Lìdài mínghuà jì 歷代名畫記
Records of Famous Paintings of Successive Ages by 張彥遠 (Zhāng Yànyuǎn, 9th cent., 唐, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
The foundational work of Chinese art history. Compiled by Zhāng Yànyuǎn in 847 (with later revisions), the Lìdài mínghuà jì is in 10 juàn and combines a connoisseur’s manual, a theoretical treatise, and a biographical-historical catalogue of 372 painters from the legendary Xuānyuán down to the Huìchāng 會昌 era (841–846). Juàn 1–3 are theoretical: origins of painting, its rise and decline, painter-roll, the Six Methods (六法), landscape and tree-and-rock, Northern and Southern transmission, the brush technique of Gù Kǎizhī, Lù Tànwēi, Zhāng Sēngyóu and Wú Dàozǐ, painting-style and copying, prices and grades, connoisseurship and collecting, colophons and signatures from antiquity, public and private seal-impressions, mounting, the wall-paintings of the two capitals and provincial temples, and ancient secret-pictures and treasure-charts. Juàn 4–10 supply biographical notices of the painters listed by name in juàn 1. The work preserves three otherwise lost texts of Gù Kǎizhī (Lùnhuà, WèiJìn shènɡliú mínghuà zàn, Huà Yúntái shān jì), and is the indispensable source for pre-Táng and Táng painting history.
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: Lìdài mínghuà jì in ten juàn, by Zhāng Yànyuǎn of the Táng. He himself claims that his family had accumulated calligraphy and painting collections, with connoisseurship “ahead by a day.” Now the Tángshū records that Yànyuǎn’s grandfather Hóngjìng’s household amassed books and paintings on a par with the imperial library; Lǐ Chuò’s Shàngshū gùshí also abundantly records famous traces of the Zhāngs’ calligraphy and painting — sufficient to confirm the truth of his preface. Hence the breadth and completeness of what this book records of what he had seen and heard. The first three juàn are all painting-theory: (1) sources and currents of painting, (2) its waxing and waning, (3) the roll of ancient painters’ names, (4) the Six Methods of painting, (5) on the painting of landscape and tree-and-rock, (6) transmission and the Northern and Southern epochs, (7) the brush technique of Gù, Lù, Zhāng and Wú, (8) the bodily styles, technical labour and tracing-copying, (9) prices and grades, (10) connoisseurship, collecting, and viewing, (11) the colophons and signatures of antiquity, (12) the public and private seal-impressions of antiquity, (13) mounting and roller-fittings, (14) wall-paintings of the temples of the two capitals and outlying prefectures, and (15) the secret-pictures and treasure-charts of antiquity. From the fourth juàn on are all biographical notices of painters. However, the 370+ persons already enumerated in juàn 1 are then given their biographies further on, so that the name-roll piece in juàn 1 is in fact very redundant — we suspect that the book was originally in three juàn recording only the painters’ names, and that he later gathered up their deeds and critical estimations and appended these, without ever deleting the redundant name-roll. The book quotes copiously: lost texts and old anecdotes are often preserved here, such as the Lùnhuà of Gù Kǎizhī, the WèiJìn shènɡliú mínghuà zàn, and the Huà Yúntái shān jì — none of which are found in other works. He further shows that the “Chǔshì” seal on ancient calligraphies and paintings was that of a different Chǔ family and not Chǔ Suìliáng’s, which resolves the long-standing doubt about the “Chǔshì” seal at the head of the stone-cut Língfēi jīng — another point that other books do not detail. Even his quotation of Dù Fǔ’s line “the Gàn[stable horse] paints only the flesh and not the bone” is one no commentator on Dù’s poetry had ever drawn on. So this book is precious not only for its connoisseurial discernment but for its evidential value as well. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì separately records a Mínghuà lièjīng in six juàn by Yànyuǎn; but Guō Ruòxū’s Túhuà jiànwén zhì KR3h0017 lists it as “anonymous author,” and places it after Zhāng Huáiguàn’s Huàduàn and before Lǐ Sìzhēn’s Hòu huàpǐn lù — so it cannot be Yànyuǎn’s, and Cháo is in error. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), twelfth month. Chief compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief collator: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Lìdài mínghuà jì sets the model for all later Chinese art-historical writing. The work is self-dated by Zhāng’s preface to Dàzhōng 1 (847), making it the earliest fully extant systematic art history in any language. Its theoretical opening juàn — especially the treatment of Xiè Hè’s KR3h0001 Liùfǎ 六法 and the long discussion of Northern and Southern transmission and the GùLùZhāngWú line of brush-style — became the conceptual armature of all later Chinese painting criticism. The catalogue juàn combine biographies of 372 painters with extensive quotation from the lost works of Gù Kǎizhī, Xiè Hè, Yáo Zuì, Lǐ Sìzhēn, Péi Xiàoyuán and Zhū Jǐngxuán. The Sìkù editors identified the redundancy between the name-roll in juàn 1 and the biographies in juàn 4–10 as evidence of a compositional layer (an earlier three-juàn draft enlarged by appended biographies). The work’s seal-section and mounting-section preserve unique Táng technical vocabulary and remain the principal evidence for the early history of zhuāngbiǎo 裝裱.
Translations and research
- Acker, William Reynolds Beal. Some T’ang and Pre-T’ang Texts on Chinese Painting. 2 vols. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1954–74. (Vol. 1 = full annotated translation of juàn 1–3; vol. 2 = juàn 4–10. The standard Western-language version.)
- Bush, Susan, and Hsio-yen Shih, eds. Early Chinese Texts on Painting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985 (selected re-translation).
- Soper, Alexander C. “Standards of Quality in Northern Sung Painting.” Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America 11 (1957): 8–15.
- Wén Zhàotóng 溫肇桐. Zhāng Yànyuǎn Lìdài mínghuà jì kǎo 張彥遠歷代名畫記考. Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Meishu Chubanshe, 1957.
- Yú Jiànhuá 俞劍華 (ed.). Zhōngguó gǔdài huàlùn lèibiān 中國古代畫論類編. Beijing: Renmin Meishu Chubanshe, 1957 (collated text and commentary, vol. 1).
Other points of interest
The work transmits not only the principal WèiJìn pictorial theoretical literature (notably the three Gù Kǎizhī essays) but the only systematic ninth-century discussion of public and private seal-marks on paintings, which has remained the foundational reference for all subsequent painting-authentication methodology.