The Taste of Chinese Literati H U EI - C H U N G T SAO
Cat. 84. Kaogu tu (Illustrated Catalogue of Antiquities) Lü Dalin, 1092 China, Qing dynasty, new edition 1752 Woodblock print h. 28.6 cm, w. 18 cm Acquisition, 1899, Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, Paris, BG 22683
Cat. 85. Cong-shaped vase China, Southern Song – Yuan dynasties (1127-1368) Jade, wood (stand) h. 19.4 cm, diam. 7.1 cm (opening), diam. 6.5 cm (base) National Palace Museum, Taipei, Guyu 1972
1. For Mi Fu, see Beurdeley, 1966, pp. 62-70.
From the fall of the Han dynasty (3rd century) until the Tang dynasty (618-907) the influences from Central and Western Asia, which travelled via the Steppe and the Silk Road, intensified. Under the Song dynasty (960-1279) the appropriation of these borrowings, combined with a return to the sources of traditionalist cultures, gave birth to the scholarly culture that is considered to be the heart of Chinese artistic creation. Prelude: Under the Song dynasty (960-1279) As a major corps d’ élite of the empire, placed at the highest rank in the Confucian hierarchy, scholars were recruited according to an examination system based on the knowledge of the Classics. Beginning in the 11th century, this principle of competence-based social advancement led to the forging of a culture that was shaped by moral values and nourished by references to the great masters. Su Shi (1037-1101) and Mi Fu (1051-1107), who were calligraphers, poets, painters, and knowledgeable collectors, are among the most famous, who laid the foundations for the ‘scholarly taste.’1 The wealthiest scholars surrounded themselves with objects emblematic of their spiritual, intellectual, and artistic journeys. To store their ‘treasures,’ they even built a pavilion to which they liked to retire as and when their administrative obligations permitted. On the occasion of the construction of the ‘Pavilion of the Painting Treasures’ (Baohui tang) of Wang Xian in 1077, Su Shi advised him to act like a Confucian collector, i.e., to impart a moral significance to objects (yu yi yu wu 寓意於物) and not one of entertainment (liu yi yu wu 留意於 物). This manifesto of the scholarly mind of the collector, forbidding any indulgence in the pure pleasure of the senses, according to the precepts of Laozi, came down through the ages until it reached Emperor Qianlong (r. 1736-1795). In search of the past It was at the end of the 10th century, in his Illustrations of the Three Rites (Sanli tu), that academician Nie Chongyi attempted to reconstruct ancient jade objects from sources dating back to the Eastern Han dynasty (26-220). Due to a lack of available archaeological models, interpretations based on ancient texts are often purely imaginative; still, we note the predominance of bi discs and gui and zhang tablets, paragons of ritual jade. Nearly a century later, in 1092, Lü Dalin published an Illustrated Catalogue of Antiquities (Kaogu tu). The tenvolume work contains 234 objects, of which a mere ten items are jade (cat. 84). In its wake, in 1107, Emperor Huizong sponsored an inventory of 839 bronzes from the Xuanhe Palace collection: that catalogue, the Xuanhe bogu tu, compiled by Wang Fu in thirty volumes, was completed in 1123. The epigraphic studies, as well as those of archaic bronzes of the kind emulated in these two latter works, were conducted by the scholars with a true concern for scientific accuracy,
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