Ch? School artists of the Ming period, to arrive at an unlamented end in grotesque works by certain later and lesser painters of that school.
62. Liang K'ai may, however, be indulging in pictorial play, alluding in his brushwork to the "grass" manner of callig raphy, of which Wang Hsi-chih was the greatest master. This picture does not, in any case, represent Liang K'ai at his greatest?there are superior paintings in Japanese collections
?and it is introduced here not as representative of the artist, but as another illustration of that linear disquiet observable in
much Southern Sung figure painting.
63. The term "orchid-leaf drawing" is sometimes used in a more
particular sense, which would not include all the various kinds of figure drawing practiced by the Sung academicians. Ho
Liang-ch?n, however, evidently means it to include some other kinds which are related but usually distinguished from the "orchid-leaf" proper.
27
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