![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
In The Collected Sayings from the Four Friends Studio, the sixteenth-century author He Liangjun’s two chapters on painting provides a detailed picture of how literati critics continued to construct artistic lineages and shape hierarchies of criteria for evaluating painting prior to Dong Qichang (1555–1636). Although this text has been widely quoted by art historians, its use has been highly selective, obscuring the larger textual context for He’s remarks. This annotated translation presents the sections on painting found in The Collected Sayings in its entirety. While He Liangjun’s discussion of painting can be repetitious, asynchronous, contradictory, and contains abrupt transitions between topics, clear themes and agendas emerge and are pivotal for the development of later painting theory and criticism.
Notes
1 Translator’s Note: The text used for this translation is found in He Liangjun, Si you zhai cong shuo 四友齋叢說, (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1997), pp. 255–269. In my translation of He Liangjun’s On Painting, I have tried to adhere as closely as possible to the author’s original language. Unfortunately He often uses different names (formal [ming 名], style names [zi 字], and various sobriquets [hao 號] for the same painter throughout his text), making it confusing even for readers familiar with pre-modern China. For the sake of consistency, in cases where an artist is mentioned more than once in the text, I have used that person’s formal name throughout, but include a footnote indicating the name found in the original. The first mention of an artist also has a footnote with the person’s dates and brief biographical information. Throughout the citations, I refer to Yu Jianhua, ed., Zhongguo meishujia renming cidian (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, 1985) as ZMRC. While I strove to make the translation as clear as possible in English, I also tried not to deviate too far from the original Chinese grammar; as a result, the overall style of the prose reflects this inevitable compromise. I would like to thank Ann Waltner, Rivi Handler-Spitz and all of the various members of the classical Chinese reading group based at the University of Minnesota and Jennifer Purtle of the University of Toronto for their patient reading of the text and my translation. While they critiqued my various draft translations and provided helpful advice and suggestions, any errors or omission remain my own.
2 He Liangjun (1506–1573), was a native of Huating, Songjiang prefecture was born into a wealthy landlord family and inherited the estate of his uncle. Highly educated, he nonetheless failed to pass the provincial level examinations (juren) and devoted most of his career to scholarship. The Si you zhai cong shuo 四友齋叢說 is named for his studio, “The Four Friends Studio” which alluded to the philosopher Zhuangzi, Vimilakirti, the disciple of the Buddha, the Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi, and himself. See L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds., Dictionary of Ming Biography (DMB), (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 515–17.
3 Dong Qichang 董其昌 (1555–1636), jinshi 1590, has a towering reputation as the high-ranking official, calligrapher, painter, collector, connoisseur and theorist whose works had an immense impact on the art of painting, its criticism and history from his own period on to the present day. The body of secondary scholarship on Dong’s life, career and art is huge; for an overview of his painting, calligraphy and artistic theories in English, see Wai-kam Ho and Judith G. Smith, eds., The Century of Tung Ch’i-Ch’ang 1555–1636, 2 vols., (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1992).
4 He Liangjun calls Huang by his sobriquet, Shangu. Huang Tingjian 黃庭堅 (1045–1105), jinshi 1067, is one of the most influential poets and calligraphers of the Northern Song period. He is considered one of the Four Great Masters of Song calligraphy, along with Su Shi (see note 9 below), Mi Fu (see note below) and Cai Xiang 蔡襄 (1012–67). For a discussion of his career as a poet, see William H. Nienhauser, Jr., ed., The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), pp. 447–8. Also see, ZMRC, p. 1150. This phrase 能撲面上三斗俗塵者comes from “書嵇叔夜詩與姪榎” in Huang Tingjian quan ji, 4 vols. (Chengdu: Sichuan daxue chubanshe, 2001), p. 1562: “叔夜此詩豪壯清麗，無一點俗氣。凡學作詩者，不可不成誦在心。想見其人，雖沈於世故者，暫而攬其芳，便可撲去面上三斗俗塵矣，何况探其意味者乎？故書以 付榎, 可與諸郎皆誦取, 時時諷詠, 以洗心忘倦. 余嘗為諸子弟言: '士生 於世, 可以百為, 唯不可俗, 俗便不可醫也.’ 或問不俗之狀, 余曰: ‘難言也。視其平居無以異於俗人，臨大節而不可奪，此不俗人也。’ 士之處世，或出或處，或剛或柔，未易以一節盡其蘊，然率以是觀之。”
5 He Liangjun uses Wen’s sobriquet Hengshan here. Wen Zhengming 文徵明 (1470–1559), original name Bi 壁, was a very influential scholar and painter from Suzhou. One of the leading figures of the later named Wu School of painting, Wen wielded enormous influence on artistic circles of the greater Suzhou region and late in life he was well acquainted with He Liangjun. For a study of Wen and He Liangjun’s writings about him, see Craig Clunas, Elegant Debts: The Social Art of Wen Zhengming, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004).
6 The term used here fashu 法書 means calligraphy but has more of the sense of “model calligraphy”; in other works examples of calligraphy by masters worthy of emulation or study.
7 He Liangjun refer to Yang by his style name Shaoshi, Yang Wanli 楊萬里 (1127–1206), jinshi 1154, was one of the four great poets of the early Southern Song dynasty, as well as a noted calligrapher. He passed the jinshi examination in the same year as his friend Fan Chengda (see note 10 below). He was also a friend of the poet Lu You (see note 9 below). Yang’s poetic style was known for its liveliness and vividness. See Herbert Franke, ed., Song Biographies, Münchener Ostasiatische Studien Band 16, 1, (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1976), pp. 1239–45.
8 Here He Liangjun refers to Su Shi as Su Changgong. Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101), jinshi 1057, is considered the greatest poet of the Song dynasty and one of the Four Great Calligraphers of the Song (see note 4 above). As an official, he was aligned with the conservative faction at court, and as result of the factional struggles was banished repeatedly throughout his career. In addition to his accomplishments in poetry and calligraphy, Su was one of the major theorists of literati painting during the eleventh century. See Franke, Song Biographies, pp. 900–68.
9 He Liangjun uses of one of Lu You’s many sobriquet, Fangweng. Lu You 陸游 (1125–1209), jinshi 1162, was from a family of Song dynasty officials and was famous as a poet. His poetry was noted for its exploration of all facets of everyday life, as well as the theme of the loss of northern China to the Jin. Lu was also a prolific prose writer and was the author of an influential travel diary, Record of a Journey to Shu. See Franke, Song Biographies, pp. 691–704.
10 Fan Chengda (1126–1191), jinshi 1154, was considered one of the Four Great Masters of Southern Song shi poetry along with his friends Yang Wanli and Lu You (see notes 3 and 5 above), as well as You Mou 尤某 (1127–94). Fan’s poetry is characterized by an objective, detailed description of nature and rural life. See Nienhauser, The Indiana Companion, pp. 372–3. Here He calls him by his sobriquet, Shihu.
11 Su Xiang 蘇庠, zi Yangzhi, was the son of the poet Su Jian 蘇, zi Bogu, who was a good friend of Su Shi.
12 Zhao Mengfu 趙孟頫 (1254–1322), native of Wuxing in Zhejiang province, was a member of the Song imperial family who was called to serve the court of the Yuan emperor Kublai Khan. One of his most frequently used sobriquets was Songxue. Zhao served in a number of posts including as an official in the Ministry of War. He is best known as a painter and calligrapher who revived archaistic styles of the past and thus is considered an early master of the literati painting tradition. See James Cahill, Hills Beyond a River: Chinese Painting of the Yuan Dynasty, (New York: Weatherhill, 1976), pp. 38–46 and ZMRC, p. 1281.
13 This phrase alludes to the Jin dynasty calligrapher Wang Xizhi 王 羲之 (303–61) who is said to have practiced calligraphy so diligently that the clear pond of his home turned black from dipping his inky brush in it so many times. Here it means that, because of infirmities due to old age, He Liangjun is unable to assiduously practice this art.
14 Zong Bing 宗炳 (375–443), zi Shaowen, was from a family of officials in Nanyang, Hubei province. However, he refused to serve in office and lived as a recluse. Zong was a devout lay Buddhist and late in life is said to have become a landscape painter. He wrote a well-known essay on landscape painting that is best preserved in Chapter 6 of Zhang Yanyuan’s Record of Painters from Successive Dynasties. For a discussion of this text, see Susan Bush, “Tsung Ping’s Essay on Painting Landscape and the ‘Landscape Buddhism of Mount Lu’,” in Susan Bush and Christian Murck, eds., Theories of the Arts in China, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 144–146. The quotations here come from Zong’s biography in the Song shi (History of the [Liu] Song Dynasty): “有疾還江陵, 嘆曰:老疾俱至，名山恐難偏覩，唯當澄懷觀道，臥以游之。凡所游履，皆圖之於室。”
15 He Liangjun calls Zhao Mengfu by another sobriquet, Jixian. See note 12 above.
16 Gao Kegong 高克恭 (1248–1310), hao Fangshan, was a high ranking official from the Western Regions (non-Chinese origins) and a close friend of Zhao Mengfu. He was noted for his landscape paintings in the style of Mi Fu and ink bamboos in the style of Wang Tingyun. See ZMRC, p. 998.
17 The Four Masters of the Yuan are Wu Zhen 吳鎮 (1280–1354), Huang Gongwang 黃公望 (1269–1354), Ni Zan 倪瓚 (1301–74) and Wang Meng 王蒙 (ca.1308–1385). Wu Zhen, native of Jiaxing in Zhejiang province, never attempted the civil service examinations but instead earned his living as a diviner. Later in his career, he lived as a recluse and painted. Wu painted landscapes in the style of Juran and ink bamboo in the style of Wen Tong. See Cahill, pp68–74. ZMRC, p. 317. Huang Gongwang was a native of Changshu in Jiangsu province and early in his career worked as a legal clerk. After a brief imprisonment for irregularities in tax collection, Huang retired from official life. He worked for a while as a professional diviner in Songjiang and finally retired to the Fuchun Mountains in Zhejiang province where he lived as a recluse and painter. See Cahill, Hills Beyond a River, pp. 85–8 and ZMRC, p. 1136. Ni Zan was a native in Wuxi in Jiangsu and came from a wealthy family. He was a collector and bibliophile who lived a life of leisure at first on his estate in Wuxi and later adopted a wandering life to dodge tax collectors. Like Wu Zhen, he specialized in landscape and ink bamboo painting. See DMB, pp. 1090–3. Wang Meng was the grandson of Zhao Mengfu and served in a minor provincial post. In the 1340s he lived as a reclused at the Yellow Crane Mountain near Hangzhou. He became acquainted with Huang Gongwang and Ni Zan. After the establishment of the Ming dynasty, Wang served as the prefect of Tai’an in Shandong province. In 1380 because of a casual association with an official who had been condemned as a traitor, Wang Meng was put in prison, where he died five years later. See DMB, pp. 1392–5.
18 Shen Zhou 沈周 (1427–1509) was a scholar, painter and poet from Suzhou who was later identified as the founder of the so-called Wu School of painting. Here He uses the artist’s most well-known sobriquet, Shitian. Shen was from a wealthy family in Suzhou and never entered official service, but instead devoted himself to painting and writing. He was a close friend of the famous statesman Wu Kuan 吳寬 (1436–1504) and the teacher of Wen Zhengming (see note 2 above). See DMB pp. 1173–7.
19 Yun 韻 means rhyme or resonance. It is a difficult term to translate into English, but is nonetheless a key term in aesthetic criticism from the Six Dynasties period on. In the visual arts such as painting and calligraphy it conveys the sense of artistic achievement that resonates with the emotions of the viewer.
20 The six types of script (六書) are: 象形、指事、會意、形聲、轉注、假借. The earliest reference to the six types or aspects of calligraphy is in the Rites of Zhou (Zhou li) – Chapter Di guan, but there is no explanation of the term. The earliest explication is found in the Seven Epitomies (Qi lue 七略) by Liu Xin 劉歆around 6 BCE: “六書，謂象形、象事、象意、象声、轉注、假借，造字之本也.”It is also found in the History of the [Former] Dynasty (Han shu 漢書), “Records of Art and Literature (藝文志)” of 111 CE.
21 The Books of Yu (虞書) form Part II of the Classic of History (書經 or 尚書). This phrase is not actually in the Books of Yu; however He Liangjun paraphrases concepts found there.
22 Illustrated Compendia of the Three Ritual Classics (三禮圖) was variously compiled from the Han through Tang periods by Zheng Xuan 鄭玄, of Han, Ruan Kan 阮湛 of Jin and Zhang Yi 張鎰of Tang, but is no longer extant in its original form. The Song dynasty work, 三禮圖集注, in 20 juan, with over 380 illustrations exists in several editions. The Three Ritual Classics (三禮) comprised the Zhou li (周禮), Yi li (儀禮), and Li ji (禮 記). This passage is a summary of Guo Ruoxu, Tuhua jianwen zhi (Record of My Experiences in Painting), juan 1, from Alexander C. Soper, trans., Kuo Jo-hsü’s Experiences in Painting (T’u-hua chien’wen chih): An Eleventh Century History of Chinese Painting Together with the Chinese Text in Facsimile, (Washington, D.C.: American Council of Learned Societies, 1951), p. 10.
23 Cao Zhi 曹植 (192–232), son of Cao Cao 曹操 and prince of the state of Cao Wei, was an accomplished poet.
24 Bird script was also known as bird seal script. The earliest textual reference to the term appears in the Hou Han shu, in which Emperor Ling calls several people who excelled in bird seal script to the court. In addition to bird script, a serpent seal script existed. Both styles were used from the end of the Spring and Autumn period through the Warring States period. Many weapons from the Wu and Yue kingdoms, as well as bronze vessels from the states of Chu, Song and Qi, have inscription in bird script. One of the most famous examples of bird script is found on the sword of King Goujian of the state of Yue, now in the Zhejiang Provincial Museum. See Nakata Yukiro, Chinese Calligraphy, (New York, Weatherhill, 1983), pp. 162–3.
25 Empress Ma (40–79) was the wife of Emperor Mingdi (r. 58–75) of the Eastern Han. For her biography, see Hou Han shu, juan 10 上, p. 24.
26 They are the daughters of Emperor Yao who were given in marriage to Shun.
27 Prince Chensi of the Wei dynasty is Cao Zhi (see note 23). See also Nienhauser, Indiana Companion, p. 790–1. This passage comes from his “Encomium on Painting (畫贊),” and the last line is: 故夫畫，所見多矣。上形太極混元之 前，卻列將來未萌之事。He Liangjun repeats the first part, but then moves on to a comparison of Jin through Song dynasty painters. Cao’s text can be found in A Concordance to the Works of Cao Zhi (Cao Zhi ji zhuzi suoyin,), ICS Concordances to the Works of Wei-Jin and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, (Hong Kong: Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001), p. 118.
28 All three painters mentioned here were high ranking officials at court and famous painters who specialized in depicting figures. Gu Kaizhi 顧愷之 (ca. 344–406) lived during the Jin dynasty noted for his illustrations of narrative texts, especially Confucian texts such as the Admonitions of the Imperial Instructress and the Biographies of Exemplary Women. He was also a talented poet and calligrapher. He wrote three books about painting theory: On Painting (畫論), Introduction of Famous Paintings of Wei and Jin Dynasties (魏晉勝流畫贊) and Painting Yuntai Mountain (畫雲台山記). See ZMRC, p. 1544. Yan Liben 閻立本 (ca. 600–673) lived during the Tang dynasty and was known for his portraits, as well as images of rulers and dignitaries past and present. See note 57 below. Ma Hezhi 馬和之 (active mid twelfth century) was active at the Southern Song court in Hangzhou. He also painted classical themes and some of his illustrations of poems from the various books of the Shijing 詩經 are still extant in collections such as the Palace Museum, Beijing, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. See ZMRC, p.768.
29 Dong You 董逌, active ca. 1120, was a late Northern Song dynasty critic whose Painting Colophons from Vast Rivers records titles of paintings along with his own colophon essays that deal primarily with the subject matter of the works. See Hin-cheung Lovell, An Annotated Bibliography of Chinese Painting Catalogues and Related Texts, (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1973), pp. 5–6.
30 This is a quotation from the Doctrine of the Mean (Zhong yong 中 庸), Chapter 28. See James Legge, The Chinese Classics, with a Translation, Critical and Exegetical Note, Prolegomena and Copious Indexes, Vol. 1/2, (New York: Agency Publications, 1967) p. 424.
31 The Song emperor Huizong (1082–1135) compiled several catalogues of his collection of art and antiquities, the Xuanhe huapu 宣和 畫譜, Xuanhe shupu 宣和 書譜, and Xuanhe bogu tu 宣和 博古圖. The latter was the illustrated catalogue of antique bronzes and ritual objects. For a major study of Emperor Huizong’s collecting activities, see Patricia Ebrey, Accumulating Culture: The Collections of Emperor Huizong, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008).
32 The Three Dynasties are the Xia 夏, Shang 商 and Zhou 周.
33 Emperor Huizong, born Zhao Ji 趙佶, (1082–1135) was well-known not only for his love of ancient bronze vessels, but also ancient and contemporary painting and calligraphy. See Ebrey (2008).
34 Commissioner Tong is Tong Guan 童貫 (d. 1126) who was the eunuch military commander, one of the most important figures in the shaping of Song military policy. See Song Biographies, pp. 1090–7. Commissioner Cai is Cai Jing 蔡京 (1047–1126), the Northern Song calligrapher and government official who has been vilified as the corrupt minister who was responsible for the fall of the Northern Song dynasty. When Huizong abdicated in 1125 in favor of his eldest son the Qinzong emperor, Cai was stripped of his official post and banished to Guangdong where he died en route. See ZMRC, p. 1369.
35 He Liangjun is referring to the “Ranking of Painting (Hua pin 畫品) by Xie He (fifth century). For an annotated translation of Xie He’s Hua pin, see William R. B. Acker, Tang and Pre-Tang Texts on Chinese Painting, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1954), pp. 3–4.
36 The translation of the first of Xie He’s “Six Methods,” 氣韻生動, has been much debated. For studies of the translation and meaning of the first method, see Alexander C. Soper, “The First Two Laws of Hsieh Ho,” The Far Eastern Quarterly, Vol. 8, No, 4 (August 1949), pp. 412–23; Acker, Tang and Pre-Tang Texts on Chinese Painting, pp. xxi–xlv; James Cahill, “The Six Laws and How to Read Them,” Ars Orientalis, Vol. 4 (1961), pp. 372–81; Wen Fong, “On Hsieh Ho’s ‘Liu-fa’,” Oriental Art, Vol. 9, Issue 4 (Winter 1963), pp. 242–5 and “Ch’i-yün-sheng-tung: ‘Vitality, Harmonious Manner and Aliveness’,” Oriental Art, vol. 12, Issue 3 (Autumn 1966), 159–64; John Hay, “Values and History in Chinese Painting I: Hsieh Ho Revisited,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 6 (Autumn 1983), pp. 72–111; and Victor H. Mair, “Xie He’s ‘Six Laws’ of Painting and Their Indian Parallels,” in Cai Zong-qi, ed., Chinese Aesthetics: The Ordering of Literature, the Arts and the Universe in the Six Dynasties, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004), pp. 81–122 .
37 The “Three Faults 三病” are first mentioned in Guo Ruoxu, Tuhua jianwen zhi 圖畫見聞志, “On Virtues and Faults in Using the Brush,” juan 1, p. 13; see Soper, Kuo Jo-hsü’s Experiences in Painting, p. 16. Soper translates the terms more literally as: “The first is described as being like a board; the second as being like an engraving; and the third as being like a knot.”
38 This is the second of Xie He’s “Six Methods,” 骨法用筆.
39 The two preceding sentences are taken almost word for word from the Yuan dynasty text on painting, Tuhui baojian by Xia Wenyan. See note 123 below.
40 The quotation is taken from Guo Ruoxu (active 1060–1080), “On Virtues and Faults in Using the Brush.” He Liangjun misquotes in the last phrase substituting shen 神 (spirit) for bi (brush). The term shen cai 神采 specifically means the appearance of the spirit or essence – Soper translates it as distinctive personal character – Soper, Kuo Jo-hsü’s Experiences in Painting, p. 16.
41 The story of the wheelwright Bian from the Zhuangzi was invoked by many painting theorists as early as Yao Zui 姚最 (active 557–89) in his Xu Huapin 續畫品. For the story, see Burton Watson, The Complete Works of Chuang’tzu, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), pp. 152–3.
42 From “when one fails to attain naturalness 失於自然而後神” until the end of this sentence, “as the standards for evaluating painting,” is taken almost word for word from Zhang Yanyuan, Lidai minghua ji (歷代 名畫 集), chapter 2, section 3, “On Painting Materials, Tracing and Copying.” See Acker, p. 186.
43 Zong Bing was also a famous qin player. These two quotes are found in Zong’s biography in the Qin shi 琴史, written by Zhu Changwen 朱長文 (1038–98) in 1084. See Xu Jian, Qin shi chubian, (Beijing: Remin yinyue chubanshe, 1982), pp. 40–2.
44 See note 14 above.
45 A kalpa is a unit of time in Buddhist and Hindu cosmology that equals 4 billion years, but more generally means an eon.
46 Lu Tanwei 陸探微 (active 465–72) was a painter at the court of the Liu Song dynasty. Xie He ranked him as the top painter of all time. See ZMRC, pp. 976–7.
47 Han dynasty paintings on shells are still extant. For one study, see Sherman Lee, “Early Chinese Painted Shells with Hunting Scenes,” Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America, Vol. 11 (1957), pp. 68–75.
48 Shen Bianzhi 沈辨之, was a native of Suzhou and lived during the Jiajing era (1522–66). He was the owner of the Wild Bamboo Studio 野竹齋 publishing house. His name, origin, and name of his studio are listed as the publisher for a Jiajing edition of Han Ying (fl. 150 BCE), Shi wai zhuan 詩外傳, 10 juan.
49 “Spring pictures” is a euphemism for erotic or pornographic pictures.
50 The term that I have translated as “naïve” is zhuo 拙. This term is often translated as “awkward” within the context of literati painting theory, where zhuo is a positive value.
51 The mirage of Dengzhou refers to the place on the Shandong peninsula where a mirage of mountainous islands appeared in the sea. It is also the place from which Emperor Qin Shihuangdi sent five hundred boys and girls in a boat to find Penglai, the mountain islands of the immortals.
52 Xing Zicai refers to Xing Shao 邢 邵 (496–561?), zi Zicai,子才, was a poet and government official under the Northern Wei and Northern Qi dynasties. This line comes from the text simply called “Elegy (哀策)” and can be found at the beginning of the text: 皋路啟扉．輴菆弛殯．八校案部．六卿且引．攀蜃輅而雨泣．仰穹蒼而撫心. For the entire text, see https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=464652&remap=gb.
53 Wang Yun 王筠 (481–549) was the son of the Liu Song dynasty poet and official Wang Sengda (423–58). He was admired as a poet during the Liang dynasty. See Anne Birrell, trans., New Songs from a Jade Terrace: An Anthology of Early Chinese Love Poetry, (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982), p. 360–1. Crown Prince Zhaoming was Xiao Tong 蕭統 (501–31) was the eldest son of Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty. He was a noted poet and is most famous as the compiler of the Wenxuan. See Nienhauser, The Indiana Companion, pp. 891–2.
54 Jiang Zong 江總 (519–94) served as an official under three dynasties – Liang, Chen and Sui. He was a poet who helped to develop the palace style under the Liang dynasty, especially the yue fu 樂府 genre. Emperor Xuan of the Chen dynasty reigned from 569–82. See Nienhauser, The Indiana Companion, pp. 266–7.
55 Xie Tiao 謝朓 (464–99) was one of the foremost poets of the Southern Qi court and is best known for his landscape poetry. See Nienhauser, The Indiana Companion, pp. 430–1.
56 In all of the words describing the funeral carriage, the character for clam (蜃) was used.
57 Wang Yinglin 王應麟 (1223–1296), jinshi 1241, was a prolific and brilliant scholar-official of the Southern Song and early Yuan period. He was a compiler of encyclopedic works that served as tools of instruction for the scholar-bureaucracy. Among his many influential writings are the Three Character Classic 三字經 and the encyclopedia Yuhai 玉海. See Nienhauser, The Indiana Companion, pp. 882–3.
58 Zeng Zigu is Zeng Gong 曾 巩 (1019–83), jinshi 1057, who was a scholar and historian and a support of the New Classical Prose Movement. He was also known for his work of geography, You Xinzhou Yushan xiaoyanji 游信周玉山小岩記. For an overview of Zeng’s career, see Nienhauser, The Indiana Companion, pp.799–801. For the Hymn of the Western Narrows, see note 60 below.
59 Shao Bo 邵博, zi 公濟, (d. 1158) was the son of Shao Bowen 邵伯溫 (1057–1134) and grandson of the philosopher Shao Yong 邵雍 (1011–1077).
60 Li Xi 李翕, zi 伯都, (ca. 170 CE) lived during the Eastern Han dynasty and was a native of Jingning in Gansu province. He was known as a virtuous and effective official and his life was memorialized in a stele inscription on a mountain cliff side called the Hymn of the Western Narrows 西狭颂. Wang Zhizi 王稚子 (d. 105 CE) also lived during the Eastern Han period. Outside of his tomb in Sichuan province is a pair of stone gate towers (que) upon which are inscribed Wang’s official titles. The calligraphy used in the inscription is clerical script. Gao Guanfang 高貫方 has not been identified but clearly had a funeral stele that Shao Bo had seen.
61 He Liangjun refers to Wu Daozi 吳道子 (active 710–60) as Wu Daoxuan. Wu was a famous painter who lived during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong. He specialized in figure painting and was considered the greatest painter of all time by Zhang Yanyuan and other Tang dynasty critics. His painting was characterized by dynamic use brush and ink and lacked careful attention to detail. Legends about the painter recount the almost supernatural force and energy of his images. He had a reputation as a muralist for Buddhist and Daoist temples and eventually was appointed to the court by the emperor. See ZMRC, p. 306.
62 Shao Bo邵博 zi Gongji公濟 (ca. 1122) was a native of Luoyang and the second son of Shao Bowen 邵伯溫 (1057–1134), who was friends with such luminaries as Sima Guang, Lü Gongzhu, and Fan Chunren. His father was part of the anti-reform faction who opposed Wang Anshi. Bo was the grandson of Shao Yong, the philosopher. Shao Bo lived before and after the Northern-Southern Song transition. Nothing is known of his life, but he is the co-author with his father of 邵氏聞見後錄 in 27 juan which states: ‛觀漢李翕、王稚子、高貫方墓碑，多刻山林人物，乃知顧愷之、陸探微、宗處士輩尚有其遺法。至吳道玄絕藝入神，然始用巧思，而古意少減矣。He Liangjun has taken the quote directly from this work. See also Franke, Song Biographies, pp. 846–9
63 Yang Shen 楊慎 (1488–1559), hao Sheng’an 升庵, was the eldest son of Grand Secretary Yang Tinghe 楊庭和. He was a brilliant scholar and poet who particularly wrote about the nature and culture of Yunnan province, where he was exiled as a result of the Great Rites Controversy of 1524. He placed first in the metropolitan examinations in 1511 and served as a compiler in the Hanlin Academy. He was one of the one hundred thirty-four officials who were publicly flogged for their opposition to the emperor’s elevation of his father to full imperial status. See DMB, pp. 1531–35.
64 Wang Xiangzhi, 王 象之 (1163–1230), zi Yifu, jinshi 1154, was a native of Jinhua in Zhejiang province and at one time served as magistrate of Jiangning county in Jiangsu province (Nanjing), as well as in Sichuan.
65 This text, Yu di ji sheng 輿地紀勝 (Record of All Places in the Empire), was compiled unofficially by Wang Xiangzhi during the Southern Song and is comprised of 200 juan. It deals with the geography within the borders of the Southern Song empire and has detailed information on customs and habits, landscape and territory, touristic spots of interest, eminent officials, eminent personalities, eminent monks, tombstones with inscriptions, monasteries, etc.. As a privately book it is very informative and to some extent fills a gap in official historiography. It therefore soon attracted the attention of scholars and officials because of the accurateness in its treatment of the primary sources Wang had used. There is a collection of maps appended, called Yuditu 輿地圖, in 16 juan, which are especially precise for the region of Sichuan where Wang Xiangzhi had served as a prefect. The Yudi jisheng is especially valuable for it quotes sources which are otherwise lost, like the Gaozong shengzheng 高宗聖政, Xiaozong shengzheng 孝宗聖政, or Zhongxing yishi 中興遺史. See Chen Zhen 陳振, “Yudi jisheng 輿地紀勝,” in Zhongguo da baike quanshu 中國大百科全書, Zhongguo lishi 中國歷史, (Beijing/Shanghai: Zhongguo da baike quanshu chubanshe, 1992), vol. 3, p. 1419. The Yudi jisheng was already printed during the Song period. During the Ming period 明 (1368–1644) the tombstone inscriptions were extracted and separately published, as Yudi beiji 輿地碑記 in 4 juan. At that time there were already 7 juan of the Yudi jisheng missing.
66 The pair of que of Ding Fang is currently extant and is located in front of the Shrine to the King of Ba outside the eastern gate of Zhongxian in Sichuan province. They date from the later part of the Eastern Han period and are approximately seven meters high.
67 Yunyang county 雲陽縣 is currently Danyang city 丹陽市 in Jiangsu province.
68 The original text can be found in Yang Shen, Taishi Sheng’an wen ji, edited by Yang Youren in juan 66, “Han Painting”: 王應麟云曾子固跋西狹頌謂所畫龍鹿承露人嘉禾連理之木漢畫始見於今邵公濟謂漢李翕王稚子高貫辺墓碑刻山林人物乃知顧愷之陸探微宗處士輩尚有其遺法至吳道玄 絕藝入神始用巧思而古意稍减矣今於盤洲所集隸圖見之慎又按王象之輿地紀勝碑目載夔州臨江市丁房雙闕高二丈餘上為層觀飛簷車馬人物又刻雙扉其一篚微啟有美人 出半面而立巧妙動人又雲陽縣漢處士金延廣母子碑初無文字但有人物漢畫之在碑刻者不止如應麟所云而巳. The paragraph above this one by He Liangjun from “Wang Yinglin … ” until the end also comes from this passage by Yang Shen. See also this same text under the title “Hua pin 畫品” in Meishu congkan, (Taibei: Guoli bianyiguan, 1986), Vol. 4, p. 35.
69 Liu Zhiji 劉知幾 (661–721), zi Zixuan, jinshi 680, was a Tang dynasty scholar-official and historian who compiled or took part in the compilation of at least twelve books. He was most notably the author of the Shitong 史通. See Nienhauser, The Indiana Companion, pp. 576–8.
70 Zhang Sengyao 張僧繇 was in charge of royal painting affairs during the reign of Emperor Wudi of the Liang dynasty (502–519). He specialized in Buddhist and Daoist figure painting. See ZMRC, p. 865.
71 The two Shu are Shu Guang 疏廣 and his elder brother Shu Shou 疏受 who were famous officials during the reign of Emperor Xuandi of the Western Han (73–49 BCE). Guang held the position of Grand Mentor, and Shou served as Junior Mentor. The late Han- Jin dynasty poet Zhang Xie 張協 (zi Jingyang) wrote a poem with this line “er shu qun gong zu 二疏群公祖.” See ZMRC pp. 1178–9.
72 Yan Liben 閻立本 (c. 600–673) was a court official and painter of the Tang dynasty. He specialized in figure painting, especially portraits. He also served as imperial architect under Emperor Gaozong. Wang Zhaojun 王昭君 was born to a prominent family in Hubei province and became a concubine of Emperor Yuan of the Han dynasty in 36 BCE. In 33 BCE, the emperor gave her in marriage to the khan of the Xiongnu. Her story became popular in later literature and was often illustrated. See ZMRC, p. 1439.
73 He Liangjun uses Gu’s sobriquet Hutou.
74 Guan Tong 關同 (仝) (active early tenth century) was a painter active in the capital cities of Chang’an and Luoyang under the Later Liang dynasty (907–23). He is said to have studied painting with Jing Hao; see footnote 75 below. See also ZMRC, pp. 1513–4.
75 Jing Hao 荊浩, zi Haoran 浩然, lived during the late Tang and Five Dynasties period and was a minor official until the fall of the Tang. After that time he lived as a recluse in the Taihang Mountains and may have been the teacher of Guan Tong. See ZMRC, p. 754.
76 Li Cheng 李成 (919–67) was from a family of Confucian scholars who were descendants of the Tang imperial family. He was a scholar and artist and does not seem to have had an official career; however, his son was appointed as a scholar in the Hanlin Academy and lectured on the classics for the Song emperor. His style of monumental landscape painting became extremely popular during the Northern Song period and was very influential on later painters. See ZMRC, p. 358–9.
77 Fan Kuan 范寬 (active early eleventh century) was a Daoist recluse and painter whose monumental landscape style was at first influenced by Jing Hao and Li Cheng but then turned to the direct study of nature. His subject matter was the harsh and imposing ranges of northern China where he lived for most of his life. See ZMRC, p. 642.
78 Dong Yuan 董 源 (d. 962), hao Beiyuan, was active in Nanjing, the capital of the Southern Tang kingdom and served as an official in the royal park administration. He became most famous for his landscape paintings, which depicted the scenery of southern China with light ink, massed dots, and so-called “hemp fiber” strokes. See ZMRC, p. 1228–9.
79 Juran 巨然 (active 960–85) was a Buddhist monk painter who was the student of Dong Yuan. He was a member of the Kaiyuan Temple in the Southern Tang capital of Nanjing, but after the fall of the Southern Tang, Juran followed the deposed emperor to the Northern Song capital and lived at the Kaibao Temple. See ZMRC, p. 161.
80 Liang Sibo 梁思伯 is Liang Zi 孜 (1509–73), native of Shunde in Guangdong province, was the grandson of Liang Chu 儲 (1451–1527) and was a friend of Wang Shizhen 王世真 (1526–1590) and his circle. Liang Zi served as a Secretary (6b) in the Ministry of Rites. He was also a painter of landscapes as well as flowers and plants that followed the literati style of Wen Zhengming. See ZMRC, p. 907. Wang Wei 王維 (699–759/701–761), jinshi 721, is considered one of the greatest poets of the Tang dynasty, as well as the “founder” of literati painting. He was also a devoted Buddhist and the sobriquet, Mojie, used by He, forms part of the Chinese name for the great Buddhist scholar Vimilakirti (weimojie). While Wang Wei is primarily known for his landscape painting, there are also several figures painting that have been attributed to him. See Nienhauser, The Indiana Companion, pp. 880–1.
81 Gu Yanshan is Gu Congyi 顧從義 (1523–1588) was native of Shanghai and served as Secretariat Draft (7b) during the Jiajing era. During the Longqing era, he was a Judicial Case Reviewer (7a). Gu was a noted connoisseur and scholar. See, Mingren zhuanji ziliao suoyin (MRZJ), (Taibei: Guoli zhongyang tushuguan, 1965), p. 954. Several versions of Gu Kaizhi’s putative original version of the Admonitions of the Imperial Instructress are still extant. See Shane McCausland, ed., Gu Kaizhi and the Admonitions Scroll, Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia, no. 21, (London: British Museum Press, 2003).
82 In the next several quotations, He Liangjun calls Su by his sobriquet Dongpo.
83 Han Yu 韓愈 (768–824), zi Tuizhi, was a classical prose writer and poet of the Tang dynasty who led the Confucian counterattack against Buddhism. He was later credited with ushering in a Confucian intellectual revival that culminated in the Song dynasty with the rise of Neo-Confucianism. See Nienhauser, The Indiana Companion, pp. 397–9.
84 Yan Zhenqing 顏真卿 (709–85) was a high ranking official and leading calligrapher of the Tang dynasty. In 764, Emperor Daizong conferred the title of Duke of Lu (魯公) on Yan Zhenqing in recognition of his firm loyalty to the government and bravery during the An Lushan Rebellion. He Liangjun calls him by this title. However, his unbendable character was resented by the incumbent Grand Councilor, Lu Qi (盧杞), and cost him his life. See ZMRC, p. 1495 and Amy McNair, The Upright Brush: Yan Zhenqing’s Calligraphy and Song Literati Politics, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998).
85 These phrases come from Zhuangzi, see note 41.
86 Su Shi, “Writing at the End of a Painting by Wu Daozi,” in Li Fushun, ed., Su Shi lun shuhua shiliao, (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, 1988), p. 46.
87 Guo Zhongshu 郭忠恕 (ca. 910–77) was a scholar-official under the Later Zhou dynasty (951–60) who was noted for his difficult and eccentric character. He was the most famous architectural painter of the time, but was equally skilled in an abbreviated style of landscape painting, as well as calligraphy in the seal and official scripts. He lived as a hermit for much of his life and his last appointment as Registrar in the Directorate of Education under the Song dynasty ended in scandal and banishment. See Song Biographies, pp. 69–76.
88 Qixia is a mountain range in Shaanxi province.
89 Guo Congyi 郭從義 (909–71) served as a Military Commissioner under the Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han and Later Zhou regimes. After the establishment of the Song dynasty, Guo also served in various military offices, ultimately retired as a Grand Preceptor of the Heir Apparent. See Song shi, juan 252, Vol. 25, (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), p. 8851.
90 Su Shi, “Encomium on Guo Zhongshu’s Painting,” in Li Fushun, p. 47.
91 Sun Wei 孫位 (active late ninth century) was a native of Kuaiji (Shaoxing) in Zhejiang province. He worked as a mural painter first in the Tang dynasty capital of Chang’an and after 880 at the Shu capital of Chengdu in Sichuan province. He was skilled in the depiction of both secular and religious figures, dragons, pines, rocks and ink bamboo. His style was characterized by swift brushwork and unusual visual effects. He is the one artist listed as belonging to the “untrammeled (yi 逸)” class in Huang Xiufu’s Record of Famous Painters of Yizhou (Sichuan). See ZMRC, p. 681.
92 Huang Quan 黃筌 (903–68) was the painter-in-attendance at the Hanlin Academy of the Former Shu kingdom and later served the Later Shu for forty years. He was a specialist in bird and flower painting and painted in a naturalistic style that became called “sketches from life (xie sheng).” After the fall of the Former Shu, Huang Quan followed his ruler to the Song court where he worked until his death. Sun Zhiwei 孫知微 (early eleventh century) was a native of Sichuan province and a Daoist adept. He specialized in painting murals in Buddhist and Daoist temples, as well as other figures, dragons, fishes and other animal subjects. See ZMRC, p. 1155–6.
93 The Great Benevolence Temple (大慈寺) was located in Chengdu, Sichuan. It was established during the Tang dynasty and was an important center for Chan Buddhist learning in East Asia during the Tang and Song dynasties.
94 Pu Yongsheng 蒲永昇 was a native of Chengdu in Sichuan province who lived during the Song dynasty. He was notorious for his love of drinking and was skilled in landscape painting. See ZMRC, p. 1264.
95 Huang Jucai 黃居寀 (933–after 993) and his brothers are the sons of Huang Quan (see note 70 above). Quan had five sons, but Jucai and his elder brother Jubao 居 寶 (d. ca. 960) were the most famous. Both served as painters-in-attendance in Chengdu and specialized in bird and flower subjects like their father. Huang Jucai became a painter-in-attendance at the Song court in Kaifeng and also worked as a muralist. See Song Biographies: Painters, pp. 47–9.
96 Li Huaigun 李懷袞 was a native of Chengdu in Sichuan who studied painting with Huang Quan. Like Huang, he specialized in bird and flower painting but also did landscapes. Li was said to have kept brush and ink by his bedside as he would wake in the middle of the night with an inspiration and immediately paint. See ZMRC, p. 410.
97 The Shouningyuan 壽寧院 is the Chan Buddhist Jingci Temple on Nanping Mountain near West Lake in Hangzhou. The temple was first built in 954 by Qian Hongji of the Wuyue Kingdom for the monk Yongming Yanshou永明延壽 (904–75) and was called the Huiri Yongmingyuan. In 977 the Song Emperor Taizong changed the name of the Yongmingyuan to the Shouningyuan to honor both Yanshou and another famous monk in Hangzhou named Hongshou. Both were students of Tiantai Deshao (891–972). Hongshou was also known as a poet. He lived in the Xingjiaosi in Hangzhou.
98 Dong Yu 董羽 (late tenth century) was a native of Piling (Changzhou) in Jiangsu province and specialized in painting dragons and aquatic scenes. He served as a painter-in-attendance in the Hanlin Academy of the Southern Tang kingdom and, like Juran, followed the last ruler to the Song court in Kaifeng where he served as painter-in-apprenticeship in the Painting Academy. See ZMRC, p. 1224.
99 The Qi family of Changzhou refers to Qi Huayuan 戚化元 and Qi Wenxiu 戚文秀, artists who specialized in painting water during the Northern Song period. See ZMRC, p. 890.
100 Su Shi, “Writing at the End of a Painting by Pu Yongsheng,” in Li Fushun, p. 86.
101 Kshitigarbgha (Dizang) is the bodhisattva who saves souls from hell.
102 Li Gonglin 李公麟 (1049–1106), zi Boshi, hao Longmian, jinshi 1070, a Northern Song official, painter and archaeologist. He specialized in painting secular and religious figures, as well as horses. See Song Biographies: Painters, pp. 78–85. He Liangjun uses his zi Boshi here.
103 I have not been able to locate this quote by Su Shi.
104 Wang Shen 王詵 (1037 – ca, 1093), zi Jinqing, was poet, calligrapher, painter and musician. He married the younger sister of Emperor Shenzong and is known by the title Imperial Son-in-Law. He was a close friend and patron of Su Shi, who composed The Record of the Precious Paintings Hall, which was written in 1077 to celebrate Wang’s painting collection. Because of his association with Su, he was dismissed from office and was banished the following year for mistreatment of his wife before her death. After this time, he devoted himself to landscape painting. After his recall to the capital in 1085, his Western Garden was the setting of a famous literary gathering that included Li Gonglin and Mi Fu. See Franke, Song Biographies: Painters, pp. 142–6.
105 See note 15 above for a discussion of the term yun, “resonance.”
106 This quote can be found in Huang Tingjian, Huang Tingjian quan ji, p. 1581.“題北齊校書圖”: 往在都下，駙馬都尉王晉卿時時送書畫來作題品，輒貶剝令一錢不直。晉卿以為言。某曰：書畫以韻為主，足下囊中物，無不以千錢購取，所病者韻耳。收書畫者，觀予此語，三十年後當少識書畫矣。
107 The Dipamkara Buddha was the twenty-fourth predecessor of Shakyamuni, and appears in the Lotus Sutra.
108 Zhang Yanyuan’s Essential Record of Calligraphy 法書要錄 is undated. His Record of Famous Paintings 名畫記 is shortened here from its full title, Record of Famous Paintings of Successive Dynasties and was written in 847 CE. For a translation into English, see William B. Acker, Some Tang and Pre-Tang Texts, pp. 61–382.
109 Zhang Huaiguan (active 713–41) was an official and calligrapher in the Hanlin Academy. He wrote the Judgments on Calligraphy 書 斷, 3 juan between 724 and 727 CE and Judgments on Painting 畫斷, 1 juan, in 725 CE. Judgments on Calligraphy is still extant, but the Judgments on Painting has been lost.
110 See note 31 above.
111 The Source of Characters 字源 by Guo Zhongshu is actually Guo’s phonetic annotation to the seal script version of the Eastern Han dynasty dictionary Shuo wen jie zi, calligraphed by the early Northern Song monk Mengying and dated 960. In addition to his fame as a painter, Guo Zhongshu was a skilled calligrapher in seal script. 明陶宗仪《书史会要》云：梦英“与郭忠恕同时习篆，皆宗李阳冰。A stele was made from Mengying’s and Guo’s version of this text in 999 CE and is currently located in the Forest of Stele in Xi’an.
112 Today the work attribute to Jing Hao entitled, Secrets of Landscape Painting 山水訣, is also known as Notes on the Arts of the Brush 筆法記. There are several translations of the Notes on the Arts of the Brush; see Bush and Shih, pp. 145–8; Kiyohiko Munakata, Ching Hao’s Pi-fa chi: A Note on the Arts of the Brush, (Ascona: Artibus Asiae, 1974); and Stephen H. West, “Bi fa ji: Jing Hao, ‘Notes on the Method for the Brush’,” in Pauline Yu, Peter Bol, Stephen Owen and Willard Peterson, eds., Ways with Words: Writing about Reading Texts from Early China, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), pp. 202–13.
113 Mi Fu’s History of Calligraphy 書史 and History of Painting 畫史 are not histories of these art forms but are critical comments on works of calligraphy and painting in his own and other people’s collections, arranged in a loose chronology starting with the Jin dynasty. See Lovell, p. 5.
114 Huang Bosi 黃伯思 (1079–1118), zi Zhangrui, jinshi 1100, was an official and accomplished calligrapher who could decipher inscriptions on ancient bronzes. Huang was also known to have copied famous ancient paintings. His opinions on art are recorded in the Erudite Treatises from the Eastern Tower 東觀餘論 (2 juan). See Bush and Shih, Early Texts on Chinese Paintings, p. 311.
115 Li Zhi 李廌 lived towards the end of the Northern Song dynasty and was a close friend of Su Shi. Critique of Paintings from the Deyu Studio 德隅齋畫品 is a descriptive catalog of part of the painting collection of his patron Zhao Lingzhi 趙令畤, a member of the Song imperial family. It discusses twenty-five works by famous painters from the late Tang period through the eleventh century. For a translation, see Alexander C. Soper, “A Northern Sung Descriptive Catalogue of Paintings,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 69 (1949), pp. 18–33.
116 Dong You 董逌 (active late eleventh – early twelfth century), zi Yanyuan 彥遠 was a scholar who served in the Hanlin Academy during the Zhenghe era (1111–18). These works Vast River of Colophons on Calligraphy and Paintings, 廣川書跋 and 廣川畫跋, contain colophons that Dong wrote to important works of calligraphy and painting that he had seen in the palace and private collections. See Lovell, An Annotated Bibliography, pp. 5–6.
117 He Liangjun has quoted from this work by Guo Ruoxu above – see note 37.
118 On Painting, Continued 畫繼 was written by Deng Chun 鄧椿 (active twelfth century) in 1167. It is a continuation of Guo Ruoxu’s Experiences in Painting.
119 Critique of Famous Painters of the Five Dynasties 五代名畫評 is by Liu Daochun 劉道醇 (active mid-eleventh century) and has preface dated 1059. Liu is also the author of the (盛朝名畫評), which is comprised of critical biographies of Song dynasty painters. For an annotated translation, see Charles Lachman, Evaluations of Sung Dynasty Painters of Renown: Liu Tao-ch’un’s Sung-ch’ao ming-hua p’ing, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1989).
120 This text is usually known by the name, Record of Famous Painters of Yizhou 益州名畫錄 by Huang Xiufu 黃休復 (late tenth to early eleventh century). This work records Huang’s impressions of tenth century murals in Sichuan where he was serving as an official and discusses painters who were active from 758–965 CE. See Lovell, Annotated Bibliography, pp. 101–2.
121 Zhou Mi 周密 (1232–98), hao Caochuang, was a famous literatus and philologist who was a Song loyalist after the Mongols conquered China. Both of these works are extant. For an annotated translation of Record of Clouds and Mist 雲煙過眼錄, see Ankeney Weitz, Zhou Mi’s Record of Clouds and Mist Passing Before One’s Eye: An Annotated Translation, (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
122 Tao Zongyi 陶宗儀 (ca. 1316–1402), hao Nancun, was a scholar, writer, and editor of the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties. He was born into a scholarly family of Huangyan but lived most of his life in Songjiang. He never accepted an official position, but instead devoted himself to research and writing. In addition to the Compilations of Regulations in the History of Calligraphy 書史會要, Tao wrote a study of the arts and current affairs entitled Records Compiled After Retiring from Farming 輟耕錄 in 1366. See DMB, pp. 1268–71.
123 Xia Yanwen 夏文彥 (active fourteenth century) was a native of Huating (Songjiang) in Jiangsu province and a minor official. Xia evidently had a reputation as a connoisseur and collector, although very little is known of his life. The Precious Mirror of Painting 圖繪 寶鑑, preface dated 1365, is a collection of artists’ biographies. See Deborah Del Gais Muller, “Hsia Wen-yan and His T’u-hui pao-chien (Precious Mirror of Painting),” Ars Orientalis, Vol. 18 (1988), pp. 131–48.
124 Ma Yuan 馬遠 (active 1180–1225) was a native of Qiantang (Hangzhou) and was born into a family of painters. His great-grandfather served as painter-in-attendance at the Northern Song court and his grandfather and father both held the same position in the Southern Song court. Ma Yuan was appointed to this position at some point after 1189. He was a favorite of Emperor Ningzong (r. 1194–1224) and his consort Empress Yang (1162–1232) inscribed her calligraphy on numerous works by Ma. See ZMRC, p. 774.
125 Qian Xuan 錢選 (1235–1305), zi Shunju, was a late Song scholar-official who retired as a loyalist after the dynasty’s fall to the Mongols. He was a painter who worked in a number of genres and was a close friend of Zhao Mengfu. His style falls into two categories; one is a continuation of a lyrical Southern Song court style and the other is an archaistic revival of the Tang “blue and green” style of landscape painting. See ZMRC, p. 1437.
126 Zhang Yuan 張遠 was a painter from Huating (Songjiang) who lived during the Yuan dynasty. He was said to have followed the Ma-Xia style of the Southern Song in landscape and figure painting. See ZMRC, p. 870.
127 Dai Jin 戴進 (1388–1462), zi Wenjin, a native of Hangzhou, was trained first as a silversmith and then as a painter. His career took him to several different cities, such as Nanjing, Hangzhou and the capital Beijing. While Dai was summoned to the capital, he ultimately failed to obtain court preferment. In all of the varying accounts if his audition at court, the agent behind his failure and humiliation is identified as the chief court painter Xie Huan. Dai returned to Hangzhou where he worked as a professional artist. Dai also worked in Yunnan province under the patronage of the powerful Mu family. He returned to Beijing once more between 1436-49 and lived his last years back in Hangzhou. He was widely considered the pre-eminent painter of his age. See Mary Ann Rogers, “Visions of Grandeur: The Life and Art of Dai Jin,” in Richard M. Barnhart, Painters of the Great Ming: The Imperial Court and the Zhe School, (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art, 1993), pp. 127–94.
128 Du Jin 杜堇 (active fifteenth century), zi Chengju, native of Zhenjiang in Jiangsu province, took the jinshi examinations but never passed. He was a scholar, poet, and painter who worked as a professional artist in both Beijing and the southern capital, Nanjing, although it appears the most of his career was spent in Beijing. He was a close friend of Shen Zhou. For a brief discussion of his biography, see Stephen Little, “Dimensions of a Portrait: Du Jin’s ‘The Poet Lin Bu Walking in the Moonlight’,” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Vol. 75, No. 9 (Nov. 1988), pp. 330–49.
129 Wu Wei 吳偉 (1459–1509), hao Xiaoxian, was a native of Wuchang (Jiangxia) in Hubei province and worked at the court of Emperor Xianzong as a painter. His career was split between his studio and residence in Nanjing and the capital, to which he was frequently summoned and from which he frequently departed. Wu’s father had been a juren degree holder form a good family, but both father and son died from alcohol poisoning. Wu Wei was a child prodigy and remained a dazzling virtuoso until his death. For a discussion of his painting, see Barnhart, Painters of the Great Ming, pp. 223–49.
130 I am using the term “resonance” for yun 韵.
131 He Liangjun calls Wen by his sobriquet, Hengshan.
132 Wen Tong 文同 (1019–79) was a Northern Song painter famous for his ink bamboo. He was a close friend of Su Shi who wrote colophons on his works and extolled him as an exemplar of scholar or literati painting. See Franke, Song Biographies: Painters, pp. 150–1.
133 Chen Ruyan 陳汝言 (ca. 1331–71), zi Weiyun, was a native of Suzhou and served in military and civil position under the rebel leader Zhang Shicheng and then under Zhu Yuanzhang the founder of the Ming dynasty. He was primarily a landscape painter in the archaistic “blue and green” style. He was a member of a circle of literati active in Suzhou who included Wang Meng, Ni Zan and Zhao Yuan. He held office in Zhang Shicheng’s short lived government and was also ultimately executed by the Hongwu emperor of the Ming. See ZMRC, p. 999.
134 Zhao Yuan 趙原 (d. after 1373), zi Shanchang, was a painter of the late Yuan and early Ming period who was noted for his landscape painting. Although he was a native of Shandong province, he was mainly active in the city of Suzhou, where he served as a military advisor to Zhang Shicheng during his occupation of the city. Zhao was a friend of Ni Zan, Wang Meng. Like Wang Meng, Zhao took up office under the first Ming emperor but fell victim to his persection of southern literati and was executed. See ZMRC, p. 1271.
135 Ma Wan 馬琬 (fourteenth century), zi Wenbi, was a landscape painter, calligrapher, and poet during the Yuan dynasty. He was born in Nanjing but later lived in Songjiang. See ZMRC, p. 772.
136 Lu Guang 陸廣 (fourteenth century), zi Tianyou, native of Suzhou, was a landscape painter and poet during the Yuan dynasty. See ZMRC, p. 982.
137 Xu Ben 徐賁 (1335–1403), zi Youwen, was a painter who lived during the Yuan-Ming transition. He lived in Suzhou and became known as a brilliant poet, as well as a painter, in the circle of Gao Qi. See ZMRC, p. 717.
138 Fan Su 范 素 lived during the 7th century under the Tang dynasty and was a noted carver of stele. See ZMRC, p. 680. He Liangjun is probably referring to the famous image of Daoist immortals that he carved on a stele in 663.
139 Yang Wujiu 楊無咎 (1098–1167), zi Buzhi, native of Qingjiang in Jiangxi province, was a Song dynasty master of plum blossoms in ink. Yang had a reputation as a poet, calligraphy and figure painter. See Maggie Bickford, Bones of Jade, Soul of Ice, pp. 64–7; ZMRC, p. 1074.
140 Guanyin is the bodhisattva of compassion.
141 According to Craig Clunas, during the Ming dynasty, a jin (金) is just a more elegant synonym for liang, usually translated as “ounce” or “tael.” See Craig Clunas, Superfluous Things, p. 133.
142 See note above.
143 Ke Jiusi 柯九思 (1290–1343) was a native of Tiantai in Zhejiang province and followed the style of Wen Tong in his bamboo paintings. He was also noted for his landscape painting and calligraphy. See ZMRC, p. 600.
144 Chang Can 常粲 was a figure painter during the Tang dynasty. He lived during the middle of the ninth century. . See ZMRC, p. 802.
145 Unidentified.
146 Zhang Fu 張符 was a Tang dynasty painter of oxen from Chang’an. His painting is said to follow the style of Han Huang 韓滉 (723–87), the pre-eminent master of this subgenre. See ZMRC, p. 850.
147 Mr. Stone Room is Wen Tong and the Recluse of the Eastern Slope is Su Shi. See notes 116 and 5 above.
148 The “iron wire” style of bai miao painting uses a thin brushstroke of even thickness, while the “orchid leaf” style employs stroke of undulating thickness.
149 Li Tang 李唐 (ca. 1050–after 1130) was a painter in the Imperial Painting Academy under Emperor Huizong. He fled south during the Jin invasion of the capital and after a period of working as an independent professional, once again took up an appointment as Painter-in-Attendance at the Imperial Painting Academy under Emperor Gaozong. He was noted for his figure paintings, as well as innovations in landscape painting. See Song Biographies: Painters, pp. 90–6.
150 Xia Gui 夏圭/珪 (active early thirteenth century) was a Southern Song court painter and contemporary of Ma Yuan (see note 109 above). Very little is known of his life, although he and Ma Yuan were the most influential painters in the Southern Song Painting Academy. See ZMRC, p. 673.
151 He Liangjun refers to Ni Zan in the next two quotations by his sobriquet Yunlin.
152 Susan Bush and Hsio-yen Shih, comps. and eds.. Early Chinese Texts on Painting, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard-Yenching Institute, 1985), pp. 280.
153 Chen Zijing 陳子經is Chen Jing 陳桱 (He Liangjun has reversed the two characters for jing in his names) who lived during the Yuan-Ming transition. Chen was a historian who wrote the continuation of Sima Guang’s Zizhi tongjian (1084). In 1370 he was appointed as a scholar in the Hanlin Academy. See MRZJ, p. 590. Yanyuan refers to the important late Song, early Yuan poet Dai Biaoyuan 戴表元 (1244–1310). A native of Fenghua in Zhejiang province, Dai earned the jinshi degree at the end of the Song dynasty and served as Instructor of the Jiankang prefecture Confucian school. During the Yuan dynasty in 1304 he was appointed Instructor in Xinzhou and then in Jinhua (Zhejiang). His collected writings are entitled the Yanyuan wenji, 30 juan. He was a close friend of Zhao Mengfu. See Tan Zhengbi, ed., Zhongguo wenxuejia da cidian, (Shanghai: Shanghai shuju, 1985), p. 865.
154 Partially translated in Bush and Shih, p. 270. See Meishu cong kan, vol. 3, p. 147.
155 Shi Yan 時儼 was a native of Kaihua in Yunnan province and was known as a painter who depicted landscapes and figures with the scorched ink technique. His works had a unique interest and charm. See ZMRC, p. 732. Wang Zhao 汪肇 was a native of Xiuning in Anhui province. While he depicted landscapes and figures following the style of Dai Jin and Wu Wei, Wang’s paintings of animals were said to be especially good. See ZMRC, p. 458.
156 Xie Shichen 謝時臣 (1487– after 1567) was a painter and poet from Suzhou who came from a wealthy family but apparently never took the civil service examinations. See DMB, pp. 558–9 and ZMRC, p. 1468.
157 According to Hucker, the Three Provincial Offices are a collective reference to Provincial Administration Commissions, Provincial Surveillance Commissions, and Regional Military Commissions. See Charles Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China, p. 402.
158 The phase, “a man who gave off a bad stench” (逐臭之夫) refers to a man who smell was so bad that none would live with him. When he was about to live by himself near the sea, he found one who was pleased with the smell. The phrase is used to describe eccentricity but is decidedly not a positive quality.
159 Tai’an and Mount Tai are in Shandong province. Mount Tai 泰山is the eastern of the five great sacred mountains of China (五嶽), which represent the cardinal directions in Chinese cosmology. The other are Mount Hua 華山, the western great mountain in Shaanxi province, Mount Heng 衡山, the southern great mountain in Hunan province, Mount Heng 橫山, the northern great mountain in Shanxi province, and Mount Song 嵩山, the center great mountain in Henan province.
160 Chen Ruyan 陳汝言 (active late fourteenth century) was a friend of the Yuan dynasty painters Ni Zan and Wang Meng. Jinan is located in Shandong province not far from Mount Tai.
161 Zhang Tingcai 張廷采 is Zhang Pu 璞 who served as an Instructor at the prefectural Confucian schools in Chenzhou (central Henan) and Yizhou (southeastern Shandong) between 1436–49. He was a devoted scholar who was also skilled at poetry and painting. See MRZJ, p. 553.
162 Xu Youzhen 徐有真 (1407–72), jinshi 1433, was a native of Suzhou and served as Minister of War and a Grand Secretary of the Huagai Palace, and was enfeoffed as Earl of Martial Accomplishment [Wugong bo]. He had fame as a poet, calligrapher, and landscape painter. One of his daughters was the mother of the great Ming dynasty calligraphy Zhu Yunming 朱允明 (1461–1527). See DMB, pp. 612–4
163 Yao Shou 姚 綬 (1423–95), jinshi 1464, was a native of Jiaxing in Zhejiang province and served as an imperial censor and the Prefect of Yongning (4a) in Sichuan. He was also a calligrapher and painter. He is said to have first studied ink painting and then turned his attention to Tang dynasty works. He liked to copy landscape paintings by Zhao Mengfu and Wang Meng, and bamboo and rock paintings by Wu Zhen. See DMB, pp. 1560–1 and ZMRC, p. 590.
164 The Flying Peak or Peak Flown Hither Rock stands next to the Lingyin Temple outside of West Lake in Hangzhou. The caves of Flying Peak Mountains contain over three hundred stone statues which date from the 10th through 14th centuries. The peak was so named as it differs from the surrounding mountains in its limestone composition making it look like a range of multiple peaks. It is said that when the Indian monk Huili saw the peak in 326 CE, he exclaimed, “This is a small peak of the Divine Vulture Peak in India. Why has it flown here?”
165 Yang Lianzhenjia (He Liangjun calls him Yang Liansengjia), was a married Tangut quasi-monastic practitioner of Tibetan style Buddhism who found favor with the Yuan Emperor Shizu. He was made superintendent of Buddhism in the Jiangnan region and supervised the carving of Buddhist images at Flying Peak between 1285 and 1287. He was responsible for the destruction of the Southern Song emperors’ tombs, as well as other imperial structures in the Hangzhou region. See Angela Howard, Chinese Sculpture, p. 412.
166 Lower Tianzhu Monastery is one of the three monasteries on Mt. Tianzhu near West Lake in Hangzhou. It is the oldest of the three and was established in 330 CE. It was the most important center of Tiantai Buddhism until the beginning of the Southern Song period.
167 Unidentified.
168 Fang Hao 方豪, jinshi 1508, native of Kaihua in Yunnan, served as magistrate of Kunshan in Jiangsu and later served as Secretary in the Ministry of Justice and Vice Commissioner of Huguang. See MRZJ, p. 15.
169 This paragraph, starting with “There is an image of the Buddha … ,” can also be found in Gu Yuanqing 顧 元慶 (1487–1565), Yibaizhai shi hua (夷白齋 詩話), 1 juan, dated between 1539 and 1541. Gu was a native of Changzhou (near Suzhou) and was a prominent scholar and bibliophile who owned a massive library. Given the date of Gu’s work and the likelihood that He Liangjun would have come into contact with him, it appears that He is plagiarizing his work.
170 Zheng Shanfu 鄭善夫 (1485–1523), jinshi 1505, was a native of Fuzhou in Fujian and served as a secretary in the Ministry of Revenue. Later in his career in 1518, he was appointed a secretary in the Ministry of Rites and promoted the following year to a vice director of a bureau. Along with Fang Hao, he was one of one hundred six court officials who memorialized the throne criticizing the emperor’s proposed southern inspection tour. These officials were punished by public flogging, resulting in the death of several of the leaders. Zheng was also a well-regarded poet, calligrapher and painter. See DMB, pp. 211–2.
171 Cao Zhibo 曹知白 (1271–1355) appears to have made his living as a engineer and amassed a very large fortune. He retired from active life after 1300 and devoted himself to painting and the study of the Classic of Changes (Yijing). He was a friend of Ni Zan and Huang Gongwang, but his painting style followed the Li-Guo tradition. See Cahill, Hills Beyond a River, pp. 80–2 and ZMRC, p. 895–6.
172 Zhang Yuan 張遠, zi Meiyan, was a Yuan dynasty painter who did landscapes and figures in the style of Ma Yuan and Xia Gui, according to the Huashi huiyao and Tuhui baojian. See ZMRC, p. 870.
173 Ren Renfa 任仁發 (1255–1328), zi Shuijian, was an official during the Yuan dynasty, serving as Controller of Irrigation and Vice Pacification Commissioner of the Eastern Zhejiang Circuit. He specialized in painting horses, as well as figures. See ZMRC, p. 182.
174 Shen Yuexi 沈月溪, native of Huating, painted landscapes and figures in the style of Ma Yuan. See ZMRC, p. 417.
175 Zhang Guan 張觀, native of Songjiang, moved to Jiaxing at the end of the Yuan dynasty. During the Hongwu era, he resided in Changzhou. He painted landscapes in the style of Ma Yuan and Xia Gui and was especially skilled in copying. He travelled with Wu Zhen. Zhang was also an expert connoisseur of antiques, calligraphy, painting and had a special fondness for inkstones. See ZMRC, p. 889.
176 Unidentified.
177 Zhu Mengbian 朱孟辨, Ming dynasty, hao Cangzhou sheng, lived during Hongwu era and was a Hanlin academician. See MRZJ, p. 130. Zhang Yiwen 張以文, Yuan dynasty, native of Songjiang, Dong Qichang mentions him and Zhang Zizheng 張子正 as famous painters from his hometown along with Cao Zhibo. See ZMRC, p. 815.
178 Zhang Gongjin 章公瑾, hao Caizhi, native of Huating, lived during the Yuan-Ming transition, still alive during the Yongle era. Good at poetry, cursive calligraphy and especially painting in the Ma-Xia style. See ZMRC, p. 922.
179 Gu Lu 顧祿, was a Huating (Songjiang) native who lived during the Hongwu era (1368–98). He was skilled in calligraphy and painting, as well as being a poet. He served as an archivist in the Directorate of Education and later as the head of a prefectural Confucian school in Sichuan. See MRZJ, p. 955 and ZMRC, p. 1545.
180 Zhu Yin 朱寅, zi Kongyi (孔晹 – He Liangjun uses the character 易), (1374–1445) was an official from Songjiang who served as Secretariat Drafter and Compiler in the Hanlin Academy. See MRZJ, p. 137.
181 Xia Heng, 夏衡 was a calligrapher and painter who served as Chief Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices during Yongle era. See MRZJ, p. 408.
182 Jin Xuan 金鉉 (1361–1436), had a reputation as a filial son and retired from appointment to court during Hongwu era on account of his aged mother. He was a calligrapher, poet and painter, who followed the styles of Huang Gongwang and Gao Kegong. See ZMRC, p. 560.
183 Gu Yingwen, 顧應文 was a painter who depicted figures and landscapes, but was most noted for his Daoist portraits. He was summoned to the capital during Xuande era, but after a short time retired due to illness and returned home. See ZMRC, p. 1549.
184 All three emperors had reputations as painters. Emperors Xuanzong (r. 1425–35) was a prolific painter who specializing in depicting animals and auspicious motifs. See ZGMSJ, p. 229. Many extant works by the Xuande emperor can be found in such collections as the Sackler Museum, Harvard University, Nelson-Atkins Museum, the National Palace Museum, Taibei and the Palace Museum Beijing. See Barnhart, Painters of the Great Ming, pp. 54–5; Gugong shuhua mulu, (Taibei: National Palace Museum, 1990–9), Vol. 6, pp. 139–60 and Vol. 18, pp. 109–116; and Zhongguo gudai shuhua tumu: suoyin, (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2001), p. 55. Emperor Xianzong (r.1464–87) depicted figures and small landscape scenes in his painting. See ZMRC, p. 203. There are extant works by the Chenghua emperor in the collections of the National Palace Museum, Taibei and the Jilin Provincial Museum. See Gugong shuhua mulu, (Taibei: Guoli gugong bowuyuan, 1989–2013), Vol. 6, pp. 297–300 and Zhongguo gudai shuhua tumu, (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1986–2001), Index, p. 54. Emperor Xiaozong (r. 1487–1505) was said to have painted in a naturalistic style, but no works by him survive. See ZMRC, p. 212–3.
185 Jiang Zicheng 蔣子成, a native of Yixing in Jiangsu province, was a court painter during the Yongle era who specialized in figure painting. His ink painting of Buddhist figures, along with tiger paintings by Zhao Lian 趙廉 and animal and bird paintings by Bian Jingzhao (see note 186 below) were known as the “Three Perfections” of the Imperial Palace. See ZMRC, p. 1356 and MRZJ, p. 804.
186 Bian Jingzhao 邊景昭, more often known by his zi Wenjin 文進, (c. 1354–1435) was a native of Shaxian in Fujian provinceand was active as a painter at the Ming court. He was famous for his depictions of flowers and birds. See Barnhart, Painters of the Great Ming, pp. 60–3 and ZMRC, p. 1512.
187 Shang Xi 商喜worked as a court painter during the Xuande era (1425–35) and eventually attained the rank of commander in the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Shi Rui 石銳 worked for the Ming court during the Xuande era as a painter-in-attendance in the Renzhidian. Ma Shi 馬軾 and Li Zai 李在also were painters-in-attendance at the same time. Ni Duan 倪端 served as court painter from the Xuande through the Zhenghua era (1465–87).
188 Chen Xian 陳暹 (1405–96,) native of Suzhou, was a painter famed for his extremely close copies of ancient masters’ paintings. He depicted landscapes and figures in color and was honored at court with a ceremonial cap and girdle in 1488. Chen was the teacher of Zhou Chen (see note 192 below). See ZMRC, p. 1044.
189 Zhong Li (sometimes his ming is recorded as Qinli) 鍾禮 was actually a native of Shangyu in Zhejiang province. He was a calligrapher who followed the style of Zhao Mengfu, as well as a painter. As a painter, he was known for his depictions of cloudy mountains and insects and grasses in a bold and vigorous style. Zhong was called to court to serve in the Renzhidian during the Hongzhi era (1487–1505). See ZMRC, p. 1478.
190 Wang E 王 諤 (active 1488–1501) served as a court painter in the Rezhidian during the Hongzhi era. He studied with his fellow townsman Xiao Feng 蕭鳳 from Fenghua in Zhejiang province. Emperor Xiaozong was said to have praised him as the “Ma Yuan of today.” He was promoted to the Embroidered Uniform Guard under Emperor Wuzong (1506–21). See ZMRC, p. 134–5.
191 Zhu Duan 朱端 (active early sixteenth century) was actually a native of Haiyan in Zhejiang province. He came from a very poor family and worked as a fisherman and woodcutter when he was young. During the Zhengde era (1506–21), he became a court painter in the Renzhidian. He was said to follow Ma Yuan’s style in landscape, Sheng Mou’s style in figures and Lü Ji’s style in the bird and flower genre. See ZMRC, p. 222–3.
192 Zhou Chen 周臣 (c. 1450–1535), zi Dongcun, was a native of Suzhou and a professional painter of landscapes and figures. He was the teacher of Tang Yin (see note 193 below) and was said to be his student’s ghost painter after Tang’s reputation as painter surpassed his own. Zhou studied both the Li-Guo and Ma-Xia styles of landscape painting and was a particularly sensitive observer of everyday life.. See DMB, pp. 262–3 and ZMRC, p. 478.
193 Tang Yin 唐寅 (1470–1523), hao Liuru, was the talented son of a restaurateur in Suzhou who came under the patronage of Wen Zhengming’s father, Wen Lin. He was a close friend of the Suzhou calligrapher Zhu Yunming and traveled in the literati circle around Zhu and Wen Zhengming. He was implicated in a cheating scandal in the metropolitan examinations of 1499; as a result, he was stripped of his degrees and turned to painting to earn a living. Tang became a very successful artist in Suzhou and worked in a wide variety of styles from Northern and Southern Song court style to literati painting modes of the Yuan dynasty. See DMB, pp. 1256–9.
194 Chen Chun 陳淳, more commonly known by his zi Daofu 道復, (1483–1544) was a painter and calligrapher from Suzhou. He came from a wealthy family and mostly devoted himself to art and literature on his country estate. He was especially known for his free and natural mode of ink flowers and plants, although he also depicted landscapes in the style of Mi Fu. See DMB, pp. 179–80. Here He Liangjun refers to him by his sobriquet Baiyang.
195 This phrase comes from a poem by Su Shi who describes the poetry and painting of the Tang dynasty poet Wang Wei: “味摩詰之詩，詩中有畫；觀摩詰之畫，畫中有詩。” See Bush and Shih, p. 203.
196 Xu Lin 徐霖 (1462–1538), zi Ranxian, was a noted calligrapher, painter, poet and songwriter. His family origins were from Songjiang, but they had established themselves in Nanjing in the early 15th century. He was a noted eccentric and made a living off of his calligraphy and painting. Xu accumulated enough wealth to build an impressive estate in Nanjing, called the Happiness Garden, where he owned his own acting troupe. See DMB, pp. 591–3.
197 The measure word is chi 尺, which is 12.6 inches.
198 The Duanwu Festival is the festival that takes places on the fifth day of the fifth month in which rituals are performed to get rick of disease and bad luck.
199 This is the date of the Ghost Festival.
200 The picture of the Wangchuan Villa was a legendary landscape by the Tang poet and painter Wang Wei that depicted his country estate. It was considered his masterpiece but was known only through copies in the Ming dynasty. Here He Liangjun is saying that Du Jin’s painting of the thunder gods was his masterpiece.
201 Tao Cheng 陶成 (active late fifteenth century) was a poet, calligrapher and painter. He depicted landscapes, figures and birds and flowers in Southern Song painting styles. Tao also employed the blue-and-green style in some of his landscape painting. He was especially noted for his paintings of bamboo, rabbits, deer, and cranes in ink outlines. See ZMRC, p. 961.
202 Zhu Sui 朱燧 was a Yuan dynasty poet and calligrapher from Suzhou. He was known for his moral integrity and his love of travel. See ZMRC, p. 228.
203 Zhu Rifan 朱 日藩, jinshi 1544, was a native of Baoying (Nanjing). He served as Magistrate of Wucheng and later Prefect of Jiujiang. Zhu was noted for his calligraphy modeled on Jin dynasty masters. See ZMRC, p. 197–8.
204 Wen Jia 文 嘉 (1501–83), zi Xiucheng, was the second son of Wen Zhengming. He was a connoisseur, seal carver, calligrapher and painter. His paintings followed his father’s style. See ZMRC, p. 39.
205 Wen Boren 文伯仁 (1502–75), hao Wufeng, was a nephew of Wen Zhengming. He was known for his landscape paintings that followed the style of Wang Meng. See ZMRC, p. 36.
206 He Liangjun refers to him by his sobriquet Qianli. Zhao Boju 趙伯駒 (d. ca. 1162) was a seventh-generation descendant of Song Emperor Taizu and held the position of Director of Soldiers and Horses for Eastern Zhejiang. He was known as a painter of wide variety of subjects and was a favorite of Emperor Gaozong. His artistic legacy lies primarily in his use of the blue-and-green style of landscape painting, which employed opaque mineral pigments of malachite and azurite. See Song Biographies: Painters, pp. 8–15.
207 Wang Fengyuan 王逢原/元 was a famous sixteenth century calligrapher. Because his father was also a talented calligrapher, people refer to him by one of the sobriquets of Wang Xianzhi, the son of the legendary Jin dynasty calligrapher Wang Xizhi. He also painted in the style of Zhao Mengfu. See ZMRC, p. 106. His father, Wang Wei 王 韋, zi 南原, jinshi 1505, took first place in the metropolitan examinations and served as a Secretary in the Ministry of Personnel in Nanjing and then in the Ministry of War. Later on, he was appointed Surveillance Vice Commissioner of Henan and Vice Minister of the Court of the Imperial Stud. See MRZJ, p. 42. Wang Fengyuan was a friend of Gu Lin; see note 209 below.
208 Gu Lin 顧 麟, (1476–1545), jinshi 1549, was a native of Suzhou and placed first in the metropolitan examination. He served as Minister of Justice in Nanjing. As a poet, he was known as one of the Three Talents of Nanjing along with Chen Yi and Wang Wei, the father of Wang Fengyuan. See MRZJ, p. 957–8.
209 See note 155.
210 Wang Zhao汪肇, zi Haiyun, was from Xiuning in Anhui province and was skilled in both landscape and figure painting.
211 Jiang Song 蔣嵩, hao Sansong, was born into a family of imperial physicians and court officials, which had apparently fallen upon hard times. He painted for a living in his hometown of Nanjing. Prominent artists such as Zhu Yunming 朱允名 (1461–1527) and Xu Wei 徐渭 (1521–1593) were admirers of his work, but very little is known about his life. See Barnhart, Painters of the Great Ming, pp. 303–5.
212 He Liangjun refers to the artist by his sobriquet Mengwen. Almost nothing is known about Wang Zhi 王 質, a Ming dynasty landscape painter. See ZMRC, p. 131.
213 Guo Xu 郭詡 (1456– after 1511), zi Qingkuang, was a native of Taihe in Jiangxi province. His reputation in his own time was on par with the contemporary painters Wu Wei, Du Jin and Shen Zhou, and his paintings commanded very high prices. He is said to have been recommended at the imperial court as a painter by the philosopher Wang Yangming (1472–1528). See Cahill, Parting at the Shore, pp. 153–4 and ZMRC, p. 956.
214 Zhang Lu 張路, zi Pingshan, was a native of Kaifeng in Henan province. He studied for an official career and attended the National University as a xiucai level graduate, but failed to achieve success. He worked as a professional painter, depicting figures and landscapes that followed the style of Wu Wei. See Cahill, Parting at the Shore, pp. 129–132.
215 Shen Shi 沈仕 (1488–1565), zi Qingmen, was a native of Hangzhou and was a noted poet and painter. As a painter, he depicted landscapes and the bird and flower genre. The latter were considered especially outstanding. See MRZJ, p. 169 and ZMRC, p. 418.
216 Chen He 陳 鶴 (d. ca. 1560), zi Haiqiao, was a native of Shaoxing and earned a juren degree during the Jiajing era (1522–66). When he was seventeen, Chen inherited the position of Company Commander in the military, but retired to live the life of a recluse. Chen was a well-known writer of poetry in all genres, as well as a calligrapher and painter. He specialized in ink paintings of flowers and plants, as well as landscapes. He was the painting teacher of the artist Xu Wei 徐渭 (1521–93). See MRZJ, p. 608 and ZMRC, p. 1051.
217 Yao Yiguan 姚一貫, zi Jiangmen, was a native of Haiyan in Zhejiang province but moved to Hangzhou. He was a student of the philosopher Wang Yangming and had a high reputation with the imperial aristocracy. In his later years he took up painting landscapes and figures. See MRZJ, p. 379.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Kathleen Ryor
Kathleen Ryor, PhD, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, is the Tanaka Memorial Professor of International Understanding and Art History at Carleton College. She is also a Research Associate at the Institute for Global Studies, University of Minnesota and was a past editor of the journal, Ming Studies. She has published on the artist and polymath Xu Wei (1521-93), the relationship between civil and military cultures in the late Ming period, Buddhist painting by secular artists, as well as contemporary Chinese art. Her current research focuses on the genre of flower and planting painting from 1500-1650 and its connections with the production of botanical knowledge.