CLP 120: 1995 “Two Snowy Peaks Viewed from Afar: Some Chinese Thoughts on Sesshu and Sesson.” CLP 120: 1995 “Two Snowy Peaks Viewed from Afar: Some Chinese Thoughts on Sesshu and Sesson.”

LACMA lecture, Dec. 3,1995:

"Two Snowy Peaks Viewed from Afar: Some Chinese Thoughts on Sesshu and Sesson." (Note: some text has been lost on pp.,3-4)

Intro. This lecture began as a compilation of misc. thoughts, jotted on pieces of paper over the years and put into manila folders labeled "Sesshu" and "Sesson," not intended as organized study of these two masters. But as I worked on it, over past months, gradually took on a certain form, direction. And not one I intended.

(S,S. Works by the two.) Sesshû Tôyô (1420-1506) has been regarded, almost from his own time, as a towering figure in Japanese painting, even as their greatest single artist, while Sesson Shûkei (1504-1589?) has been seen as an interesting and important but decidedly lesser one. A recent large-scale History of Japanese Art by the late Penelope Mason, for instance, doesn't mention Sesson at all. Without attempting to overturn these judgements altogether, I intended in this lecture to raise once more questions of the relationship between these two masters, and their respective relationships to Chinese painting, and perhaps suggest a somewhat different balance in evaluating them.

The fact that both have the character Setsu, meaning snow, in their artist's names is not coincidental; Sesson adopted it to indicate a claim that he was in the legitimate lineage of Sesshu's followers. Of course he could not study directly with Sesshu; only two years old when the older master died. Early sources accept his claim that he was disciple of Sesshu; but at most, acquainted w. Sesshu's direct pupils and with his paintings. He actually drew on a diversity of sources, Chinese and Japanese, w. Sesshu only one among them.I'll treat these two masters separately first, with special attn. to their knowledge and uses of Chinese painting, and add a few remarks on what I understand their art-historical positions to be w/in history of Jap. ptg.

S,S. (Summer, from LS of 4 Seasons; Li Tsai.) Crucial event in Sesshu's life, for our purpose, was his two-year stay in China, from 1467. Spent time in Ningpo, Hangchou, Yangchou, Peking. His contacts w. artists in China seem to have been chiefly w. so-called academy & Che-school masters, those treated in Dick Barnhart's Ptrs of Great Ming exhib. In an inscription on a "splashed-ink" landscape (which we'll see later), written when he was 76, nearly 30 years after his return from China, Sesshu claims that he found only two ptrs there whom he could learn from: Li Tsai & still-unident. Chang Yu-sheng. Says he learned colored ptg tech. from Chang, use of ink from Li Tsai. Li Tsai on left: (comparison) Sesshu's ptg is summer LS from set of four he ptd either while still in China or shortly after return.

S,S. Another Che-school artist whose works he must have seen--very prominent in this period, credited as founder of school--Tai Chin, who had died in 1462, five years before Sesshu's arrival. Winter LS from Sesshu's series on right, one from Tai Chin's series on left. Resemblances obvious: strongly outlined, angular shapes overlap to establish a kind of limited depth; figures & bldgs prominent. Now, the Che-school ptg of Ming dynasty, in turn, derives from styles of Southern Sung, i.e. 12th-13th cent., artists, especially those active in imperial academy. And Sesshu, besides imitating the Ming paintings, makes direct copies of works by ptrs of So. Sung. So we have 3-way relationship: can be seen as linear, Sung to Ming Che-school to Sesshu, or triangular, in which Sesshu is also studying Sung painting directly. Japanese scholars stress latter, construct the relationship so that Sesshu, dissatisfied with ptgs by his contemporaries in China, uses his stay there to study Sung-period works, learn directly from them. I have been inclined in past to argue agst this view. So best to take a moment to try to define dif. between Sung & Ming ptg in this mode, see which fits better w. Sesshu's style. Will do this rather quickly, so as not to use up too much of our time.

-- S. Behind Tai Chin's winter LS, at some distance, lies style of this famous work by 13th cent. academy master Liang K'ai: identified by pair of mounted figures, people making their way upward past snowy trees. Figures here relatively inconspicuous; only bldg in ptg (gate in pass) scarcely visible above; much ambiguity, forms w/o clear boundaries, space flows freely thru comp, atmospheric depths.

S --. Album leaf in Freer: later 13th or14th cent? or so, based on Liang K'ai's (or some other version of it). Same pair of fig., but more conspicuous; gate in pass still there, although oddly locate (desc.) Narrative elements enlarged, exposed. Whole scene somewhat flattened. From this to Tai Chin's picture an easy move.

-- S. Detail of Tai's. One of riders points forward--common feature of Che-school ptgs. Conventional motif, w/o specific meaning; intended to make picture more dramatic, dynamic. Doesn't, in end.

S,S. Difference can be illustrated also w. two versions of Ma Yuan comp., "Banquet by Lantern Light." (describe.) Constraint, concision of Sung composition contrasts w. dispersed char. of Ming one.

-- S. Another of Sesshu's set of four. It would appear from these examples that Sesshu is more Ming artist than Sung. One might argue: If Ming Chinese artists couldn't really re-create Sung academy mode, no reason to suppose that Japanese artist could. Claim that Sesshu was able t**of Japan, for instance, write about Sesshu's masterwork, the "long scroll" of landscape in the Môri family collection in Yamaguchi, that "It is the synthesis of the artist's life-long experience of penetrating into the secrets of natural beauty," and, "To view this scroll is like taking a magical drive through the beautiful countryside and marvelling as the scenery changes in accord with the seasons." (That would indeed be magical, something to marvel at, a drive that took one through all four seasons.) I would see it, rather, as a skillfully assembled and elegantly presented series of conventional bits of scenery learned from Chinese paintings he had seen. The old scholar with his boy servant, the village gathering, the hollowed rocks, all can be seen as deriving from a Southern Sung academy .repertory of motifs, as transformed by the Ming Che-school and academy masters.

S,S. For instance, the scene of the great cliff from Hsia Kuei's 13c. "Pure and Remote View of Streams and Mts.", along with other parts of the scroll, were copied over & over by Ming artists, in whose hands the forms become harder, flatter, with heavier outlining.

S --. Another. The masses of rock, spatially and geologically coherent in Hsia Kuei's ptg, break into discrete, geologically implausible units. A detail almost unnoticeable in Hsia Kuei's scroll, a cave with two figures seated inside facing each other, is enlarged and made more prominent. A boy on a water buffalo adds an anecdotal touch; the enlargement of the figures diminishes the scale of the cliff.

S --.Now when we turn to the corresponding section of Sesshu's scroll, we can easily recognize it to be derived from the Ming versions rather than directly from the Hsia Kuei original, which Sesshu probably never saw. The hollows at the base of the cliff, where it is eroded by the river, are enlarged; so are the trees, and the texture strokes on the rocks. The grandeur of Hsia Kuei's vision, his deep engagement with natural forms & phenomena, are lost in the process.

S,S. The passage noted before in Hsia Kuei's scroll, two men seated in a cave partway up the face of the cliff, is one of many details that the artist tucks away for the patient viewer to find.

-- S. Ming paintings, and Sesshu's, appear to be intended for less patient viewers--it's like the difference, perhaps, between the best old movies and typical TV programs today: hit them with it hard, don't make them reach to get it. Sesshu's landscapes, instead of being drawn from his lifelong experiences of nature, or even from his observations of the real scenery in China, are in large part put together from readymade imagery of this kind. These paired figures, for example, recur often in his works, as we'll see.

S,S. Another matter in Sesshu's uses of Chinese painting styles that needs to be clarified is his engagement with the landscape manner of Kao K'o-kung. Kao was an early Yuan period (i.e. late 13c) scholar-official, a friend of Chao Meng-fu , who painted landscapes with conical hills rising above fog, and pines and leafy trees, sometimes simple houses and bridges. At right is one of his genuine works, at left another ascribed to him that may be an early imitation.

-- S. Although Kao K'o-kung himself was a scholar-official amateur, his style was continued in the Ming not so much by the literati painters who were Kao K'o-kung's proper successors as by the professionals, especially those active in court circles--this odd example is by Tai Chin. The reason is that for Ming artists, it was less Kao K'o-kung's own amateur status that was associated with the pictures than the special meaning they carried in the world of politics and scholar-officialdom: paintings of hills in clouds or rain were presented to officials to praise them, using an old metaphor to deliver the message: the benefits that you bring to the people through your benevolent administration are like the blessings of good harvests that clouds and rain bring to the farmers.

S,S. Horizontal versions of this subject in handscroll form were probably produced by the thousands--quite a few survive, including the anonymous one at right, Yuan or early Ming in date, and the one at left, also anonymous, one of a series of paintings, including several others of this subject, excavated from the late 15th century tomb at Huai-ai in Chekiang province. When the artists of such pictures can be identified, they prove mostly to have been those active in court and official circles.

S --. Li Tsai, for instance, did this version of the type, another of the ptgs excavated from the Huai-an tomb. Li Tsai, you remember, is the Ming academy master from whom Sesshu acknowledged learning about the use of ink. (Some smart young Japanese scholar should do paper on "Sesshû and the Huai-an Tomb Paintings." Perhaps one of them already has.)

-- S. It's no surprise, then, that this style or type of landscape is among the ones Sesshu learned in China, since those were the circles in which he principally moved, along with Buddhist temples. A priest friend named Hôbu Ryôshin who visited him in his studio in 1476, seven years after his return from China, and left a long record of the visit, writes that Sesshu did landscapes of three types: those with trees and rocks in the manner of Ma Yüan and Hsia Kuei, wet-ink ptgs in the manner of Yü-chien (to which we will turn later), and cloudy hills pictures of the type associated with Kao K'o-kung.[i] Sesshu's paintings bear out this comment, since they include a number of this type. Here, for instance, is a copy of a section by him now missing from a handscroll painting in the Kyoto Nat'l Museum, recognized as being in the Kao K'o-kung style.

S,S. Others, known only from old reproduction books and auction catalogs, include these two, a hanging scroll and a pair of screens, which offer highly schematic versions of the style. The reason I say that this matter needs clarification is that Japanese scholars have used Sesshu's engagement with the Kao K'o-kung style as evidence that his artistically fruitful contacts in China were not limited to artists of the academy and the Che school, but included also the so-called Southern School of the scholar-amateurs, to which Kao K'o-kung himself certainly belonged.[ii] The problem with this argument is that it is based, as I've suggested, on a misreading of the affiliations and implications of this style in the Ming period. The practice of making landscapes of this type was in fact firmly established in the professional painting circles of Ningpo and Hangchou and Peking where Sesshu learned, and does not in itself indicate any notable excursions beyond the stylistic terrain of those circles.

-- S. This is the point at which my treatment of Sesshu might have, until recently, more or less stopped. As a brash graduate student invited to speak at a symposium on Ming-Ch'ing painting in Tokyo in 1955 (? check), I presented a view of Sesshu as a kind of provincial Che-school master that was well remembered by my Japanese colleagues, and that contributed to the role I took on as an iconoclast willing to say what others would not say about sacrosanct matters in Japanese art. And I've more or less repeated that version of Sesshu on other occasions; my colleague Don McCallum probably came here expecting me to do it again. (He feels the same way, I think) But lately, after spending more time with Sesshu, I'm strongly inclined to go beyond that early semi-dismissal of him, raise somewhat my estimation of him, and attempt again to get at the question of where, if he is so widely hailed as a great master, his greatness lies. After trying to deconstruct some of traditional Japanese claims for Sesshu, that is, I want to try to rebuild his stature on different basis. I reach this point after finding and studying, among his reproduced paintings, a number that are not hardened and conventionalized, Ming-like versions of the Sung-Yuan styles, but unexpectedly sensitive imitations or evocations that indicate a deep and first-hand engagement with Sung-Yuan ptg, as well as the technical ability to re-create with surprising fidelity its essential qualities. This horizontal landscape, for instance, known to me only in a reproduction book published in 1910 (and perhaps no longer extant), is not simply a schematized performance in the Kao K'o-kung manner, but a painting with atmospheric depths and nuances of light and shadow.[iii]

S,S. A set of "Landscapes of Four Seasons" in album-leaf form,[iv] similarly known to me only in reproduction, might be copies of leaves by Ma Yüan, and at least are closely in his style; although the brushwork is broader and the forms more prominent than they would have been in the Sung originals, in keeping with the Sung-to-Ming transformation outlined at the beginning of this lecture,

S --. the relationship with some hypothetical model, represented here by a signed Ma Yüan fan ptg in the Boston MFA, is not simply a matter of hardening and conventionalization. Sesshu's claim, stated or implied in his inscriptions, to have bypassed his Ming contemporaries and gone back to the Sung originals is not entirely without substance.

S,S. Most surprising of all, for someone who thought he knew Sesshu, is an album of 22 leaves of which ten were reproduced in Tajima Shiichi's 1910 Masterpieces of Sesshu.[v] Tajima wrote of them: "There are many pictures done by Sesshu still existing; among which the long scroll belonging to Prince Môri comes first, and next to it the present album. When we look at the pictures in this album we readily understand that Sesshu was far superior even to the great artists of the Sung China, such as Ma Yuan, Hsia Kuei, etc. . . . no other work by Sesshu can be compared with them." Even after discounting as nationalism and hyperbole Tajima's claim that Sesshu here surpasses the Sung masters who created these styles, we are still left with a very impressive set of paintings, which handle the Southern Sung academy manner with more finesse and fidelity than Ming-period artists are ordinarily capable of. In our century, the Japanese, because of their collecting and love of that category of painting, have on the whole had a better "feel" for it than Chinese scholars, who have been putting it down for centuries as low-class, or Western scholars who shared that biased taste. Was something of the same kind true already in the 15th century? Did the Japanese have some special affinity for the So. Sung academy mode that the Chinese had lost? That's a possibility worth considering.

[i]Text in Matsushita, Sesshu (Nihon no Bijutsu series no. 100) p. 45; for Ryôshin's visit, p. 2 of sec'n on Sesshu in Water and Ink.

[ii]See for instance Tanaka Ichimatsu, Jap. Ink Ptg.: Shubun to Sesshu, New York and Tokyo, Weatherhill, 1972, p. 123. (Quote if longer version.)

[iii]Formerly Viscount Matsudaira Yôdai collection, Tokyo; reproduced in Tajima Shiichi, Sesshû Gashû (Masterpieces of Sesshû), Toky o, Shimbi Shoin, 1910, pl. 3 1. 2' 6-3/4" x 4' 7-3/4".

[iv]See Nakamura Tanio, Kanazawa Hiroshi, et. al., ed., Sesshû gagyô shûsei, pl. 60-63. 41 x 25 cm. each, on paper. Collection?

[v]Tajima, op. cit., pl. 13-24. Ink and light colors on silk, 1'4" x 1'2" each.Then collection of Marquis Hosokawa Morishige, Tokyo; present whereabouts unknown.

Another question: why has this album, once considered the artist's second most important work and published in good plates in a well-known old book, disappeared from modern scholarship? Even the huge volume edited by Nakamura and Kanazawa, which includes in a supplement some works known only in old reproductions, ignores it. Is it rejected as not authentic? But the signature doesn't look bad, and other works with signature only, no seals, especially those that are copies of older paintings, are accepted by specialists today.

Last question: why am I making so much of this group of paintings? Because they testify to Sesshu's ability to work outside the normal stylistic boundaries of his Ming Che-school and academy contemporaries and get back more closely to the Sung originals. And if he possesses this ability, then it follows that the high degree of conventionalization and formalization and flattening that characterizes his late style, as seen in the works always reproduced to represent him, was arrived at through a deliberate process, and isn't simply an end-point in a Ming-like hardening of style. And admitting that obliges us to try to define what lay behind this conscious choice.

S,S. In discussing this matter in the past, I have emphasized what was sacrificed in this process, the direct development in Japan out of Sung landscape painting to which Sesshu appears to have put an end, the development that culminates in landscapes associated with his predecessor Shûbun, such as this superb work in the Seattle Art Museum. Why would an artistic tradition, a group or series of painters, deliberately give up this delicacy and depth, if they were collectively and individually capable of it? That is still a question that confronts us.

S,.S. In addressing these questions I will conclude with two more groups of Sesshu paintings, beginning with the splashed-ink landscapes in the manner of the late Sung (13th cent.) monk-artist Yü-chien. On the right, a detail of "Mt. Village in Clearing Mist" from Yü-chien's "Eight Views of the Hsiao-Hsiang Region" series; at left, a fan ptg attrib. to him, long preserved in Japan. Now, the success of these ptgs as evocations of spacious, atmospheric landscapes, with the parts readable as hilltops and groves of trees and so forth, depends on the brushstrokes not being distinct, well-shaped, neat; on the contrary, they are ragged, amorphous, run together, and because of that powerfully suggestive. Won't take time to analyze how this works; will only point out that "Mt. Village" scene at least as clearly readable as same scene in academic style would be: ink values separate near and far, dry strokes suggest rough surfaces of earth and rock with play of light and shadow, wet strokes are read as atmospheric blurring, etc. Small miracle of making seemingly casual strokes work effectively as elements in coherent representation of scene. Fan ptg accomplishes the same on simpler scale. Note for instance volumetric drawing of hilltop. Fisherman in boat.

-- S. If identification of ptgs w. seal Sessô as early works of Sesshu can be trusted (as is widely believed), then we can see in this ptg in Masaki Mus. an early attempt by Sesshu to adopt this manner. And fairly successfully: light & shadow on FG rocks, separation of distance, etc. Detail clearly readable, as in Chinese Ch'an or Zen ptg: two facing figures on shore, man in boat, rooftops of houses, trees of dif. kinds (bare, pine), temple.

-- S. But when, at a later point in his life, Sesshu paints the well-known copy after Yü-chien in his series of copies of fan ptgs, he does something quite different: emphasizes formal elegance of brushstrokes, which become distinct, not merged; variations in ink value less directed twd. separation of forms in space, or rendering their volume, than twd pure visual beauty. Since no ptg of this kind by Ming masters seems to survive, we have no way of knowing what Sesshu's contemporaries, probably working in Buddhist temples, were doing; this is part of big problem of continuation of Ch'an-Buddhist-related styles of Sung-Yüan period into later centuries. (I have article on this in progress.) But we can guess that whatever they looked like, Sesshu is going in dif. direction. No comparable development of ink-monochrome ptg can be found in Ming that would serve to account for this.

S, S. And this is direction in which Sesshu will continue in his production of "splashed-ink" landscape, which became one of his favorite types. (One in Idemitsu, one in Cleveland Mus.) Note extreme simplification, conventionalization, in Idemitsu picture, of motif of two people facing each other in boat. Has conflated fisherman-in-boat motif from Ch. work with two-people-facing motif from Ma Yuan and Hsia Kuei--doesn't make a lot of sense representationally--who rows the boat? but who cares? not kind of thing Sesshu is concerned with by now. In Cleveland ptg, brushstrokes even more independent of rep. or even suggestion of specific things, they are locked stably together into highly formalized configuration; light & dark don't work to define planes of distance.

S,S. And that brings us to his masterwork in this genre, haboku LS of 1495 in Tokyo NM, ptd for his pupil Sôen when he was departing for Kamakura. What began as a highly evocative image of an evanescent passage of scenery has been transformed into a tightly organized, stable structure of broad, non-descriptive brushstrokes. The identifying elements of scene, insofar as they are still readable at all, have been turned into conventional signs. And even more than before, the shapes of the brushstrokes, and their ink values, take on a certain independence of descriptive or representational purpose; they work as pure form, visually very satisfying.

S.S. Details. Something like this might be seen as happening in Ming imitations of Sung in China; but not so radically, and in different way. What we see here is somehow very Japanese, and, I would argue, it marks the real beginning of a great development of Japanese ink ptg as largely independent of Chinese. I made this argument here some years ago, on occasion of a big exhib. of Jap. ink ptg.; didn't credit Sesshu for his role as a major initiator of it, as I would now be inclined to do. One could follow through by showing Tôhaku's pine trees, ink ptgs by Sotatsu and Korin, by Taiga and Gyokudo, all the way down to Tessai and Murakami Kagaku (as I did at a symposium several weeks ago), always making basically the same observations about the relative divorcement of brushstrokes and ink values from representational purpose.

S,S. To conclude with Sesshu, we look briefly at what he does with the Hsia Kuei model. Two copies of fan paintings by Hsia Kuei, which already have flattened the forms and emphasized their contours. An old man with his servant climbs toward a temple in one; in the other, a wintry traveler approaches a pass. Hsia Kuei might well have painted the originals of these.

S,S. But never of these--the famous pair from landscapes of the four seasons, always included among Sesshu's masterworks. If one were still looking at them as pictures, one would ask: what are those two absurdly large people (judging from the scale of the house in foreground, and their location in middleground) doing in front of the temple? or, what is that Mt. Fuji-like shape behind the temple in the other picture? A huge pile of snow? Wrong questions. What we have here are two more examples of Sesshu's radical transformation of the Chinese landscape type.

The transformation is very knowing and deliberate. And if I were to sum up the direction of it in a phrase, it would be: the Japanization of once-potent Chinese landscape imagery. What do I mean by Japanization. We used to use the term "decorative," but the word has too much of a pejorative sense, which I certainly don't intend. To say about an artist what I'm going to say about Sesshu would once have been to dismiss him, back in an age when humanistic ways of thought about art and culture were still more prevalent; now that they are now perhaps we can say it without devaluing him. What Sesshu does is subject the imagery of Chinese landscape ptg to a radical formalization, a reduction of once-potent pictorial themes and motifs to more or less abstract conventions. This process drains the imagery of most of its original meaning, so that the scene can be read as pure form, very cool, disengaged, elegant. In later times, the Rimpa masters, Sotatsu & Korin & others, would do the same for the old narrative imagery of Yamato-e; Nanga artists would do it again for certain imagery from Ming-Ch'ing ptg & printed pictures. What survive of the intellectual and emotional content of the original pictures are only faint echoes, or resonances, which evoke a kind of nostalgia, along with the pleasure of visual recognition without emotional engagement. This is a quintessentially Japanese process--I remember reading a modern fashion commentator amazed at how the Jap. dress designers could present in their showrooms models in costumes of Hitler maidens, or the American drug culture, all drained of the original implications, presented as pure style. But this is no longer a specifically Japanese phenomenon, if it ever was; I stand here in what must be the world center for it: the cool, disengaged manipulation of imagery, divor***************************

SESSON FROM HERE

. . . leaves him without much time remaining, for one thing--this lecture became quite skewed as I worked on it, until it scarcely resembles the description in the announcement (which, because of printing deadlines, one always has to send in long before one knows what one's going to say.) Still, I will try to make a few points abt Sesson in the remaining time.

This is his self-portrait, done when he was around 70, acc. to Barbara Ford, who published an excellent article on it in 1982. I attended a one-day symposium at Yamato Bunkakan in 1981, when a major exhib. of his works was there, that concentrated on two of his productions: this self-portrait, and the short essay attrib. to him, Setsu montei-shi or "Advice to [My] Disciples." Thought I would have new things to say abt this self-portrait, but rereading Ford's article, find that I have nothing signif. to add. Ptg & insc. (by artist) full of intricacies; manages to embed ref. to his own name (Snow Village) in first two lines of quatrain, and ref. to old Ch. lit. anecdote in last two:

"Mountain and river merge in a single color, whiter than floss,
Chimney smoke hovers over a winding row of roofs.
Gone is the impulse that brought me; my boat is poled homeward,
Moonbright water flows before a brushwood gate." (Ford trans.)
(4th cent. story told in 5c text: Wang Hui-chih visits Tai An-tao) Sesson is making claim for spontaneity, purposeless action, freedom from constraints, that this anecdote represented.

[ Cut if time too short:] The essay, Setsu montei-shi, is dated early in his life, 1542 (when he was 39, acc. to generally-accepted birthdate, 1504); based on ms. rec'd from one of his followers, not pub. until 1811. Considerable question abt its authenticity; some Jap. scholars argue that since it first appears in context of rediscovery of Sesson by early 19c artists & aesthetes in Edo, incl. Tani Bunchô and Sakai Hôitsu, might be fabrication of theirs. I can't have any useful view on the matter--needs far more work, and better knowledge of early Jap. writings on ptg--except to say that it makes sense as writing by Sesson: a bit awkward & provincial, like his ptg; spirited, original; and revealing some knowledge, but decidedly not full knowledge, of Chinese writings on ptg. Haven't time to discuss it thoroughly; will just summarize, quote a few passages.

Ptg, he says, differs from callig. in its capacity to capture the myriad images of the world. Goes on: "If one receives these w. his brush and notes them in his mind, and so completes the ptg, then as one travels on the roads among mts & seas, fixing his mind [on them] and applying his brush, from a single dot the myriad dots (or brushstrokes) will be transformed, like a dragon ascending the clouds, or a tiger treading the wind, the spirit [of the things depicted] will be spontaneously exposed [set forth.]"

Goes on w. technical advice: on speed of brush-mvt, on shadow & sunlight, on a flow of energy from ptr's arm to tip of brush, and on avoiding use of belly of brush. Advises that one should begin w. dense ink and go on to pale ink, and that ptg should be 7 parts dense to 3 parts pale. (Very odd advice, directly contrary to Chinese admonitions. A Kano-school writer advises the same: have we here some clue to a reason for how Jap. ink ptg differs from Chinese?)

He writes of studying old masters, but cautions agst imitating them closely, to the point where the ptg isn't one's own. Ptg must imitate the myriad forms of nature, even though one can adopt from older artists their "abbreviations," by which I think he means their simplifications of form, or conventional forms. He concludes: "But brush-strength is a matter of fixing one's own mind and ideas and then wielding the brush. When it isn't that way, it can't be called one's own ptg. Even though I have studied Sesshu for many years, when I see how far distant my style is from his, [I realize that] somehow, ptg has to be a discipline attained through direction experience [lit. "bones & eyes"] of the landscapes and figures in one's own life."

Without, as I say, being able to have a useful opinion on its authenticity, I would like to believe it's Sesson's own writing, and see nothing inconsistent with his position in Jap. ptg, or his relationship to Chinese traditions. Since it is so early, before he became acquainted w. many great ptgs, Jap. or Ch., it is best read as a statement of intention: what he believes abt ptg, what he aspires to do. Already he writes of being a Sesshu follower; and, although Barbara Ford has argued rightly that there isn't all that much inf. from Sesshu in his works (he could have seen Sesshu ptgs brought to Kamakura by Sesshu's principal pupil Sôen), he must be responding, in some of his works at least, to Sesshu's innovations. There were advantages in making this claim, in eyes of his patrons & clients; advantages in responding to new dev. in style, as I believe he does. To here.

S --. (Burke LS) This ptg, in Burke col., prob. from this early period of 1540s[vi] when Sesson was living in Satake castle town of Ota; Ford provides circumstances under which he could have seen early Ch. ptgs there[vii]. Like Sesshu, he is clearly able to evoke with considerable skill the spaciousness and refined descriptive drawing of Sung ptg. But already also a kind of quirkiness that doesn't appear in Sesshu's works, seen in way hunched forward lean of figure in waterside pavilion at right echoed in ferry boatman at left.

-- S. He also learned from Ming ptg, which was being imported in his time, so that one didn't have to go to China to see it as Sesshu did. By the 1550s Sesson was living in Odawara, where there was considerable trade w. Chinese merchant vessels;[viii] this may have exposed him to more recent dev. in ptg on the mainland. This one based on Sung? design of palace ladies by way of Ming copy, now copied by Sesson? something like that. Awkwardnesses of Ming copy carry over into his.

[vi]Ford dis. p. 22, citing Murase

[vii]Ford article p. 8

[viii]Ford article p. 9

S,S. (Old Sages Gathering Mushrooms; Lü Tung-pin.) I can't say that I share the great enthusiasm that some scholars have for Sesson's figure ptg; famous depiction of Taoist immortal Lü Tung-pin strikes me as not so much witty as clumsy, even inept--as if he had attempted to portray body bent or twisted in religious fervor, messed it up, has odd hump (of buttocks?) projecting to the left which doesn't agree w. splayed feet, etc. Left, one of his many ptgs of Chinese sages, here seen gathering mushrooms. One might see Sesson as artist who, like Pa-ta Shan-jen in China, exploited oddnesses in his style, which were partly the outcome of his use of somewhat debased sources, for effects of eccentricity; and this is true enough of some of his work. But the product of that choice has to seem more deliberate, effective, than this. So, I will leave out his fig. ptgs.

S,S. In Odawara & Kamakura Sesson becomes involved in tea ceremony, produces ptgs of this kind, in manner of Mu-ch'i, which could serve as tea ceremony hangings: haha-chô; radish. Both insc. by abbot of Engakuji, Zen temple in Kamakura.

S,S. Out of these accomplished but unsurprising works Sesson develops the style seen in such ptgs as these: one of crabs & eggplants, another (Gitter col.) of grapes and bamboo. Both are unusual compound subjects, joining things seldom put together. But more importantly, both exhibit the new manner of ink monochrome ptg that I would like to credit to Sesshu. In grapes & bamboo, espec., arbitrary but visually engaging shifts of ink values having nothing to do w. either light & shadow or planes of depth, and an interesting dispersal of forms over the surface. Will see the same in Sesson's splashed-ink LS.

S,S. Details from Winter LS, one of famous pair in Kyoto NM. I show details instead of the whole (which we saw at beginning of lecture) to bring out how expertly Sesson is able to use ink gradations to give depth to groves of trees and volume to earth masses, and to create hollows of space filled w. wintry mists. Figures of fishermen and travelers look alive, interesting, not just conventional signs. He has mastered refined representational techniques of Chinese painting and uses them in original way. Some contact w. Ming ptg probable: other of pair reminiscent of his contemp. Lu Chih. And as in case of Sesshu, works such as this demonstrate that when, by contrast, Sesson does ptgs that offer no such atmospheric space or sensitive descriptive drawing, it is by intent; he is perfectly capable of these.

S,S. The Kyoto NM pair, and the two small ptgs seen here, are my personal favorites among Sesson's works. "Boat in Windstorm," on right, is probably most often reprod. of his ptgs; Jap. scholar Etoh Shun has shown that it is partly derived from a Chinese ptg by a follower of Li T'ang named Lu Ch'ing, which survives only in a copy by Kano Tanyû. But Sesson uses only part of Chinese comp., and in way that doesn't significantly reduce originality of his work. Everyone who sees this little picture is immediately taken with the perfect balance, along with the dynamicism, of the composition. Here I would see some influence of Sesshu's style in the thick, blunt line drawing, which adds to the strength of the design. But the sense of movement and the momentary, the fresh, unhackneyed conception, makes it unlike anything of Sesshu's.

Other ptg, now in Sanso col., a particular favorite of mine, knew it long before Mr. Sanso acquired it. Haunting, mysterious work--nowhere in either Chinese or Japanese painting can we find, to my knowledge, any really comparable composition:

--S. Full moon, strange rocks w. water swirling around them, windblown trees,

-- S. Fisherman in boat among reeds in inlet. Fluidity of forms, way eye is carried smoothly over surfaces and from one element of the picture to the next, set it off from anything Sesshu might do. Way the bend of the fisherman's body is strangely answered in rock (as two fig. answered each other in Burke ptg--this may be Sesson's response to Sesshu motif of facing figures) as well as contrasting thrusts of large and small rocks, all make this, for me, an even more absorbing composition than the better-known "Boat in Windstorm."

These ptgs raise familiar question: if an artist is capable of such achievements, why doesn't he do more of them? Question one often asks of artists, without getting an answer, and not only because they are dead--even living ones seem unable to answer it convincingly. There are a few other Sesson ptgs comparable in their strength and compactness and depth of feeling, notably an album of 8 Views of Hsiao & Hsiang.

S --. But more common among his later works are compositions of a somewhat phantasmagorical nature, such as this section of a screen in the Seattle Art Museum. Some of the pictorial components are the same, but put together in wildly imaginative way, in which parts don't work together smoothly and logically, by artist's intent. Landscape forms swoop and curl,

-- S. Water gushes down oddly, spaces don't connect believably. All this generates a certain excitement, but as in case of wild & eccentric works of Shôhaku, it's an excitement that quickly wears thin--like someone telling a fantastic story that doesn't grip you because you can't believe it.

So, again: why would an artist of Sesson's abilities go in this direction? In the context of his earlier achievements, seems more than a little perverse. Perhaps can best be understood if we think of situation of creative artist confronted w. strongly established classical models in the recent past of his art: in Sesson's case, late style of Sesshu, still being carried on more or less intact by his followers; also, estab. around same time and espec. strong in Kantô region, model of Kenkô Shôkei, or Kei Shoki, which was also being carried on by his followers. How to avoid simply being one of these followers?

A case that comes to my mind when I encounter a situation of this kind is that of the sons of Bach, espec. Wilhelm Friedeman and Karl Philipp Emanuel, both serious and gifted composers confronted w. the massive, conservative, unmatchable model of father J.S. Both seem in some of their compositions to be consciously and determinedly breaking the model, disrupting the classical stability of J.S.'s music, writing music that is highly experimental, often odd, sometimes quirky, too "far out" to set a direction for later composers; not followed up, really. Is something like this behind oddities and aberrant directions of Sesson, espec. in late period?

But parallel not exact; Sesson had solid, stable style of his own that he could have gone on using. Some reason in patronage, perhaps, or psychological bent of artist? Leave for proper specialists.

-- S. I turn finally to Sesson's haboku (properly hatsuboku) sanzui or "splashed ink" landscapes. This is one of pair in YB, in which his bizarre LS style seems to have been carried over into this type.

S --. Other. Hollowed rock, lunging peak, undercut forms, seem less fantastic here, but still a sharp break from Sesshu's haboku LS or imitations of it by followers. Again, as if violating the model.

S,S. Most of Sesson's haboku ptgs are smaller, simpler; these two are good examples. On one hand, draws on familiar reportory of conventional signs that Sesshu and his followers have established as stock items in ptgs of this kind; on other hand, varies compositions, plays against conventions, avoids foursquare character of the Sesshu model with unstable forms and spatial ambiguities.. Also, as in his other small ptgs shown earlier, makes very knowing and effective use of what I want to call the new manner of ink monochrome, with brushstrokes and ink values somewhat divorced from representation. No Chinese artist would paint this way: would violate too many of their implicit rules.

S --. Last slide of day. Sometimes Sesson arranges the familiar elements in dif. combinations, or organizes little quasi-narrative details, such as two fig. who greet each other (or say farewell?) outside gate in lower r., while one traveler approaches on muleback, another? or second servant? behind. Such provocative hints save pictures from routine character that some works by Sesshu's direct and less creative followers fall into. All in all, Sesson benefits greatly from Sesshu's innovations, without, I think, being constrained by them; comes through as highly independent master, versatile, more willing to take risks (and fail sometimes) than Sesshu. A disrupter of classical models and classical stability, including Sesshu's--a healthy artistic development needs both types of artist. Sesson didn't make so great an impact on Japanese ptg as Sesshu, perhaps produced fewer really powerful and authoritative works, so isn't seen as ptr of Sesshu's stature. And that (to the great disappointment of certain anti-Sesshu people in the audience who came expecting to hear me trash him) is a judgement that in the end I think I'm in agreement with. That Sesshu has been praised as a great artist for what now seem to me the wrong reasons shouldn't be held agst him; we can see him differently, as I have tried to do, and still recognize him as a great artist. And that is the final point of this lecture.

Thank you.

CLP 162: 1989 Instructions (handout) for "Painter's Practice" seminar: working methods, potential sources

The Painter's Practice in China: Practical Aspects of the Production and Uses of Paintings in China

Form: we will gather data: cases, information, anecdotes; and from these we will try to piece together an account of our subject. What we are looking for will not be found written out in any systematic way in any of the Chinese sources we will use; that remains for us to do. We could almost define our set of topics as those aspects of Chinese painting that traditional Chinese writers avoid writing about.

Obviously, all the aspects of the "painter's practice" that we will be looking into change from period to period, school to school, etc. No case will be exactly like another. Nevertheless, we must begin by looking for pervasive (not universal) patterns, and later refine these as we find more data and come to better levels of understanding. The point is that without making such a start, we won't know what we are looking for, won't recognize relevant information when we encounter it.

When our data are assembled, we can attempt classifications: types of artist-client relationships, ways in which paintings were commissioned or otherwise requested, etc. We will illustrate these types with examples. Without trying to be comprehensive, we will set up frameworks within which later, more detailed studies of these subjects can be carried out.

Procedure

Together we will gather, from a wide range of sources, clues and scraps of information and illustrative cases that throw light on the topics of the seminar, as these are outlined below. In the beginning stage it will be more efficient if everybody in the seminar gathers data on all the topics, instead of one person pursuing data on one topic (and disregarding data on others contained in the same texts.) Each participant will be responsible for scanning or reading a text or a group or type of texts, to identify in them clues and references to our set of topics; he/she will be responsible also for providing notes on these to the seminar. The data assembled in this way will be indexed in a computer database (already begun, using the material gathered by Shan Guoqiang.)

At some further stage in the seminar, we should come together to consider collectively each of the topics, with each participant summarizing what he or she knows or has gathered about that topic. Participants will make written outlines of their presentations, with bibliographical references that can be used by others. A recorder (who will have to be bilingual, Chinese/English) will keep a written record of the presentations.

At this point, topics for seminar papers (or perhaps articles, for those not enrolled in the seminar, including our Chinese colleagues) will begin to emerge. I would suggest that the papers should not be limited to particular artists or schools or even periods, but should address the phenomena that concern us over longer periods, across boundaries of schools, trying to discern broader patterns. Typical topics might be: the artist's use of assistants and "ghost painters", with joint works (ho-tso ) a sub-topic of this; patterns of commissions, how paintings were ordered or requested, the use of go-betweens; copying, fen-pen and other ways of transmitting designs, compositions, motifs, figure types, etc.; the entertainment of artists, artist-in-residence situations, painting to repay hospitality; and others. Any of these should be possible on the basis of the cases and other data developed in the early stages of the seminar, along with further research.

We will depend heavily on the contributions of our Chinese participants, with their wide knowledge of the field and its bibliography gained through their years of experience. Those who read Chinese more easily than I will be asked to scan the Chinese periodicals for articles that contain valuable information. The database and other materials that we develop will obviously be of a value far beyond the limits of the seminar itself, serving all of us in our research and writing in the future.

Please understand that the listing of topics below, an attempt at breaking down our large area of interest into smaller subject areas, is not intended to cover all the motivations and situations under which Chinese paintings came into existence. We are not ruling out factors of inner motivation in the artists, the factors of "inspiration," the urge to self-expression, the types of situations that match to some degree the Chinese theorists' formulations about the artist "doing paintings to amuse himself," "painting only to give lodging to his feelings," and the like. Nor are we denying that such factors can be important in artistic creations of the kinds that also brought the artist some sort of profit. We are choosing to concentrate, for now, on the practical aspects of Chinese painting, in the conviction that these have been systematically neglected in most of the literature on the subject.

The following is a tentative outline and breakdown of our area of concern by topics and sub-topics, with a few suggested potential sources. This is only a draft for discussion. We should have a more complete outline with better categories before we begin searching for information, classifying it, making it accessible through the database.

I. External (i.e. not "inner") motivations for producing paintings.

A. Commissions (more or less overt and straightforward). Letters to artists (Anne Burkus paper for Cleveland symposium). Ch'iu Ying's letter (Dubosc article in Archives)

B. Other ways in which the client or would-be recipient conveys to the artist his wishes and expectations. Go-betweens. Jao Tsung-i paper on Chu Ta album.

C. Statements in inscriptions of the type: "So-and-so requested (sometimes ling or ming ) a picture [of this subject] from me, and I responded by doing this painting for him."

D. A patron of the artist introduces others to him: Shih-t'ao etc. (Common in Japan: Yoko Woodson dissertation.)

E. Other communications between client and artist.

II. Modes of payment or other reward to the artist

A. Monetary payment (how rare was this, actually?)

B. Gifts, some exchangeable for money? (Paper, silk, etc.) Rice; food; wine.

C. Exchanges of favors; obligations and discharging them. Reciprocity. (My paper on artist-patron transactions.)

D. Hospitality provided by client; the artist-in-residence situation.

E. Artist forced by circumstances to sell paintings.

F. Artist refuses to paint. The reluctant artist. The overworked artist; the impatient client.

G. Artist gives paintings to others to help them. Can be sold by recipient for money.

III. The market; modes of sale.

A. Temple fairs, open markets ("he would hang his paintings in the marketplace for sale"): how did this work? Mounting shops. Painting shops. Other outlets. Michael Sullivan paper for Taipei 1980 conference.

B. Dealers, go-betweens who arranged sales. Chan Ching-feng, Tung-t'u hsüan-lan pien. Wu Ch'i-chen, Shu-hua chi.

C. Types of direct sale from artist to client. (Cheng Hsieh's price-list etc.)

D. Prices of paintings; questions of value.

E. Advisors to collectors.

F. Exhibition of paintings (sales, other.)

IV. Painting for occasions, specific demands, etc.

(Here, there should be a classification of types of paintings by subject categories etc., correlating with the situations in which, or the occasions for which, they were produced. But this subject-area is too large, probably, for us to address as a whole. Still, we can compile in our database a bibliography of studies that deal with this aspect of Chinese painting: Scarlett Jang's work; Chu-hyung Rhi's masters thesis on birthday paintings; writings on topographical painting; Susan Bush's and other papers for Jerome Silbergeld's 1986 CAA session on "Chinese Landscape Painting: Content, Context, and Style" (in binder in 419A); my chapter on "Meanings and Functions in Chinese Landscape Painting," growing out of the seminar on that subject, and the chapter on "Political Themes," growing out of another seminar--both are in my forthcoming Three Alternative Histories of Chinese Painting; and so forth. It will be useful to have all this pulled together.)

V. Sources and transmission of designs and motifs

A. Copying: types and techniques (excluding fang, free or creative imitation, which is outside our subject: we are concerned with copying for practical purposes rather than imitation for aesthetic purposes.)

B. Studio repertory albums? (Ku Chien-lung album in Nelson Gallery etc.) Fen-pen.

C. Woodblock-printed books and their uses. (Again, this is probably too extensive a subject for us to address as a whole; it could be a seminar topic in itself.)

D. Forgeries.

E. Other sources: memory.

VI. Studios, apprentices, assistants, joint productions.

A. Any evidence for studio organization, master-pupil relationships, etc.? (As there is, for instance, for Kano School in Japan.)

B. Using apprentices or assistants for subordinate roles (e.g. doing the coloring after the master has done the basic drawing, from Wu Tao-tzu to Ch'en Hung-shou and beyond.)

C. Joint works with parts assigned to specialists, e.g. faces and figures by portraitists and figure paintings, architectural specialists, etc.

D. "Ghost painters": cases of Chou Ch'en/T'ang Yin; Tung Ch'i-ch'ang; Chin Nung; others.

E. The artist as teacher: earning money by taking students. Kung Hsien, Shih-t'ao, etc.

F. The painter as forger: Wang Hui; who else? Lu Yüan? Shen Shih? Cases of the artist misdating own works?

G. Painting as performance; painting at parties, etc.

H. Painting executed over several days, months,years. Fast vs. slow execution.

I. Eye-witness accounts of artist working.

J. Artist as copyist.

K. Artist as illustrator.

BIBLIOGRAPHY (very preliminary & incomplete; we should generate more bibliography as we go along.)

Technique, Materials, etc.

R. H. van Gulik, Chinese Pictorial Art as Viewed by the Connoisseur. Rome, 1958.

----, trans. Scraps from a Collector's Notebook. Beirut, 1958. Translation of Lu Shih-hua, Shu-hua shuo-ling (part of his Wu Yüeh so-chien shu-hua lu ), 1776.)

Fritz van Briessen, The Way of the Brush: Painting Techniques of China and Japan. Rutland, Vermont, and Tokyo, 1962.

Yü Feian, Chung-kuo hua yen-se ti yen-chiu , Beijing, 1955. Trans. by Jerome Silbergeld and Amy McNair, Chinese Painting Colors: Studies of Their Preparation and Application in Traditional and Modern Times, Hong Kong and Seattle, 1988. (See also Herbert Franke translation of Wang I text on portraiture, in Oriental Art III/1: includes section on "Technique of Painting in Colors.")

Laurence Sickman, "Introduction" to: Chinese Calligraphy and Painting in the Collection of John M. Crawford, Jr., New York, 1962. Also "Some Chinese Brushes," in Technical Studies in the Field of the Fine Arts VII, 1939 (Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Mass.)

Benjamin March, Some Technical Terms of Chinese Painting, Baltimore, 1935.

See also passage on Wang Yüan-ch'i's practice of painting, as observed by a contemporary, in Siren, Chinese Painting, V, 204-5 (from Chang Keng, Kuo-ch'ao hua-cheng lu .)

Forgeries

Erich Zürcher, "Imitation and Forgery in Ancient Chinese Painting and Calligraphy," Oriental art I/4, 1955.

Wen Fong, "The Problem of Forgeries in Chinese Painting," Artibus Asiae XXV, 1962, pp. 95-119.

Chinese Writings on Connoisseurship etc.

Chao Hsi-ku, Tung-t'ien ch'ing-lu chi , ca. 1230. In MSTS I/9.

Kao Lien, Yen-hsien ch'ing-shang (1591). In: MSTS III/10.

Wen Chen-heng, Chang-wu chih , late Ming. Ch. 5 on painting. In: MS:TS III/9. ("Calendar for displaying of scrolls" from this translated by van Gulik in Pictorial Art pp. 4-7.)

Chang Ying-wen, Ch'ing-pi ts'ang , edited by his son Chang Ch'ou (Chang Ch'ien-te ). In: MSTS I/8.

Ko-ku yao-lun (1388 version by Tsao Chao , augmented edition 1462 by Shu Min and Wang Tso ), book on antiquities for collectors. Trans. as: Sir Percival David, Chinese Connoisseurship: The Ko Ku Yao Lun, London, 1971.

Chan Chin-feng (1528-1602), Tung-t'u hsüan-lan pien

In: MSTS V/1.

Patronage, Relations with Clients, etc.

James Cahill, "Types of Artist-Patron Transactions in Chinese Painting." Lecture given at Nelson Gallery, Kansas City, Nov. 1980; to be included in Artists and Patrons: Some Economic and Social Aspects of Chinese Painting, forthcoming.

Huang Yung-ch'üan , "Cheng Min 'P'ai-ching-chai jih-chi ch'u-t'an" . Paper for 1984 symposium in Hefei; pub. in Meishu yanjiu 1984/3, pp. 39-50. (Other painters' diaries? Li Jih-hua, Wei-shui-hsüan jih-chi ? Kuo Pi's diary, Yüan dynasty? (article by Richard Rudolph in Ars Orientalis III, 1959.)

Cheng-chi (Ginger) Hsü, Patronage and the Economic Life of the Artist in 18th Century Yangchou Painting. Doctoral dissertation, Berkeley, 1988.

--- "Cheng Hsieh's Price List: Painting as a Source of Income in Yangchow." Paper for symposium on Ch'ien-lung-period painting in Phoenix, Arizona, October 1985.

Scarlett Ju-yu Jang, Issues of Public Service in the Themes of Chinese Court Painting, doctoral dissertation, Berkeley, 1989.

Hongnam Kim, "Chou Liang-kung and His Tu-hua lu Painters: Social and Economic Aspects of Mid-seventeenth Century Chinese Painting." Paper for "Artists and Patrons" workshop, 1980. (Information on prices of paintings. For prices of old paintings, see also Kao Shih-ch'i, Ch'ing-ho shu-hua mu, and P'an Cheng-wei, T'ing-fan-lou shu-hua chi, in MSTS IV/7 ; what he paid? in index at beginning of book.)

Julia Andrews, "Landscape Painting and Patronage in Early Qing Yangzhou." Paper for CAA session, NYC 1986, on "Chinese Landscape Painting: Content, Context, and Style."

Richard Vinograd, "Situation and Response in Traditional Chinese Scholar Painting." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism XLVI/3, Spring 1988, pp. 365-74.

Jean-Pierre Dubosc, "A Letter and Fan Painting by Ch'iu Ying." Archives of Asian Art XXVIII, 1974-75, pp. 108-112.

Miscellaneous

James Cahill, Three Alternative Histories of Chinese Painting. Lawrence, Kansas, University of Kansas, The Spencer Art Museum, 1988.

Chin Yüan (late Ch'ien-lung period), Shih-pai chai shu-hua lu Manuscript copy in Stanford library. Fascinating & problem-ridden text. (Lovell #69; without author or date.) Needs work.

Michael Sullivan, "Some Notes on the Social HIstory of Chinese Art." Paper for International Conference on Sinology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, 1980. Draft, manuscript.

Wai-kam Ho, "Late Ming Literati: Their Artistic World and Life." Essay for The Chinese Scholar's Studio exhibition catalog.

Other Relevant Papers

Ann Burkus, "Invitations to Paint: Chen Hongshou's Birthday Pictures and the Question of His Professional Status." Paper for Cleveland symposium, May 1989. (Binder in 419A)

Ann Clapp, "The Commemorative Paintings of T'ang Yin." Paper for same symposium as above.

Ellen Johnston Laing, "Qiu Ying and the Xiang Family." Paper for same symposium as above.

Susan Bush, "Landscape as Subject Matter: Different Sung Approaches." Paper for CAA session in NYC 1986 on "Chinese Landscape Painting: Context, Content, and Style."

Julia Murray, "The Nü hsiao ching and Sung Textual Illustration: Problems of Reconstruction and Artistic Context." Unpublished paper.

Peter Sturman, "The Auspicious Image from Hui-tsung to Kao-tsung and Mi Yu-jen." Paper for CAA session, February 1987.

Appendix: Notes from Shan Guolin’s Talk, Dec. 14, 1989

Mostly based on materials in Shanghai Mus.; inscriptions, mostly mid-Ming or later. Colophons, letters. Hope these will be use for for research. Organized under four topics.

I. Painting as a Commodity. How painter values economic aspect of painting from mid-Ming. Concept of mercantile value in mind of artist. How this affected their work.

Most will be about literati: available information. Mercantile ideas already current w. profes. artists earlier; Ming and later w. literati.

Since Sung: literati believed ptg was properly for self-amusement; selling was degrading. Common practice: exchange of ptgs & gifts. SEparate from common social exchange of gifts: more practical, with gain as motive.

- Wang Ku-hsiang wrote official, Wang T’ing, 1523, asking him to inscribe album for high-ranking official in Board of War., Very polite. Lung-chü? assistant, assumed position of Prefect of Kaifent (?) Gift exchange: Wang Ku-hsiang and Wang T’ing were Suchou people; recipient Shantung.

- Hsing T’ung bought works from Chu Shih-lu (?). Hsing sold own calligraphy in south for money; meanwhile collected works of another calligrapher. Also collected earlier & famous callig. for purpose of resale. Dealer sold those for him in south.

Commodity exchange of works of art in late Ming quite common. Two letters. (1) Hsing to Chu, asking for 16 papers + 20 fans of calligraphy; he collected these, also old masters such as Chao M-f, to re-sell through dealer. (2) Wrote to person whom Shan thinks was dealer/agent.

- Ch’en Hung-shou inscription on ptg called Butterfly in Spring Wind; he records that he exchanged paintings for other things. Long story: originally, Ch’en presented ptg. by Wen Cheng-ming to a certain Mou-chai. Later, friend of Ch’en’s fell sick; Ch’en borrowed 1 tael (liang) of silver from Mou-chai. But later, Ch’en (perceiving himself as literatus) felt uneasy about this; did album leaf in boneless style to repay Mou-chai. Ch’en then had to borrow another tael of silver to buy rice for friend. Finally, ptd this scroll for Mou-chai. [Interesting that he writes all this down on the ptg!] Colophon by Kao Shih-ch’i.

Despite fact that Ch’en trying to get around stigma of commercialism, in fact actually treating ptgs much like commodities. Exchanges of this kind could go on forever, w/o uncomfortable feelings: not same as selling. (Gifts, loans unrepaid; Ch’en keeps one step ahead.)

- Letter from Ling Chen-ch’u to Ch’ien Ku: asks Ch’ien Ku to paint 20 album leaves, two hanging scrolls, one framed ptg; paid him: . Ends letter w. following words: “Please receive & reply that you have received.” Ch’ien Ku was highly-regarded student of Wen Cheng-ming; but even such a literati ptr as he sold ptgs fairly openly--

2. Ming (mid to late): Go-between.

- In previous case (Ling & Ch’ien), toward end of letter, Ling asks a reward for acting as go-between/agent: “My health has been bad recently; my friend died, also brother; comfort me by giving me some ptgs in styles of old masters, Ching & Kuan, Ma & Hsia.”Assumption: since this appears twd. end of Ling’s letter, probably asking this as reward for favor he’s doing Ch’ien Ku.

- Hsü Hsiao-lien . Second letter of Hsing T’ung spoke of him as person in south who acted as agent for him. This phenomenon continues into Ch’ing. When Yün Shou-p’ing in Hangchou, asked nephew to deliver ptgs to patron, collect money for him. (In Yün Nan-t’ien shu-hua chi, Shanghai Mus. publication) Inscription on ptg?

- Wang Shu , K’ang-hsi to Ch’ien-lung calligrapher; also P’an T’ien-shou. Wang Shu’s letter: his second and sixth younger brothers asking them to find ptgs by Wang Hui and Yün Shou-p’ing, buy them for him. Letter addressed to his 6th younger brother, in it asked him to go to 2nd, ask him for money. Probably had some money in 2nd brother’s hands for this purpose.

- P’an Kung-shou letter to his third brother saying he was in tight state of finances, asking him to send money--uses terms suggesting that money previously deposited, he’s now getting it out. Uses commercial terminology.

Before Ch’ien-lung period, use of go-betweens convenient way to use friendship to facilitate exchanges. From Ch’ien-lung on, institutionalized, more openly commercial.

3. Kinds of patrons; painter doing ptgs according to needs of market

Influence of patrons on painters: commonly believed to begin in Yangchou school in 18th cent. But that would make late; already common by middle to late Ming. Popularizing of literati styles.

Letter from Ling Chen-ch’u to Ch’ien Ku, mentioned earlier, mentions commission by one Wang Chün: Kuan-yin in ink style; other was “Dirge of Autumn” after Ou-yang Hsiu’s poem. Request/order/commission sent through agent. If we take this case to bear on pattern of Ch’ien Ku’s painting, very repetitious: figures, etc. repeated. General understanding was that ptr. loved this topic and did it over & over therefore. But now seems that patron played part.

- Hsing T’ung again: letter. Expresses his view that in society, calligraphy based on Chin style espec. highly valued. For instance, Callig. works by Chao Meng-fu in own style worth only half as much as Chao M-f in style of/copying some Chin masters.

- Relationship between dealers in ptgs and literati ptrs underwent changes in mid-Ch’ing. Literati ptrs in closer relationship w. dealers, even humble twd. them. Some practical considerations: had to sell ptgs (Ch’ien-lung to Chia-ch’ing).

- Letter from P’an Kung-shou to ? (member of his family) saying: some birthday ptgs I want you to sell to dealer in brushes & ink etc. named Lin Hao-sheng . When he comes, be polite to him. Shows respect for dealers.

4. Prices of ptgs & calligraphy

Not much info. on prices. But some documents not believable. Chang Keng’s Kuo-ch’ao hua-cheng lu: case of ptr named Chou Hsün, put ptg of dragon in Huang-hao-lou w. price of 100 taels of silver. [Etc.: waits for person to appear who is willing to pay that much; when he appears, gives him ptg for far less: only wanted to find someone who valued his ptg that much.] Story could be more-or-less true, with price exaggerated.

- Another: story about Huang Shen. Supposed to be given woman for painting. Shan believes woman worth too much, story unlikely.

- Prices of ptg and callig. in mid + late Ming fluctuated a lot. No standard for what certain ptg or callig would fetch. Sometimes payment symbolic, can’t use in commercial sense to understand other cases. [No way to make sense of prices in this period.]

- Chin Tsung , mid-Ming calligrapher. Sometimes so-called charges for ptgs was nominal. Chin Tsung was 21 years yhounger than Wen Cheng-ming; wrote letter to Tsung Lu: ptg you requested for your child has been completed. Don’t want any payment; but ask (certain official) for medicine for eyes. Didn’t want anything more.

- Case of Ch’en H-s handscroll (in photos, discussed above.) Only one tael of silver (loan) Value of ptg must have been much higher. (Bird & bamboo; narcissus; rock, butterfly, and flowering branch. Late Ming-early Ch’ing: price paid for ptg was largely nominal. One tael of silver didn’t reflect real value. But by time of Cheng Hsieh, more openly commercial. Artist accepting nominal payment still had client obligated to him; would benefit some time in future. Case of Ch’ien Ku for Ling: more reasonable price. 20 album leaves, 2 hanging scrolls, 1 fan ptg. For this (as above, payment.) Shan compares w. contemporary prices: = 18 tan of rice, or 1620 kg. of rice! + 2 catties of tea.

Cheng P’an-chiao: first who dared to formally record price list. He has t’i-pa in Yang-chou ts’a-tse chüeh? Refers back to Huang Shen case: woman for painting. Case involving Cheng Hsieh recorded in his colophons: Young girl named Yao, teen-ager, daughter of tea-shop owner. Cheng encountered her soon after death of wife. Two talked, mutually attracted, said would marry. Cheng took exam, didn’t get job, too poor to marry. Girl left waiting. Friend of Cheng visited girl’s family(?), heard story, asked to tell Cheng: can’t wait, will marry daughter to someone else. Friend so moved he paid 500 taels for her, sent her to Cheng. (Somebody else had already offered 1000 taels for her.)

According to record written by Cheng Hsieh, ptrs listed: Wang Shu, Chin Nung, Li Shan, Huang Shu-ku, Cheng Hsieh, Kao Hsiang, Kao Feng-han: these exchanged his ptgs for money; income ranged from several hundred taels of silver per annum (at least) to 1000 in good years. Now we must consider what this means. Superintendent, 3rd-rank official, in charge of salt transport, received 130 taels of silver per year. County magistrate: official income below 100 taels. Improved after Yung-cheng period: special pension, lit. means “nourish uncorruptibility.” Magistrate could get 1000 taels of silver. But altho that true, 1000 for ptr still good income. [Chris Reed: a lot of “extra income” came from assistants, mu-fu, who collected for magistrate: “meeting charges” etc.]

Two problems from this.

- On basis of previous records, ptrs like Cheng had to be very prolific. His price-list: 4 taels of silver for medium-size hanging scroll. So had to paint 250 of these to make 1000 taels of silver. Leads to problem of quality: how to keep up? Also to problem of tai-pi, ghost ptrs. We know Chin Nung used them. All relate to attitudes twd artistic creation.

- Also: Date for previous record by Cheng was 1748 (CL 12), still official in Shantung. So even at that time, earned abt 1000 taels of silver thru selling ptgs. AFter he retired, went to Yangchou and lived by ptgs; no loss of face: natural. Also natural development of society: increasing commercialization.

To sum up: we know that production of ptgs from mid-Ming to later Ming closely related to commodity exchange; natural development; had tremendous impact on all aspects of artistic creation.

CLP 155: 2006 "Wen Fong and Me." Symposium honoring Wen Fong Princeton

Wen Fong and Me

The proper place to start is our first meeting. I came back to the Freer Gallery, where I would finish my dissertation and begin a curatorship, after two years abroad (Fall ’54 to Fall ’56), to hear two pieces of rather alarming news.

First: a new major collector had appeared: John Crawford, whose background of knowledge was in old and rare books, but who now was buying old Chinese calligraphy and paintings, most of them coming from Chang Ta-ch’ien. That sounded like an infallible recipe for disaster. But it wasn’t, because he was being advised by an intermediary with a very good eye, Joseph Seo (who later disappeared: if someone knows where he is, I'd like to learn.)

Second: a new high-powered young specialist in Chinese painting had appeared on the scene, teaching at Princeton, who was setting out to revolutionize the study of Chinese painting. No one who was himself meaning to do just that could hear this news without a shiver: how will we two get along? Will we be adversaries and enemies, in the pattern established by the generation before us, like Loehr and Karlgren, or Lippe and Priest, or Siren and everybody else? Again, disaster was averted; it turned out that we liked and respected each other, even as we argued and fought, and we have gone on doing that now for more than fifty years. And that, Wen Fong old friend (and all you others), is what I'm here to talk about.

Wen Fong at that time, I learned, was holding a seminar on Yuan painting at Princeton—Li Chu-tsing was in it, for one--and since this was an easy bus-ride from D.C., I came at his invitation to attend a seminar session and talk about my dissertation topic, Wu Chen. As I told people afterwards, I felt in his seminar like a Republican in a Communist cell. I had judged perhaps a dozen or fifteen extant Wu Chen paintings to be genuine; Wen and his students had reduced his surviving oeuvre to a single one, a “Fisherman on Lake Dongting” picture. Few Yuan-period artists, in their view, could claim more than one surviving work; Qian Xuan was permitted two, since the Princeton Art Museum had recently acquired a lovely small picture of a sparrow with a Qian Xuan seal on it. It may surprise some younger students today to learn that at that stage in our careers, Wen Fong was the doubter and I the credulous one. Changing places as we have was, of course, only a healthy development; it would have been stultifying for us to take fixed positions and stay with them.

Later, Wen Fong brought groups of his students to D.C. to see paintings at the Freer and sometimes at my home. I remember Bill Wu, delegated (I guessed) as the youngest and newest to speak for the group, asking me something like: “Why do you deal only with the superficial aspects of style, instead of the deeper ones?” (That at least was what I understood as the thrust of his question, which may have been phrased more politely.) On one trip Wen Fong and I began to argue over priority for the two versions of the “Wu Congyuan” Eighty-seven Immortals scroll, the one owned by C. C. Wang vs. Xu Beihong’s, which we knew from a scroll reproduction. I don’t remember which side either of us was on; but I do recall that Wen Fong missed his bus back to Princeton in order to stay on and try to convince me that his side (whichever it was) was right. And the important thing, for Chinese painting studies, is that we were making arguments based on visual analyses, and that we cared passionately about "getting it right." For some years, our project was to establish a coherent style-history, especially for Song-Yuan and earlier landscape; if that project has been abandoned, as I’ve had several occasions to complain recently, it's at great loss to the field—whether or not irreparable remains to be seen, obviously by those younger than myself, although I have my deep fears. (If anyone supplies me with funding and technical assistance, I will be glad to devote myself to putting my version of it into a video series, in the manner of Kenneth Clark, while there is still time. Wen Fong should do the same.)

Wen Fong had made a major contribution to that project in the 1955 monograph, written collaboratively with Sherman Lee, Streams and Moontains Without End, about a landscape handscroll acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1953. No Chinese painting had, up to that time, been subjected to such a thorough and systematic application of dating criteria, with comparisons to more safely datable materials, including a loosely datable fragment from Kocha (as I recall). I don't know how much of this was Wen's contribution and how much Sherman's, but since some of the methodology resembled the "visual and structural principles" that Wen Fong was then advocating as the basis for constructing period styles, I credited much of that part of it to him.

A major focus of our studies and arguments in those early years was the question of authenticity in the paintings of Qian Xuan—I had been responsible for buying a handscroll for the Freer ("Yang Kuei-fei Mounting a Horse") that Wen didn’t believe in, and I had published an article on it in Archives of Chinese Art. Wen Fong wrote an article on authenticity problems in Qian Xuan’s works for Art Bulletin; the original text, of which he sent me a copy in advance, was considerably more contentious, even polemical, than the one finally published. My first response was: great, here we go, gloves off. But after more correspondence and thinking we both pulled back, and the article was published in milder form.

One might have expected that we would somehow come to represent insider's and outsider's approaches—Wen Fong with his background in Shanghai, me from a small town in Northern California. But he was the one who was always citing Panowsky or Weitzmann, while I was searching Chinese texts in putting together a first coherent account of literati painting theory. It was not to be so simple. It could be argued that here, too, we have switched places, he moving more toward positions rooted in the Chinese tradition, I away from them. But that, too, would over-simplify.

In 1963 I organized the first grand gathering of Chinese painting specialists, taking advantage of most of them being in New York for the opening of the Crawford Collection showing at the Morgan Library. The event, titled "Chinese Art Treasures Post-mortem Conference," took place over two days in the auditorium of Asia House Gallery. Most of the leading authorities of that time were there, arguing questions of authenticity and dating for paintings that had been in the great Chinese Art Treasures exhibition of 1961-62. Wen Fong at that point in his career was still decidedly the skeptic: he spoke at length about quite a few of the paintings, mostly arguing for later datings, and when the great Guo Xi "Early Spring" of 1072 appeared on the screen, he gave a number of reasons why it could not be an early work and must date from the Ming, the time of Zhu Duan. Fortunately, I had brought a lot of comparative slides in anticipation of such arguments, and was able to put the Stockholm Zhu Duan beside "Early Spring" to let the audience decide for themselves. But others of Wen's arguments were very good; and of course "Early Spring" was later to become one of his monuments, about which he would write penetratingly in the Possessing the Past catalog and elsewhere. And I myself was making comparable mistakes—several of the works in my Chinese Painting book, for instance, I would not date so early today. We were hopeful in 1963 that our widely disparate datings were symptomatic of an early stage in the development of our field. But they proved not to be; at the Gu Kaizhi "Admonitions" symposium in London almost forty years later we were still about as many centuries apart on that great work, but in reverse: Wen Fong now for the early date, I for the later.

After I moved from the Freer to Berkeley in 1965, Wen Fong and I came together less often, but there were occasional and interesting exchanges. When I traveled to the East Coast in 1971 with a seminar of eight graduate students to work on the “Restless Landscape” exhibition of late Ming painting, we visited Princeton. As it happened, all my students were women, and all his (or nearly all) at that time were men. I had a vision of a Gilbert and Sullivan-like scene in which his group would sing of “visual and structural principles” in lusty baritone and tenor voices, and mine would respond, as sopranos and contraltos, with the doctrines they had learned from me, after which they would all join in perfect harmony, as the French and Italian musical modes are joined in a piece by Couperin, and fall into each other’s arms, reconciling these two schools of Chinese painting studies. I'm sorry to say that nothing of the kind happened. I learned only later that East Coast people were referring to us, because of the Berkeleyan leftward leanings of some of my students, as “Cahill and his Red Detachment of Women.”

When I chaired a Chinese Old Painting delegation for a month-long tour of China in the fall of 1977, Wen Fong was one of our number, and served as unofficial liaison with important Chinese scholars there. Unofficial because, at the pre-trip planning meeting in D.C., when I was suddenly and unexpectedly informed that I must appoint a co-chair, I looked around the table and found myself facing a daunting triad: Nelson Wu, Wen Fong, Wai-kam Ho. Thinking fast, I said "Ellen! Will you be my co-chair?" Ellen Laing was an excellent co-chair, but it was Wen Fong who at crucial moments utilized to good effect the special language and diplomatic skills he had that we lacked, or at least I did.

Because of his heavy responsibilities at both Princeton and the Met, Wen Fong always seemed busier, more pressed for time, than the rest of us; he was the one who would fly in on the morning of the symposium (or sometimes later), deliver his paper, speak imposingly and at length in the discussion session, then fly off again for some urgent meeting, leaving us landlocked mortals to hang around through the latter days of the symposium, which. like other latter days, tend to slip into decline. Sometimes he was able to stay longer, and if we were lucky, he would be accompanied by Connie, whose presence always brightened these occasions. Both of them were with us for the Anhui School symposium in Hefei in 1984, or at least for part of it, and Wen and Connie and their daughter Serena joined in the post-symposium travel and climbing of Huangshan. Serena, as I remember, was engaged in composing poetry, and we talked about that. I also remember gratefully the Bada Shanren symposium in Nanchang in 1988, when, after both Lin Shuzhong and Wang Shiqing had given up on reading the Chinese text of my dense and overlong paper, Wen Fong stepped in and rescued me by part-reading, part-summarizing the rest.

Our switching of roles in our later careers--me doubting more and he accepting more—was, if not dictated, certainly affected strongly by our job changes: me moving from museum back to academia, he (without lessening his professorial functions) taking on the responsibility for building the interlocked painting collections at Princeton and the Met. I remember, in describing that great shift to someone, using as an analogy the case of the young political science professor who can make idealistic theoretical arguments before he himself takes public office, but not so easily afterwards. Roderick Whitfield describes, in his Orientations article, the shock that he and Wen Fong's other students felt when they observed how the surviving oeuvre of Ni Zan ballooned suddenly from the solitary Rongxi Studio picture recognized by Wen Fong the professor to the strikingly larger group acquired and published by Wen Fong the curator. But in the end, in spite of some perhaps unavoidable controversies, these collections--notably the Elliott Family, Douglas Dillon, and Tang Family collections, but also, in large part, those of Earl Morse and Arthur M. Sackler--are major monuments to Wen Fong's success in a very perilous pursuit through a veritable minefield. Some of his acquisitions have inspired major studies in his students' dissertations—Dick Barnhart's Li Gonglin, Shih Shou-ch'ien's Zhao Mengfu, Freda Murck's Xiao-Xiang study, Mike Hearn's "Southern Tours," are examples that come quickly to mind.

Over the years I would hear stories of Wen Fong's skills in negotiating high-tension situations in museum or university politics, and admire them from afar—these are just the areas in which I myself am famously ineffective. The scene, for instance, at a summit-level meeting of the Met's departmental curators, described to me as a nest of contending feudatories, in which Wen Fong had to persuade the others, and the director, to forego some of their own future acquisition funds to allow his department to acquire the Packard Collection. The Japanese galleries at the Met, rather undistinguished before, testify to the outcome. Mike Hearn's article in the latest Orientations lists other, similar successes, and one can only guess at the costs they exacted on Wen Fong—not least, judging from the illustrations to that article, having to spend so much of his life wearing a tuxedo.

Standing out among his academic triumphs is the decision he made, at a crucial moment (as I heard the story), to give up a faculty position that would have relieved him of much undergraduate teaching in order to save Shûjirô Shimada from a very bad predicament and keep him at Princeton. And, of course, there is Wen Fong's success in obtaining funds to attract and sustain good students from the U.S. and abroad. I admired these successes, as I say, from afar, while continuing myself to occupy an underfunded, non-chaired position that left even my best students scrabbling to survive. I used to tell prospective recruits to our program about the Daoist fisherman who fished with no bait on his hook, wanting to catch only those fish that were really eager to be caught. Fortunately, and against the odds, this enforced stratagem worked; I am certainly not complaining. Anyway, I never liked wearing a tuxedo.

I nevertheless should congratulate Wen on producing such a large and distinguished group of students, and for his success in placing them in good jobs, especially on the East Coast. All of the East Coast, that is. And some distance inland. And here and there (especially if we include Yale grads as second-generation Princetonians) on the West Coast as well. Not to speak of Europe and Taiwan. And now Freda has been teaching at Beida, and Wen himself serving as consultant for a new program at Qinghua-- Well. The sun never sets.

I haven't time to list all the large-scale international gatherings Wen Fong has organized and presided over; his and Freda's "Words and Images" symposium of 1991, dedicated to a badly ailing John Crawford, was perhaps my own favorite. His success in bringing senior Chinese specialists to these has benefited our field by helping to strengthen scholarly relations with China. (I say this even though, at the most recent one in which I myself participated, the 1998 "Issues of Authenticity" at the Met, I found myself facing a rather sternly disapproving lineup of them in the front row.) And I will leave it for others to list and extol Wen's Fong's scholarly writings, also immensely impressive. My role here has been to been to talk about our friendship and our interactions, and I believe I have done enough of that. Congratulations, Wen old friend, on a long and illustrious career, with warmest hopes for your continuing it over many more years.

The proper place to start is our first meeting. I came back to the Freer Gallery, where I would finish my dissertation and begin a curatorship, after two years abroad (Fall ’54 to Fall ’56), to hear two pieces of rather alarming news.First: a new major collector had appeared: John Crawford, whose background of knowledge was in old and rare books, but who now was buying old Chinese calligraphy and paintings, most of them coming from Chang Ta-ch’ien. That sounded like an infallible recipe for disaster. But it wasn’t, because he was being advised by an intermediary with a very good eye, Joseph Seo (who later disappeared: if someone knows where he is, I'd like to learn.)Second: a new high-powered young specialist in Chinese painting had appeared on the scene, teaching at Princeton, who was setting out to revolutionize the study of Chinese painting. No one who was himself meaning to do just that could hear this news without a shiver: how will we two get along? Will we be adversaries and enemies, in the pattern established by the generation before us, like Loehr and Karlgren, or Lippe and Priest, or Siren and everybody else? Again, disaster was averted; it turned out that we liked and respected each other, even as we argued and fought, and we have gone on doing that now for more than fifty years. And that, Wen Fong old friend (and all you others), is what I'm here to talk about.Wen Fong at that time, I learned, was holding a seminar on Yuan painting at Princeton—Li Chu-tsing was in it, for one--and since this was an easy bus-ride from D.C., I came at his invitation to attend a seminar session and talk about my dissertation topic, Wu Chen. As I told people afterwards, I felt in his seminar like a Republican in a Communist cell. I had judged perhaps a dozen or fifteen extant Wu Chen paintings to be genuine; Wen and his students had reduced his surviving oeuvre to a single one, a “Fisherman on Lake Dongting” picture. Few Yuan-period artists, in their view, could claim more than one surviving work; Qian Xuan was permitted two, since the Princeton Art Museum had recently acquired a lovely small picture of a sparrow with a Qian Xuan seal on it. It may surprise some younger students today to learn that at that stage in our careers, Wen Fong was the doubter and I the credulous one. Changing places as we have was, of course, only a healthy development; it would have been stultifying for us to take fixed positions and stay with them.Later, Wen Fong brought groups of his students to D.C. to see paintings at the Freer and sometimes at my home.

I remember Bill Wu, delegated (I guessed) as the youngest and newest to speak for the group, asking me something like: “Why do you deal only with the superficial aspects of style, instead of the deeper ones?” (That at least was what I understood as the thrust of his question, which may have been phrased more politely.) On one trip Wen Fong and I began to argue over priority for the two versions of the “Wu Congyuan” scroll, the one owned by C. C. Wang vs. Xu Beihong’s, which we knew from a scroll reproduction. I don’t remember which side either of us was on; but I do recall that Wen Fong missed his bus back to Princeton in order to stay on and try to convince me that his side (whichever it was) was right. And the important thing, for Chinese painting studies, is that we were making arguments based on visual analyses, and that we cared passionately about "getting it right." For some years, our project was to establish a coherent style-history, especially for Song-Yuan and earlier landscape; if that project has been abandoned, as I’ve had several occasions to complain recently, it's at great loss to the field—whether or not irreparable remains to be seen, obviously by those younger than myself, although I have my deep fears. (If anyone supplies me with funding and technical assistance, I will be glad to devote myself to putting my version of it into a video series, in the manner of Kenneth Clark, while there is still time. Wen Fong should do the same.)Wen Fong had made a major contribution to that project in the 1955 monograph, written collaboratively with Sherman Lee, , about a landscape handscroll acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1953. No Chinese painting had, up to that time, been subjected to such a thorough and systematic application of dating criteria, with comparisons to more safely datable materials, including a loosely datable fragment from Kocha (as I recall). I don't know how much of this was Wen's contribution and how much Sherman's, but since some of the methodology resembled the "visual and structural principles" that Wen Fong was then advocating as the basis for constructing period styles, I credited much of that part of it to him.A major focus of our studies and arguments in those early years was the question of authenticity in the paintings of Qian Xuan—I had been responsible for buying a handscroll for the Freer ("Yang Kuei-fei Mounting a Horse") that Wen didn’t believe in, and I had published an article on it in .

Wen Fong wrote an article on authenticity problems in Qian Xuan’s works for ; the original text, of which he sent me a copy in advance, was considerably more contentious, even polemical, than the one finally published. My first response was: great, here we go, gloves off. But after more correspondence and thinking we both pulled back, and the article was published in milder form.One might have expected that we would somehow come to represent insider's and outsider's approaches—Wen Fong with his background in Shanghai, me from a small town in Northern California. But he was the one who was always citing Panowsky or Weitzmann, while I was searching Chinese texts in putting together a first coherent account of literati painting theory. It was not to be so simple. It could be argued that here, too, we have switched places, he moving more toward positions rooted in the Chinese tradition, I away from them. But that, too, would over-simplify.In 1963 I organized the first grand gathering of Chinese painting specialists, taking advantage of most of them being in New York for the opening of the Crawford Collection showing at the Morgan Library. The event, titled "Chinese Art Treasures Post-mortem Conference," took place over two days in the auditorium of Asia House Gallery. Most of the leading authorities of that time were there, arguing questions of authenticity and dating for paintings that had been in the great exhibition of 1961-62. Wen Fong at that point in his career was still decidedly the skeptic: he spoke at length about quite a few of the paintings, mostly arguing for later datings, and when the great Guo Xi "Early Spring" of 1072 appeared on the screen, he gave a number of reasons why it could not be an early work and must date from the Ming, the time of Zhu Duan. Fortunately, I had brought a lot of comparative slides in anticipation of such arguments, and was able to put the Stockholm Zhu Duan beside "Early Spring" to let the audience decide for themselves. But others of Wen's arguments were very good; and of course "Early Spring" was later to become one of his monuments, about which he would write penetratingly in the catalog and elsewhere. And I myself was making comparable mistakes—several of the works in my book, for instance, I would not date so early today. We were hopeful in 1963 that our widely disparate datings were symptomatic of an early stage in the development of our field. But they proved not to be; at the Gu Kaizhi "Admonitions" symposium in London almost forty years later we were still about as many centuries apart on that great work, but in reverse: Wen Fong now for the early date, I for the later.

After I moved from the Freer to Berkeley in 1965, Wen Fong and I came together less often, but there were occasional and interesting exchanges. When I traveled to the East Coast in 1971 with a seminar of eight graduate students to work on the “Restless Landscape” exhibition of late Ming painting, we visited Princeton. As it happened, all my students were women, and all his (or nearly all) at that time were men. I had a vision of a Gilbert and Sullivan-like scene in which his group would sing of “visual and structural principles” in lusty baritone and tenor voices, and mine would respond, as sopranos and contraltos, with the doctrines they had learned from me, after which they would all join in perfect harmony, as the French and Italian musical modes are joined in a piece by Couperin, and fall into each other’s arms, reconciling these two schools of Chinese painting studies.

I'm sorry to say that nothing of the kind happened. I learned only later that East Coast people were referring to us, because of the Berkeleyan leftward leanings of some of my students, as “Cahill and his Red Detachment of Women.”When I chaired a Chinese Old Painting delegation for a month-long tour of China in the fall of 1977, Wen Fong was one of our number, and served as unofficial liaison with important Chinese scholars there. Unofficial because, at the pre-trip planning meeting in D.C., when I was suddenly and unexpectedly informed that I must appoint a co-chair, I looked around the table and found myself facing a daunting triad: Nelson Wu, Wen Fong, Wai-kam Ho. Thinking fast, I said "Ellen! Will you be my co-chair?" Ellen Laing was an excellent co-chair, but it was Wen Fong who at crucial moments utilized to good effect the special language and diplomatic skills he had that we lacked, or at least I did.Because of his heavy responsibilities at both Princeton and the Met, Wen Fong always seemed busier, more pressed for time, than the rest of us; he was the one who would fly in on the morning of the symposium (or sometimes later), deliver his paper, speak imposingly and at length in the discussion session, then fly off again for some urgent meeting, leaving us landlocked mortals to hang around through the latter days of the symposium, which. like other latter days, tend to slip into decline. Sometimes he was able to stay longer, and if we were lucky, he would be accompanied by Connie, whose presence always brightened these occasions. Both of them were with us for the Anhui School symposium in Hefei in 1984, or at least for part of it, and Wen and Connie and their daughter Serena joined in the post-symposium travel and climbing of Huangshan. Serena, as I remember, was engaged in composing poetry, and we talked about that. I also remember gratefully the Bada Shanren symposium in Nanchang in 1988, when, after both Lin Shuzhong and Wang Shiqing had given up on reading the Chinese text of my dense and overlong paper, Wen Fong stepped in and rescued me by part-reading, part-summarizing the rest.Our switching of roles in our later careers--me doubting more and he accepting more—was, if not dictated, certainly affected strongly by our job changes: me moving from museum back to academia, he (without lessening his professorial functions) taking on the responsibility for building the interlocked painting collections at Princeton and the Met. I remember, in describing that great shift to someone, using as an analogy the case of the young political science professor who can make idealistic theoretical arguments before he himself takes public office, but not so easily afterwards. Roderick Whitfield describes, in his article, the shock that he and Wen Fong's other students felt when they observed how the surviving oeuvre of Ni Zan ballooned suddenly from the solitary picture recognized by Wen Fong the professor to the strikingly larger group acquired and published by Wen Fong the curator. But in the end, in spite of some perhaps unavoidable controversies, these collections--notably the Elliott Family, Douglas Dillon, and Tang Family collections, but also, in large part, those of Earl Morse and Arthur M. Sackler--are major monuments to Wen Fong's success in a very perilous pursuit through a veritable minefield. Some of his acquisitions have inspired major studies in his students' dissertations—Dick Barnhart's Li Gonglin, Shih Shou-ch'ien's Zhao Mengfu, Freda Murck's Xiao-Xiang study, Mike Hearn's "Southern Tours," are examples that come quickly to mind.Over the years I would hear stories of Wen Fong's skills in negotiating high-tension situations in museum or university politics, and admire them from afar—these are just the areas in which I myself am famously ineffective. The scene, for instance, at a summit-level meeting of the Met's departmental curators, described to me as a nest of contending feudatories, in which Wen Fong had to persuade the others, and the director, to forego some of their own future acquisition funds to allow his department to acquire the Packard Collection.

The Japanese galleries at the Met, rather undistinguished before, testify to the outcome. Mike Hearn's article in the latest lists other, similar successes, and one can only guess at the costs they exacted on Wen Fong—not least, judging from the illustrations to that article, having to spend so much of his life wearing a tuxedo.Standing out among his academic triumphs is the decision he made, at a crucial moment (as I heard the story), to give up a faculty position that would have relieved him of much undergraduate teaching in order to save Shûjirô Shimada from a very bad predicament and keep him at Princeton. And, of course, there is Wen Fong's success in obtaining funds to attract and sustain good students from the U.S. and abroad. I admired these successes, as I say, from afar, while continuing myself to occupy an underfunded, non-chaired position that left even my best students scrabbling to survive. I used to tell prospective recruits to our program about the Daoist fisherman who fished with no bait on his hook, wanting to catch only those fish that were really eager to be caught. Fortunately, and against the odds, this enforced stratagem worked; I am certainly not complaining. Anyway, I never liked wearing a tuxedo.I nevertheless should congratulate Wen on producing such a large and distinguished group of students, and for his success in placing them in good jobs, especially on the East Coast. of the East Coast, that is. And some distance inland. And here and there (especially if we include Yale grads as second-generation Princetonians) on the West Coast as well. Not to speak of Europe and Taiwan. And now Freda has been teaching at Beida, and Wen himself serving as consultant for a new program at Qinghua-- Well. The sun never sets.I haven't time to list all the large-scale international gatherings Wen Fong has organized and presided over; his and Freda's "Words and Images" symposium of 1991, dedicated to a badly ailing John Crawford, was perhaps my own favorite. His success in bringing senior Chinese specialists to these has benefited our field by helping to strengthen scholarly relations with China. (I say this even though, at the most recent one in which I myself participated, the 1998 "Issues of Authenticity" at the Met, I found myself facing a rather sternly disapproving lineup of them in the front row.) And I will leave it for others to list and extol Wen's Fong's scholarly writings, also immensely impressive. My role here has been to been to talk about our friendship and our interactions, and I believe I have done enough of that. Congratulations, Wen old friend, on a long and illustrious career, with warmest hopes for your continuing it over many more years.

CLP 161: 2005CLP 161: Notes on Bada Shanren exhibition held at Nanchang in 1986

Bada Seminar Notes

I. Notes on the 1986 Exhibition in Nanchang. (The paintings were not numbered, unfortunately , so they are listed below by rooms, with numbers I have added. They came from a variety of public and private collections in China. Measurements if any are very approximate, by eye. BDSR= Bada Shanren Memorial Museum, Nanchang. KK= Ku-kung, i.e. Palace Museum, Beijing.)

Room I (front)

1. Two Eagles in Tree . BDSR. 5’ x 3-1/2’. Not top-class but OK. Paper dirty. Latish--late signature. Fast work.
2. Crane in Tree . BDSR. Large, dirty, suspect. Not his brushwork?
3. LS on silk, some brownish color, 1679. Silk dark, but good ptg. Late sig. Not espec. strange or ambiguous, readable. BDSR. (Later, seen longer: suspect. Trees wrong? etc.)
4. Two eagles in tree, bamboo. Late sig. Big, strong. "Messy" brushwork. Good ptg. BDSR.
5. Two birds and rock, dtd. (1690?) Bent-Ba signature. Interesting insc. above by dtd. guimao=1703? Not strongest, but good.
6. Rowing Boat on Secluded Stream . Ink & lt reddish color on paper. Big LS, 6’+ tall. Sig.: late one. Damage, reptg. OK. Man in boat at bottom.
7. Tianjin handscroll again. Later: saw in storage rm, unrolled all the way. Started in 5th month of 1697, extended to 8th. Dedication to . Long calligraphy after. Ends with odd waterfalls. In tradition of Xia Chang etc. for use of handscroll form--in and out, close and further, etc.--but does very original things with it. Quite fast, rough, but well-calculated. Close to beginning, fine passage with massing of lotuses, stalks winding through area of leaves, a kind of opening back. MLG Fig. 40.
8. . LS, ink on satin, terribly damaged--ruin, but of fine ptg. BDSR.
9. Deer and Cypress: . Big, good. Late signature. Deer looking up. BDSR
10. Grapes and Rock . Two seals only. OK I guess, fast, late. Vine connects rock & overhanging bank ambiguously. Thin, oK. BDSR.
11. Big Lan-t’ing hanging scroll, callig., late sig. Worm-eaten, fine. BDSR.
12. Ducks, rocks, lotus . Not very good--fake? or just sloppy? Terrible condition. No signature? or lost. BDSR.
13. Lotus, big hanging scroll, late signature. Hardly top-class, but OK. BDSR
14. Misc. Plants . Handscroll. Zhenjiang Museum. Still looks like pastiche: no order to images; corresponds too closely with well-known works.
15. Pines & Rocks in Autumn Mts.? Tianjin Mus. Seen before.
16. Birds on rocks, 1687, Tianjin Mus. Seen before.
17. Big calligraphy scroll, Tianjin Mus., late signature, fine.
18. Another, also Tianjin Mus., also good.

Room 2 (on left)

19. *Flowers and Fruit, handscroll. KK. On silk. Ch’uan-ch’i sig. Good, altho dif. from Taiwan KK album in brushwork, etc. Not composed so tightly. Rather conventional: plum, pomegranate, Buddha’s hand. Not much of individuality yet. Wen Fong says work of 1660s. Later: Still uses cutting-off device; his interest now is in massing of ink for strong, interesting shapes. Like undated handscroll in rm. 4. Plum, pomegranate, Buddha’s hand fruit; something in dish; melon.
20. Fungus and rock by Niu Shihui, KK. Wet, strong. Brushwork more like Bada than most. But heavy ink is his. Usual signature.
21. Calligraphy: . Zhenjiang Mus. Short handscroll. Fine: small, neat characters.
22. Calligraphy: begins etc. BDSR. Fine. Signs: .

Hard to read. Paired with painting?
23. Crane and Pine, dark, awful, OK? BDSR.
24. : eagle on one leg on bare tree. OK, damaged, not top-class. BDSR.
25. Niu Shihui calligraphy, xingshu, poem. Good--also like Bada.
26. *Niu Shihui , rooster. Poem, signed ? . Strong.
27. *Cat, by Niu Shihui, BDSR: the one reprod. in facsimile by Duoyunxuan, Shanghai. Big mass of ink, continuing into tail, w/o articulation. Claws expressive. Menace. Quite fine.
28. Album by Niu Shihui, Jiangxi Mus. Four leaves showing, all birds. Like lesser Bada here--altho cock not bad. Seals only.
29. *Flowers, handscroll, ink on silk, 6 sections. KK. Sig. at end: Geshan; insc. before: Chuanqi. So between? Wen Fong says 1670s. Here, closer to Xu Wei in subject and style. Using ink & brush interestingly by this time. Later: Bada uses here, too, device of cutting off the image by pushing beyond boundaries. Big peony treated so. Otherwise, not much of interest. Brushwork tame. Like weak imitation of Xu Wei.
30. Niu Shihui calligraphy, caoshu. Jiangxi Mus. Very dark, dirty; good.

31. *Bamboo growing from bank; shoots below. Seal only, in upper right; insc. by Wu Ch’ang-shih at left, "age 81", jiazi=1924. "Uninscribed: I imagine it was work done to requite favor (sic). But strong brushwork." Just the kind that Wu would have admired--soft brushstrokes, soaking into paper. Late work. KK.
32. Callig. in xingshu, "Lin Dongpo" (after Su Shih). Late signature. Good. Jiangxi Mus.
33. Eagle in bare tree, like one in other room, but weaker, smaller. OK I suppose. Nothing special. KK.
34. Banana Palms & Bamboo . Sig.: ? no--can’t read. 1680s? Strong composition, brushwork. KK. (Later: this is Lü-wu.)
35. Lotus. Medium-size, seal upper left. Insc. by Zhu Deyi on lower left edge, dtd. 1933. Very good for late style? or is this modern? Curiously atmospheric, unlike him in important ways, although catches a lot of his style. Zhang Daqian?

Room 3 (on right)

36. Two deer, big, late signature. Nanjing Mus. Fungus lower right; one deer gazes up into cypress tree. Pot-boiler, crude.
37. *Fine small LS, Shanghai Mus. Late signature. Soft brush. Unpublished? Trees lower left, bank pushing up at right w. trees, peak above, pavilion upper left for looking twd. distant mts. This is worth reproducing--late? diffuse manner. Blurry but strong.
38. Xingshu callig., Shanghai Mus., signs --like one in other room. Quite fresh, but OK I guess.
39. *Big Shanghai Museum landscape, 1694. Wonderful. Sense of excess, too many trees, dian, lumpy forms--but makes it work. Circle of trees dominates FG; shape repeated in main form in upper part. Complex, absorbing ptg. MLG Fig. 39.
40. *Nanjing Mus. Peony and Rock again. Bent-Ba signature. Interestingly angular, sets sharp rock agst rounded bank, peonies agst. bamboo crowded into upper l. corner. Wen Fong says 1684; didn’t paint for several years after--too mad? Later: Bamboo in upper left is survival of cutting-off device from earlier ptg. Square against round, flower against bamboo.
41. Lotus, fairly small, Shanghai Mus. Dirty, nothing great. Late signature. Wen Fong says signature fake, ptg OK for 1670s.
42. Lotus and Birds: . 1692. Still bent-Ba signature. Lots of seals--loose, odd ptg. More odd than good. Experimenting with dissolution of form--scattered strokes, pull together into bird. Later: Like this better now: like Ch’an ptg. Lotus stalk and flower (all petals gone?) in wet strokes of deep ink; bird eating? with beak open. Bird done in loosely-scattered-seeming strokes; hard to pull together into bird; but contrasts light mvt. with stability, stolidity, of lotus. Really subtle. Big black dot for eye. Like very loose album.
43. Big callig. scroll, Nanjing Museum. . LIke stele. Dtd. i-[hai? 1695?) Good.
44. Deer, bird on rock. On satin, tall ptg. KK. Nothing great. LIke Contag pair (mynahs) in size, material; panel of screen?
45 . *Plum. KK. Huang Yung-ch’üan says when 59. . Early, anyway. Harsh, angular composition; good. Later insc. by him above. First insc. signed.Leaning of tree is effective, and reaching outward of branches and roots. Gesture, or posture, read into it.MLG Fig. 26.
46. . (Bathing bird, they think.) 1703. KK. Dry-brush, strong. Very fine. Big ptg. Ti P’ing-tzu insc. on mounting. Willow tendrils strong.
47. * Big LS, ink & lt color on satin. KK. Late sig. & seals. His Huang Kung-wang style, loosely. Not most exciting, but good.
48. *Screen, landscape, 6 hanging scrolls, fairly small--4’ high? Ink & lt color on silk. P’ang Yuan-chi seals. Sig. on one at right, late sig. LS w. bridge, houses. Quite late? strong. Big pine tree in center. Distant bank w. houses upper left. Well composed--he could handle large form. Nanjing Mus. (Would like to reproduce in color!) MLG Fig. 41.

Room 4 (mostly Palace Museum)
49. ** Big , bent-Ba signature. Wen Fong says 1686. Great condition, fine ptg.; use of ink outstanding. Gestures of bamboo & palm repeat. One of his finest.
50. *Handscroll, fish & ducks, Shanghai Mus. Odd repetitions throughout; expressive relat. Large & small, etc. Fish rise to climax w. big ones; then subside, development of ducks begins. (One fish has same shape as one in Freer album.) Note pale, small fish following big, heavy ones. Fine ending: flotilla of ducks, one in front w. head raised; then sleeping one agst bank; then huge one standing, sleeping, repeating but facing other way. 1689, bent-Ba signature. Genuine, fine, belongs to his oddest period, but late in it. Interesting: much fine drawing, outlines etc. Really careful style? no real wildness in execution. MLG Fig. 35.
51. Big LS, ink on paper, "imitating Dong Yuan." Some damage: two big holes in trees. brush rough, but whole is strong. Still, not tops: a certain coarseness.
52. *Bird on bare branch, fish below. 1703. Dif. from other; both OK.Series of curling movements--turning under--bird, tree. Fish oblivious to all this, swims calmly by. No real relat. between them--as usual.
53. Early landscape again, KK, on paper. Wen says ca. 1681, right after he came back to Nanchang.
54. Callig. in xingshu, big, good. Also another, part of Lanting, good.
55. Deer & Pine, huge (paper yellowed), 1702. Done in a hurry; not especially good. Pot-boiler.
56. Handscroll, flowers & fruit, long. Bent-Ba signature. Good for that period. Melons, etc. Interested in shapes; not much in textures or structure. Like Niu Shihui’s cat: massing of ink for power. Bamboo at end good. Later: this is later than handscrolls in rm. 2. Larger, blocky forms. Still uses cutting-off composition. Now crowding forms together, interesting overlaps, not in earlier ones. Rough, messy, flat brushwork. Interesting: pale strokes of wash behind some forms--flowers etc.--as if laid out composition that way? Preliminary sketching? Kerchner says must be after 1684, from Bada signature; probably 1690 or so.

57. *Another handscroll, Geshan signature. Brush loosening up; still not a distinct personal style. Still tends to spread; w/o discipline of later brushwork. Also compositionally: spreads all over. Still separate images, but running together oddly. Cautious rule-breaking. (Later: this unrolled to end: date is 1666! very early.) Later: Bigger than others; allows forms to spread out more. But cautious in brushwork, except for a few touches of oddness. One passage of overlapping: banana palm over branch of (?) MLG Fig. 20.

58. .Early? Angular, thin cave at beginning, w. peach-trees & stream seen through it; then pines, waterfall, fishermen approaching houses, people meeting him in small area in upper right. Very odd: contracts as story goes on, as if seeing from greater & greater distance. Spatially incoherent. Is it reproduced? Wen, Liu Jiu’an, all say fake. No signature or seal--callig. by him follows ptg. (Later: saw Bada calligraphy, on Taohuayuan story. Good, dtd. 1696. Ptg, if his, would have to be much earlier--but more likely someone else?

59. Big pine tree, ink on paper, bent-Ba signature. Lots of seals lower right. Heavy ink, strong composition. lighter ink put on in indistinct strokes behind needle pattern. Branches coming out and back--fine. Seems thin, unsupportive connection in lower left, but holds it. Wen Fong says ca. 1690.

Room 5: all Shanghai Museum. Back center.

60. **Great Shanghai Mus. album, 1694: all leaves showing? Condition as good as Sumitomo; ink very strong, fresh. Leaves virtually interchangeable. By this time, has perfect control over materials--knows how paper will absorb, how to put on dry & wet strokes, ink values. Not like Orthodox masters, but same kind of control, variety, richness. Note how successive wet strokes on bird’s body gives physical structure, shape.

61. . Big, 1696. Neither bird really looks at other. Tree & rock overlap slightly, as if nudging. (Gestures, again, human movements read into them.) Detail (bamboo, peaches, etc.) kept to two areas, to make structure stronger. Outlines waver, tree thinner at base.

62. Deer on rock, another going diagonally up, cypress tree, cliff. 1700. Soft, late style (cf. small LS in their collection.) Big--8’ tall? Good for late style, but more odd than good. Dumb-looking deer.
63. Geese ptg--seen often on exhibition in Shanghai Mus.
64. *Big scroll of callig. in xingshu. Very fine.
65. . Single powerful eagle. Cf. Lin Liang. Brushwork messy but strong. (Same was true of Mu-ch’i!) Sets apart blank, hollow-like space, like Mu-ch’i’s Kuan-yin. Interestingly related. Bird grasps rock like Lin Liang’s phoenix.

66. *Landscape, 1699, dedicated to . Large arching movements in brushwork & forms, sutained from below by trees. Rooftops of houses treated like boulders, abstracted, going up valley. W/o any attempt at refinement. Emptiness at right is bold move.
67. . Illegible date? OK, I guess; but Zhang Daqian could have done this.

Room 6: Back right

68. *Eight-leaf album, horizontal leaves, one in Taishan series w. cat, chickens, etc. KK. Pa-huan seal etc. close to Freer album, but this finer. Mentions Xu Wei in inscription opposite last leaf (banana palm & bank.) Cat less inarticulate than reproduction looks. Later: insc. opposite several leaves--reprod. in album? Seem important: translate if used. Opposite rock: good; could reproduce two together. Rock needn’t be large. Hard to read, but-Chickens: charming, but w/o power of other; nice domestic scene. Insc. opposite plantain mentions Xu Wei; but his poems? Can’t read. Cat: asleep, or just very contented/complacent. Mainly flat area of ink. Still light-dark contrasts strong; in flat shapes, not modeled as later. Like Princeton album.

69. Handscroll, dtd. 1699, late signature. Vegetables, ink on paper. Very oddly composed. cucumber? garlic? etc. Lotus root; large peach? in dish. What is point of arrangement? scattered on ground at random? KK.
70. Pomegranates. Single album leaf, Shanghai Mus. Same sig. & seal as Freer album, could almost go in (but larger?) Good.
71. Handscroll of callig. (4 large characters, as if title). 1673. Good. Jiangxi Mus.
72. Six album leaves, horizontal, bent-Ba signature. 1684. (Kanaoka album is 1683.) Starts using Bada signature then. Kanaoka’s 10 leaves; originally 20. Strange cat, sinister, with big black eyes; vegetables, strangely distorted; chickens, likewise; peaches? Herons and lotus; bamboo. KK. His oddest period. Very interesting--too bad not published? would reproduce chickens, vegetables, on one plate. Seal same as on Princeton album. "New discovery," according to Wang Shiqing. Vegetables leaf is radish in front of peach? or melon? all run together, hard to separate. Just at point where he becomes really interesting. Later: Leaf with two chickens: brushstrokes broad, square, create oddly-structured space, which birds occupy; but they seem affected, distorted by pressures from outside. Like set of Caligari, or some expressionist stage-set, or Feininger etc. Must include! in my chapter. Vegetable leaf: he is learning about dry and wet brushwork now. Still short of perfect control. Could he see good paintings? Handling of radish, geometricized in 3-D! is extraordinary, quasi-Cubist treatment. Plays this agst. rounder melon? behind. Leaves of radish intersect those of root vegetable at right, but differ in ink tone, shape. (See p. 34 of notebook for identification of vegetables in this leaf.)

First room, again.

73. Hibiscus, banana palm, rock: . BDSR. Two seals only; tall and narrow, part of set? screen? Broad brush. Not much in itself, altho’ OK.
74. Another: hibiscus, orchids, and rock. Only seals--like above? tall, narrow. Damaged and reptd. OK. BDSR.
75. Calligraphy, xingshu, BDSJ. Late sig. Damaged, good. Some collectors’ seals lower right.
76. Deer & Pine. Some light reddish color on deer, also pine. Bluish color behind bunches of needles? Two seals only. Deer in curled position. BDSR. Routine work.
77. Calligraphy, BDSR.
78. Famous portrait. Ink on paper. Face, hands fine. Some shading. A little like Southern tradition of fig. ptg., Fukien. His inscription on left.
79. Lotus, fairly small. Bent-Ba signature, like Freer etc. BDSR. Not terrific but good. Paper pieced on at top? looks so. Brushstrokes still fairly flat.
80. Pine tree: . BDSR. Inscr. upper left: . late signature. Wu Ch’ang-shih insc. in lower left. Broad brush, good--shaded strokes, twisting etc. Late style, minor work within it. Soft, wet strokes.
81. Bank w. hibiscus, two fish. Late signature. Minor; is it even genuine? Maybe not. Insc. by somebody at left. Still, has some quality, e.g. black-dot eye of lower fish. Maybe just quick work.
82. Small LS with three figures, ink & lt color on silk, ! Late signature. Seems fine, although damaged.

II. Miscellaneous notes from symposium papers and discussion
- Jao Tsung-i paper (handout): finds Ch’an buddhist references and content in inscriptions in early Ch’uan-ch’i album.

- Lin Shuzhong (Nanjing Academy) on Peacocks ptg. as . Expressive postures etc. of birds. Question of tradition vs. individualism: inf. of Xu Wei in birds and flowers, Dong Qichang in LS. Different people understand his ptgs. differently--like Dream of Red Chamber. Used artistic language to express attitude, thought, resentment. Hawk: usually solitary, like heroes. Not Bada’s: feathers thin, scraggly. Defeated heroes. Express Bada’s inner world.(Discusses trad. of realism vs. abstraction; Bada used these as foundation, twisted them. Outsider, person in wilderness. etc.)

-Shen Tongmin (? p. 112) On his poetic inscriptions on ptgs. Also discusses Chan content. Zen represents freedom within Buddhism. Bada’s obscurity: doesn’t want to be accessible to everybody. Like Zen kôans. Monks shaved heads, called "donkeys" (ears stuck out?)

- Who? Shanghai Academy man, talked of resemblance of Bada’s ptgs to designs on Jingdezhen porcelains. Folksy, awkard, popular imagery. Broke out of limits of wenrenhua. Too much emphasis on ya, literary refinement. Designs like Bada ptgs on jJngdezhen shards. Fu Shen question: did Bada, then, influence porcelain design? Shanghai man: some evidence: Tang Yun, 1966; even now, Bada inf. ceramic designs. Workers studied his ptgs, copied.

Jingdezhen man (works with Historical Mus. there): porcelain designs inf. Bada in early period? He has made study; hasn’t published. Will do so. Two books publ. in Taiwan of designs from Tianqi period porcelains: Bada must have seen some like these. Two types at Jingdezhen: guanyao for court etc.; minyao for popular use. Former stiffer, latter freer, done in quantities--up to 1000. Everyday use. Found lots of shards. Better than imperial ones. (Goes on to make comparisons with Bada ptgs: flying bird, etc.) Workers very poor, depressed, so put in eyes that way, like Bada, or even before Bada. [! standard habit of always attributing expression of ptg to feeling of artist, even in collective work of this kind.] Bada learned abbreviated style from them; they couldn’t take time to paint on porcelain--had to be fast. Later, artists learned from Bada. [Leaves out factor of woodblock books, etc., fenben; other sources of popular designs.] Records of Bada going to Jingdezhen in 1688; watched artisans all day. [Whence information?] Chen family has oral tradition...

- Me: Problem of Chan ptg. and Bada. Not related to Jingdezhen, except that both are fast, rough-brush; ptd. same thing over & over. Bada studied both; both helped him escape confines of wenrenhua in subject & brushwork etc., get back to something more natural, direct, expressive. Helped provide him with artistic means to carry out his expressive projects.

At beginning, only plant subjects--interesting but not yet great Bada. Did landscapes only later. (Early one in KK and one other, dtd. 1681? in Taiwan.) His fish and birds subject from when? only from 1680s? Period of instability, artistic as well as psychological. Breaking out of safer confines (cf. Buddhism); finding own independent way, with difficulty. Succeeds in 1690s: his great period. Central problem of Individualists: getting away from restraints of Orthodox style, wenrenhua tradition more generally, creating new expressive forms. When successful, danger of being labeled xiepai etc. by others.

- Chu-tsing Li on Contag/Nelson Gallery pair. Originally two of eight; four others in Sackler col. Seals only; also seals of Song Lo. Probably done for him ca. 1691--he left Jiangxi in following year. Very large, impressive ptgs. Song was prefect then. Prob. painted while Song was in Nanchang.

- Wen Fong. Kanaoka album is 1683; published by Jao Tsung-i [in Hong Kong i-min symposium volume.] 1680s is period of greatest distortion, eccentricity. When Shao interviewed him. By 1690, when Song Lo left, was settling down. (His argument about importance of studying calligraphy.) Wen Fong thinks set of four landscapes (Melbourne) also ca. 1692.

Later (lunch conversation with WF): By 1671 he had essentially left Buddhist order--death of teacher, acc. to insc. on 1674 portrait which reports him as saying: From now on, regard me as a Guanxiu, i.e. ptr-itinerant monk (making living by painting.) By end of decade, madness comes from self-loathing, falseness of position (?) Relationship with Hu Yitang perfectly amicable. Wildest period of painting (& calligraphy?) in 1680s. From 1685 for several years, nothing: too deranged? Perhaps we should speak of 1690s as post-madness period?

- Zhu Xuchu, special asst. to director of Shanghai Museum. Talks at length: wenrenhua reaches end? with (as in Li Xiaoshan’s notorious article, young man in Nanjing) Huang Binhong, Fu Baoshi, Pan Tianshou; now time for something else. (Picks up ideas fast, can juggle them, perform with them in impressive way.)

- Mae Anna Pang on four LS in Melbourne: earlier than Shanghai Museum 1694 ptg.

- Huang Yongquan. Year Kangxi came to south for first time, Bada began using that name. In 1694, his works especially many; changed way of writing name. What connection? [Attempt to relate changes in style with historical change; interesting.]

(Evening: went to local opera on Bada Shanren. Little relationship to real Bada: turned into conventions of opera. Love interest: girl becomes nun, he Daoist priest. He wants to go to Beijing to take exams and become successful official, so he can marry her, but can’t do so out of anti-Manchu feeling. Goes mad.)

- Wang Shiqing on Zhu Daolang. Born in period 1612-1622; died in period 1688-1694. At most, 83 years. Daoist of Qingmingpai (?) Before established Qingyunpu... etc. 1642-1656: left home. Came to Nanchang. Spent long time at Qingyunpu. Not anti-Qing. OK to use as Bada Memorial Museum. But Bada not Zhu Daolang.

- Me, misc. thoughts toward book chapter: Bada, like character in Nabokov, sets up set of enigmas for later people to solve; cryptic. And now Bada scholars (like Hongloumeng scholars) puzzling, deciphering, trying to understand. Differ on whether ultimately intelligible. Large literature by now.

Bada knew Chan texts (Jao Tsung-i, Shen Tongmin papers): couldn’t he have known Chan ptg also?

Communication by gestures: important in painting also: gestures of brush, gestures of pine branches, etc.

- Note how many of his trees grown narrow at bottom. Significance?

More on madness, etc.: Liu Jiuan in Yiyuan duoying #19. Early works follow Chen Shun and Xu Wei in style, subject, etc. Xueke and Lu period: brushwork more energetic & wild. He compares: 1682 (after fit of madness) with 1677 (before). Can see that his state of mind has changed. 1682: his inscription echoes Zheng Sixiao; reference to Boyi and Shuqi. No such references in ptgs of monk period.

III. Principal Sources for Reproductions of Bada Paintings. Note: when we refer to reproductions, we will use the abbreviations for these books; i.e. BS 24 will be Plate 24 in #1, the Bunjinga Suihen book.

1. Wu, T’ung et. al. Hachidai sanjin. Bunjinga Suihen series v. 6, Tokyo, 1963; second, reduced-size edition 1985. Large volume in 419A; smaller one in EAL rm. 6 (fND 1040 B86 1985 v.6.) See main Bibliography for contents. Abbreviated as BS.
2. Chang Wan-li and Hu Jen-mu, ed., Bada shanren huaji. 2 vols. Hong Kong, Cafa Pub. Co., 1969. 419A, EAL (f6150 2342 1969) Abbrev. as Cafa.
3. Bada shanren huaji. Nanchang and Shanghai, 1985. Essay by Li Dan. 419A. Abbrev. as BSH.
4. Bada shanren huaji. Shanghai, 1958. 28 paintings. EAL f6178 2040
5. Bada Shitao shuhuaji. Taipei, National Historical Museum, 1984. Various essays, with English summaries, including Wang Fangyu on Bada’s and Shitao’s mutual (i.e. common) friends; Fu Shen on "Joint Works of Pa-ta-shan-jen and Shih-t’ao"; others. EAL ND 1043.5 P3.
6. Jianjiang, Shiqi, Shitao, Bada Shanren shuhua ji (Four Monks of the Late Ming). Taipei, National Historical Museum, 1978. Same paintings as above? Better reproductions, no text except captions. 419A.
7. Bada shanren shuhua ji. Kyoto, 1956. Collection of Ch’eng Ch’i.
8. Dafengtang mingji. Collection of Zhang Daqian. Four volumes; one on Bada paintings. EAL f6178 2040. Kyoto, 1955-56.
9. T’ai-shan ts’an-shih lou ts’ang hua. Four series of ten reproduction albums each. Shanghai, 192(?)-1927. Collection of Tang Jisheng. Contains much Bada painting, important. EAL set missing v. 35-36. Abbrev. as Taishan.
10. Volumes published by Sumitomo Kanichi (all paintings now in Sen’oku Hakkokan, Kyoto): A.Sekitô to Hachidai Sanjin. Oiso, 1952. Essay by Sumitomo Kanichi. EAL f6177 2431 v. 1.

B. Hachidai Sanjin to Gyû Sekkei (Bada Shanren and Niu Shihui). Essay by Sumitomo Kanichi, with help of Yonezawa Yoshiho and Shimada Shujiro. Oiso, 1955. EAL f6177 2431 v. 4.

C. Niseki Hachidai (The Two Shi and Bada). Oiso, 195?. Essay by Shimada Shujiro on An-wan album of 1694. EAL 6177 2431 v. 5 (missing.)

11. Yiyuan duoying no. 17, Shanghai, 1982. Special issue on Bada Shanren. Includes short essay by Zhong Yinlan of Shanghai Museum, p. 41; reprints biographical sources. Chronological biography (nianpu) by Wang Zidou, pp. 42-43, continued in no. 19, pp. 39-43. Abbrev. as YD 17.
12. Yiyuan duoying no. 19, 1983. Second special issue on Bada Shanren. Includes essay by Liu Jiu’an on various problems in Bada’s paintings. Also series of letters by Bada to a certain Fang Shiguan. Texts transcribed. Abbrev. as YD 19.
13. Yiyuan duoying no. 37, 1987. One of two issues devoted to Four Monks exhibition at Shanghai Museum, October 1987; this issue on Shiqi and Bada. All works reproduced are in Shanghai Museum. Abbrev. as YD 37.
14. Wang Fangyu, ed., Bada Shanren lunji. Taipei, 198 . 2 vols.; second volume plates. Abbrev. as Lunji.
15. Wang Zidou, ed., Bada shanren shuhuaji. 2 vols. Beijing, 1983. Abbrev. as SHJ.
16. Chou Shih-hsin, ed., Pa-ta shan-jen ch'üan-chi. Taipei, 1974.
17. Akai, Kiyomi, ed. Hachidai Sanjin shoga-shû. Tokyo, 1975. All the plates reproduced from earlier reproductions, nothing new? Brief text. Author is a calligrapher. Abbrev. as Akai.
18. Wang, Fangyu and Richard Barnhart. Master of the Lotus Garden: The Life and Art of Bada Shanren. New Haven, 1990. Abbrev. as MLG.

IV. List of Dated or Datable Bada Shanren Paintings

(Abbrev.: KK/T = Ku-kung, Taipei. KK/B = Ku-kung, Beijing. Ex. = exhibition at Bada Shanren Memorial Museum, October 1986 (my notes), MLG - Master of Lotus Garden (Yale-S.F. catalog.)

I. Through the 1680s

(Background: Muqi and Chan Painting; Shen Zhou; Xu Wei

- Various ptgs. attrib. to Muqi: vegetables and fruits; birds in trees; goose; mynahs; gibbons; fish.

- Buffalo-and-herdboy in landscape paintings of 13th-14th cent.

- Handscrolls attrib. to Muqi, Palace Museum, Taipei; Palace Museum, Beijing. Copies?

- Paintings of similar subjects by Shen Zhou; by Chen Shun (Chen Daofu); by Xu Wei. Handscrolls of vegetables, flowers, other plants.)

- 1660 (Jan. 12). KK/T Ch’uan-ch’i album. 13 (12?) leaves of paintings. BS 1-11, MLG Fig. 13-15, 23-24. Wang Fangyu paper in 1970 Palace Museum Taipei Symposium volume. Cf. paintings by or attrib. to Muqi, Riguan, Shen Zhou, Chen Shun, Xu Wei, etc.: ink vegetables, ink flowers, ink fruits.

- 1660s. Handscroll, flowers and fruit, KK/P. YD 19, 6-7, top. Ex.19. Also Masterworks of Ming and Qing Painting #44

- Ch’uan-ch’i lotus album. BS, 60-61, MLG Fig. 45 (MLG. 1) No slides.

- "Ca. 1665," Wisteria and Moon, Shanghai Museum. "From 10-leaf album." MLG Fig. 22. Four leaves reproduced in Duoyun 15, group of plates inside front cover.

- 1666 handscroll, plants. Ex.57; YD 17, 8-9, MLG Fig. 21.

- Early 1670s. Handscroll, flowers. YD 19, 6-7, second from top. Chuanqi, Geshan signatures. MLG fig. 20, "ca. 1671." Ex. 29.

(- 1674 Portrait of Bada Shanren by Huang Anping, insc. by Bada. MLG Fig. 12, etc.)

- 1677 album of 8 leaves, blossoming plum, Geshan signature. YD 19, 6-8, MLG Fig. 17.

- "Ca. 1678", Hibiscus and Rock, fan, Zhongqing Municipao Mus. MLG Fig. 19.

(1679-1680: with Hu Yitang)

- 1681 landscape, Taishan 18, MLG Fig. 38. Cf. Landscape with man in boat, KK/P. Wen Fong: "Early 1680s." Slides; reprod. in Wen Fong’s article.

- 1682 Plum tree, Ex. 45, YD 19, 10, MLG Fig. 26. (Read Wang Fangyu, MLG pp. 51-52.)

- "Ca. 1682-83", Crab-apple Flowers and Rocks, MLG Fig. 27.

- Ca. 1682, Banana Palm and Bamboo. YD 19, 9R, Ex. 34. Lü-wu signature.

- 1683 Fish, Lunji, 76.

- 1683, Kanaoka album. Geshan, Renwu, etc. signatures. Jao Tsung-i in Wenwu 1983/10, 47-50. MLG #4. No slides.

- Princeton album, Gewu, Renwu, Geshan signatures: Wen Fong says "datable to 1681." Barnhart dates to 1683-84; better? BS, 13-23, MLG Fig. 47; MLG #3.

- 1684. Singapore, Chen Wenxi col., album, fish, rabbit, etc. BS104-107, Lunji 14-22. MLG #5.

- 1684. Six-leaf album: bamboo, cat, etc. KK/P. MLG Dtd. list #14.

- 1684? Nanjing Museum Peony and Rock, Wen Fong says 1684. YD 19, 11.

- 1686 Orchids and Bamboo in Vase, former Chiang Ku-sun. Lunji 38.

- 1686, Lotus and Rock. Yunnan Provincial Mus. See MLG dtd. list #18.

- 1687 Birds on Rocks, Tianjin Museum, Ex.16.

- 1688-89. Album of 10 ptgs, Flowers and Birds etc., Freer Gallery. BS 47-52. One recorded leaf (no longer with album) dtd. 1688-89. See MLG dtd. list #20.

- Taishan album #12: album of animals etc. No date; close to Freer in signature, seal, etc. Also another, also Taishan, very close to Freer.

- 1689. Peony. Cafa I/16. See MLG dtd. list #21.

- 1689 Fish, Lotus, Globefish, and Bamboo. Four album leaves. MLG #7.

- 1689. Sleeping Duck. Guangdong Provincial Museum. Cafa #25. See MLG dtd. list #22.

- 1689 Fish and Ducks handscroll, Shanghai Museum, YD 37,26, YD 19, 23-26.

- 1689 Lotus, Lunji 182.

- 1689. Plum, bamboo, and pine. Akai 273.

- 1689 Melon and Moon, Fogg Art Museum, YD 19, 45, MLG #52, etc. (Another version in Beijing: Tumu I, 12-193.)

- "Ca. 1689". Quince. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. MLG #9.

- "Ca. 1689-90," Landscape, album leaf. MLG Fig. 36.

- "Ca. 1689-90," Cat and Chicken, two album leaves. MLG #10.

(Shao Chenheng visits him 1689-90)

II. 1690-94

- 1690 Cincinnatti Lotus and Birds handscroll, BS 68-71, MLG #15.

- 1690 Birds and Rock, BDSR Memorial Mus., Lunji 70, Wen Fong fig. 9, YD 17,16.

- 1690 Two Peacocks.

- 1690 Bird on Rock, Plantain. In Taishan album #18.

- 1690. Flower and Calligraphy. Two album leaves. MLG #11.

- 1690. Quince. Princeton Art Museum. MLG #12.

- 1690. Myna bird on rock. MLG #14.

- 1690. Myna birds and rocks. MLG #13.

- "Ca. 1690-91." Myna birds and rocks; ducks, sparrows, etc. Panels from a screen. MLG #17-18.

- 1691 Fish, Lunji 72, 74. Two album leaves?

- 1691 Eight-leaf album, birds, flowers, etc. Insc. xin chun, probably 1691. YD 17, 10-13.

- 1691 Birds and Rock, Shanghai Museum, YD 37, 2R.

- 1691 Cats? and Rock, Shanghai Mus., YD 37, 2L.

- 1691 Catfish, Spiders, Chick and Ducks. Three album leaves. MLG #21.

- "Ca. 1691." Fish and rocks. Handscroll, Cleveland Mus. MLG #22, etc.

- 1692 Album, 16 leaves, 8 on loan in Princeton. BS 55-57, MLG #24-26.

- 1692. Birds, bamboo, and rocks. MLG #23.

- 1692 Birds and Rock, Shanghai Mus., YD 37, 3R, Lunji 33. Another, YD 37, 5L.

- 1692 Bird on Lotus, Shanghai Mus., YD 37, 6R.

- 1692 Fish, Nanjing Mus., MLG Fig. 37.

- 1692 Mynas on rock. MLG #72.

- 1693 Fish and Birds handscroll, Shanghai Mus., YD 37, 13 bottom.

- 1693 album, Shanghai Mus., YD 37, 14.

- 1693 Landscape, Lunji, 84.

- 1693 Album of landscapes, bird, fish. Taishan album #30.

- 1693 Album of birds and flowers, Taishan album #34 (misleadingly labeled "shanshui" on outside.)

- 1693 Handscroll, various subjects. (Repeats motifs from well-known Bada paintings; suspect?) YD 17, 20-22.

- "Ca. 1693." Set of four landscapes. MLG #31.

-1694. Lotus, Nanjing Museum. Australia exhib. #57.

- 1694. Lotus and Small Birds. C.C.Wang. MLG #33. Cf. Lotus, style of Xu Wei, Boston M.F.A., "1692-94." MLG Fig. 82, Boston Portfolio, etc.

- 1694, Fish and Rocks. Private col., Japan (on loan to Kyoto National Museum). Cf. 1696, former Crawford col., now Met. Mus., MLG #44.

- 1694, Sumitomo An-wan album (at length)

- 1694, Shang Museum album (" " )

Note: There are quite a few other paintings dated to 1694; this is only a selection.

Addendum: 1692 Mynahs on Rock, MLG #27; cf. copy? by Ren Bonian, 1886, Palace Museum, Beijing. Authenticity problems.

- 1690: Two Birds and Banana Palm by Rock. Sotheby's, June 1983.

- 1684, Cat (Fake)

cf. Niu Shihui cat; bird on branch.

Bada Seminar Notes, continued. Sept. 18, 1990.

III. After 1694 (a selection)

- 1695 Fish, Bird, and Rock, YD 37/18L; MLG dtd. list #89.

- 1696 Mynahs in Peach Tree, YD 37/15R; MLG dtd. list #95.

- 1696 Ducks and Lotus, YD 37/19. Cf. other, undated ptgs of birds and lotus, around same time?

- 1696 Lotus, Chrysanthemum, and Hibiscus? C. C. Wang collection. Unpub.?

-1697, album of plant subjects. YD 37/21.

- 1699, album of birds and plants, YD 37/31-32.

- 1698? Birds, Plants. Asian Art Museum. MLG #54 (none reproduced--only landscapes.) Cf. 1703 album, Kiku Ishihara col., MLG 70.

- 1705, Birds, Fish, Calligraphy: album leaves. YD 17, 45-46.

- 1705, album: birds, plants, rock. Shanghai Mus. YD 37/41-42.

IV. Subjects and Forms

1. Lotus

- Leaf from Freer album, 1688-89. Others from 1691 album; from 1692 album (MLG 69h). Cf. Xu Wei, from Nanjing handscroll.

- Leaves from 1694 albums, Sumitomo, Shanghai.

- Undated, Suzhou Mus.; Palace Museum, Beijing (with duck).

- 1694, Lotus and Chrysanthemums, Nanjing Museum; 1694 Lotus and Birds, former Chang Ta-ch'ien colleciton. Another, undated, late? Palace Museum, Beijing.

- Lotus and Birds, "ca. 1691-94," Kanaoka Col. MLG #28.

- Lotus, Boston M.F.A., "in manner of Xu Wei." Early 1690s? Boston M.F.A. Portfolio, etc.

2. Mynahs in Trees

- Cf. two ptgs. in Japanese collections attrib. to Muqi. Album leaf, Huaji pl. 16.

- Two ptgs., 1703, Palace Museum, Beijing. YD 19/15.

- Cf. "Solitary Bird, Afraid Someone is Watching." Zhongguo hua Nov. 1957, pl. 27. Genuine? fake?

3. Geese

- 1702, Shanghai Museum. YD 37/40.

- Another, n.d., Shanghai Mus. YD 37/24L. Another, ibid. 6L.

- Another, n.d., Shanghai Mus., YD 17/3. Cf. still another, MLG fig. 115.

- Two details from another, Palace Museum, Beijing.

- Another, C.C. WAng. Cf. another, 1705 (Bada's last dated work?), MLG dtd. list #177.

4. Cranes and Pines

- 1701, YD 37/34. Another, same bird: YD 19/9R.

- Another, ink and colors on silk! Central Acad. of F.A., Beijing.

5. Eagles

- 1699, Shanghai Mus. MLG Fig. 121. Cf. C.C.Wang, 1702, YD 19/5, MLG #64. Cf. YD 17/2, 17/18.

6. Deer

- One gazing upward: YD 17/4.

- One dtd. 1698: YD 37/22 (no slide). Another, similar, with bird: Huaji 9. Another, 1700, YD 37/24.

- Herd of deer, Japanese col.? Hachidai sanjin gafu; MLG fig. 116.

7. Pine Trees

(Cf. 1682 Plum Tree)

- Pine, late 1680s? Cheng Chi, Tokyo

- Pine, early 1690s? Palace Mus., Beijing. YD 19/13.

- Odd one, 1697, long insc., Tetsubayashi col.

- 1700, Birds, Day Lily, and Cedar Tree, MLG #62.

- Late one, Honolulu Academy. Another, C.C.Wang col.

- Cypress and Secluded Orchids, 1705. Liaoning Museum.

- Pines and Rocks, col. of Liu Tso-chou, Hong Kong. Hsû-pai-chai catalog. Ca. 1690-91?

8. Handscrolls

- Early one (Ch'uan-ch'i). Cf. section of one in Tianjin Museum, undated.

- 1690, Cincinnatti, again.

- Fish and Rocks, Cleveland Museum, MLG #22, "ca. 1691." (Later?)

- Birds and Lotus, early 1690s. YD 19/14-15 bottom.

- 1696 Plants, Cat, Rocks, Palace Mus., Beijing. Yang and Weng 142-143.

- Pines, Cypress, Wutong, and Mushrooms, Shanghai Mus. YD 37/38-39; MLG fig. 44.

- 1697, Lotus and Other Plants by a River, Tianjin Mus. YD 19/20-29; MLG Fig. 40. Cf. Wang Fangyu, MLG p. 75; Barnhart on p. 174.

V. Bada Shanren’s Landscape Paintings (note: LS = landscape.)

Background: various landscapes by Anhui-school artists, 1650s-60s and later. Landscape by Da Zhongguang, 1657. Landscape by Fang Dayou (b. 1597), "age 71" so 1667; another dated 1677.

- 1681 LS again. Another, Palace Mus., Beijing, around same time.

"Ca. 1689-90," album leaf, MLG Fig. 36. (no slide)

- Liu Tso-chou, Hong Kong, Pines & Rocks, ca. 1690.

- "ca. 1693," set of four in Melbourne, "styles of four Yuan masters" (?). MLG 31, BS 77-80.

- 1694: landscape leaves in An-wan album, BS 27, 46; Shanghai Mus. album.

- 1694: LS, Musee Guimet, Paris. MLG fig. 79. (no slide)

- 1694: LS, Shanghai Mus., Hanging scroll. YD 17/17L; YD 37/15R.

- Mid-1690s? Landscape, former Akaba Untei col., in Cahill, Fantastics and Eccentrics. Cf. Dong Qichang "LS of Qingbian Mts.," Cleveland Mus., 1617, in Cahill, Compelling Image etc.

- "Ca. 1697," album of LS after Dong Qichang, MLG #53 (no slides).

- "Ca. 1696," LS, former Contag col., now C.C.Wang. MLG #41, BS 93. Cf. LS attrib. to Dong Yuan, Kurokawa col., Japan. Cf. LS in Chih-lo-lou col., HK, MLG Fig. 94R.

- "Ca. 1696," LS in manner of Dong Yuan, Stockholm. MLG #43, BS 110.

- "Ca. 1696," LS, Inokuma col., MLG #46, BS 54.

- "Ca. 1696-98": LS in manner of Guo Zhongshu, MLG #49, BS 109.

- "Ca. 1696-98," LS, Osaka Municipal Museum, MLG #50, BS 25-26.

- 1697: album of LS for Huang Yanlu, Chih-lo-lou col., HK, Jao Tsung-i article (see Biblio.)

- 1698. Landscape leaves in Asian Art Museum, S.F. album. MLG #54, BS 59-60.

- 1699, LS, Shanghai Mus., YD 37/23; YD 19/4. Cf. Luo Mu LS, 1699.

- 1699, LS, Shanghai Mus., YD 37/inside front cover. Cf. Luo Mu LS.

- 1699, album, former Crawford col. MLG #58, BS 81-92. Cf. album of LS with Lan-ting poems, 1699, former Zhang Daqian, YD 17/32-33.

- "Ca. 1702-03," album of LS, Honolulu Academy of Arts. MLG #67, BS 108.

- 1703, LS in Ni Tsan manner, Yabumoto col., Amagasaki. MLG dtd. list #157.

- "Ca. 1703-05," Shokokuji, Kyoto. MLG #71.

Some Undated Bada Shanren landscapes:

- LS, Shanghai Museum; where published?

- Set of six hanging scrolls, Nanjing Mus., ink and light colors on paper. MLG Fig. 41, pp. 74-75. No slides.

- Set of four hanging scrolls, YD 19/2-3.

- Two LS: YD 17/47, R&L (not pair).

- Birds in Tree; Landscape. Sumitomo col., Kyoto. BS 94.

- YD 37/18R.

- LS hanging scroll, Horiuchi col., Ashiya. BS 53. Others.