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法帖刋誤

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Text ID
KR2n0014
Date
1108–1108
Dynasty
宋

Fǎtiè kānwù 法帖刋誤

Corrections of Errors in the Calligraphic Models

by 黃伯思 (Huáng Bósī, 1079–1118)

About the work

A 2-juan critical revision of Mǐ Fú’s 米芾 (1051–1107) connoisseurial judgements on the imperial Chúnhuà gétiè 淳化閣帖 (993 / 992) — the canonical late-Northern-Sòng compilation of model calligraphies. Mǐ Fú had earlier produced a piece-by-piece evaluation of the Gétiè’s authenticity attributions, often by aesthetic intuition rather than evidential investigation; Huáng Bósī, working from the copy held by Wáng Zhēn 王珍 of Luòyáng during his Luòzhōng 洛中 tenure, systematically re-checked Mǐ’s calls and corrected them. The work was completed in Dàguān 2 (1108, wùzǐ), with Huáng’s own preface dated to that year. The Sìkù WYG copy preserves two postscripts of Zhènghé era — by Wáng Zhēn 王珍 and Xǔ Hàn 許翰 — confirming the circumstances of compilation. The title in the WYG copy reads 法帖刑誤 (with 刑 for 刋); the catalog meta and the text-cover show 法帖刋誤. Both readings are attested but 刋誤 (kānwù) is the philologically correct one. The original was a freestanding work, but Huáng’s son Huáng Yīng 黃𤣥 later folded it into the Dōngguān yúlùn 東觀餘論 (which the Sìkù catalogues as KR3l…); the present WYG entry preserves the freestanding form.

Tiyao

Compiled by Huáng Bósī of the Sòng. Bósī is the author of the Dōngguān yúlùn, already catalogued. Mǐ Fú had earlier taken the Chúnhuà gétiè and evaluated each piece for authenticity, but his judgements were mostly aesthetic and rarely supported by evidential research. Bósī took Mǐ’s determinations and re-corrected them — the present book is the result.

The book has, at its head, a self-preface dated wùzǐ of Dàguān [1108]. It says: “Mǐ Fú’s lapses are very many. There are pieces obviously forged that he did not detect — for example, Lǐ Huáilín 李懷琳’s forged ‘Lady Wèi calligraphy’ 衞夫人書, or ‘Yìshào after a long absence’ 逸少闊別稍久帖. There are pieces he correctly identified as forgeries but criticised in the wrong terms — for example, identifying Bóyíng’s wife’s various running-script pieces as Tang transcriptions, when in fact they are Tang copies of Jìn-period speeches. There are corrections that are correct but where the original author’s name was perfectly clear and Mǐ failed to identify it — for example, taking the Tiánchóu 田疇 character as not Lǐ Sī’s 李斯 hand, when it is in fact a character from Lǐ Yángbīng’s 李陽冰 Míngzhōu stele. There are misattributions — for example, taking lines of Jìn-period zhāngcǎo script preserved in the Zhūgě Liàng zhuàn and treating them as Liàng’s own hand.”

Bósī’s discussions are mostly accurate; his other comments on authenticity are also evidence-based.

At the end are two postscripts of Zhènghé era, one by Wáng Zhēn and one by Xǔ Hàn. Wáng’s postscript notes that this work was made when Bósī was serving in office at Luòzhōng, after he saw the Gétiè in Wáng’s family collection.

The book was originally a separate work — hence to this day there are independent transmissions, and the various book-catalogues record it separately. Later Huáng’s son Huáng Yīng folded it into the Dōngguān yúlùn compilation.

Tāng Hòu’s 湯垕 Huà jiàn 畫鑒 says: “Among Sòng connoisseurs of refined judgement, none equals Mǐ Yuánzhāng. Yet his innate gifts were so high that his arguments often went too far. Then there appeared one Huáng Bósī Chángruì, who wrote Fǎtiè kānwù — squarely attacking Mǐ Fú’s mistakes. I, following him, have analysed in detail and produced Fǎtiè zhèngwù 法帖正誤 — squarely indicating Bósī’s overreaches.” Tāng’s book is no longer extant; we cannot say what he claims to have corrected. But Tāng was an aesthetically driven connoisseur, not an evidentialist — his “corrections” are unlikely to be more reliable than Bósī’s.

Abstract

The Fǎtiè kānwù is the foundational text of the Chúnhuà gétiè connoisseurial-criticism tradition and an early monument of Chinese palaeographic scholarship. The catalog meta gives no specific date; Huáng’s own preface fixes it to Dàguān 2 (1108, wùzǐ), set as both notBefore and notAfter here. The work was composed during Huáng’s Luòzhōng tenure, working from Wáng Zhēn’s family-held copy of the imperial Gétiè.

The work’s importance is methodological: where Mǐ Fú had judged authenticity by aesthetic recognition (his famous xìzhì 細緻 connoisseurial eye), Huáng systematically applied palaeographic evidence — comparison of character-forms across multiple inscriptions — to the same problems, anticipating the late-Qing development of jīnshí xué into a hard discipline. The four error-types Huáng catalogues (genuine that Mǐ called false; forged that Mǐ correctly called false but for wrong reasons; works whose author was clear but Mǐ misidentified; works misattributed by both) became the standard schema for fǎtiè connoisseurship.

The ordeal of competing connoisseurial schools — Mǐ vs. Huáng vs. (later Yuán) Tāng Hòu — is a classic illustration of SòngYuán connoisseurial polemic. Tāng’s Fǎtiè zhèngwù is now lost; the Sìkù editors’ polite scepticism toward Tāng’s claim is grounded in Tāng’s actual aesthetic-rather-than-evidential method.

The work informed all subsequent Chúnhuà gétiè criticism, including Liú Cìzhuāng’s 劉次莊 Fǎtiè shìwén KR2n0015 (philological transcription), Cáo Shìmiǎn’s 曹士冕 Fǎtiè pǔxì 法帖譜系 KR2n0021 (genealogy of editions), and Gù Cóngyì’s 顧從義 Míng Fǎtiè shìwén kǎoyì 法帖釋文考異 KR2n0031 (Míng-era recollation), as well as the Qing imperial Qīndìng chóngkè Chúnhuàgé tiè shìwén KR2n0035.

The Sìkù WYG copy reads 刑誤 (xíngwù) rather than 刋誤 (kānwù) on the title page — clearly a transcriber’s slip; the philologically correct form is 刋誤 (“corrections of errors”). Modern editions standardise on 刋誤. The catalog meta also records 刋誤.

CBDB 7030 confirms Huáng Bósī’s lifedates 1079–1118.

Translations and research

No English translation. Studies and editions:

  • Chí Lǐdìng 池立定, “黃伯思《法帖刋誤》研究” — modern Chinese monograph on the work’s textual transmission.
  • Wáng Lìāo 王利器, Yánbiàn lùnjí 嚴辨論集, on the connoisseurial controversies of Sòng calligraphy criticism.
  • Patricia Ebrey, Accumulating Culture: The Collections of Emperor Huizong (Washington UP, 2008), on Sòng calligraphy connoisseurship.
  • Robert E. Harrist Jr., The Landscape of Words: Stone Inscriptions in Early and Medieval China (Washington UP, 2008), with chapters on Sòng fǎtiè tradition.
  • Yáng Rénkǎi 楊仁愷, Zhōngguó shūhuà 中國書畫, on the Chúnhuà gétiè and its scholarly tradition.
  • Sòng Hányǔ 宋韓玉, articles on Mǐ Fú vs. Huáng Bósī polemic.

Other points of interest

The work is part of a tightly clustered Sòng fǎtiè-criticism corpus represented in this section of the Sìkù: Huáng’s Fǎtiè kānwù (1108) KR2n0014, Liú Cìzhuāng’s Fǎtiè shìwén (early 12th c.) KR2n0015, Cáo Shìmiǎn’s Fǎtiè pǔxì (mid-13th c.) KR2n0021, Jiāng Kuí’s Jiàngtiè píng KR2n0019, Sāng Shìchāng’s Lántíng kǎo KR2n0022, and Yú Sōng’s Lántíng xùkǎo KR2n0023 together form a Sòng-era Chúnhuà gétiè and Lántíng studies coherent literature.

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