Tángcháo mínghuà lù 唐朝名畫錄
Record of Famous Tang Painters by 朱景玄 (Zhū Jǐngxuán, 9th cent., 唐, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
The earliest single-dynasty painting-grading catalogue. Zhū Jǐngxuán evaluates 124 Táng painters by a four-grade scheme — shén 神 (divine), miào 妙 (wonderful), néng 能 (capable), yì 逸 (untrammelled) — with shén, miào and néng further subdivided into upper, middle, and lower; the yìpǐn, which Zhū originated, stands without subdivision and outside the rank-order, “honouring it.” The book opens with three Táng imperial princes who, like the emperors and empresses in Zhāng Huáiguàn’s KR3h0006 Shūduàn, are listed without grade as a mark of rank. The work is the principal source for the Táng art-historical canon as it stood before Zhāng Yànyuǎn’s KR3h0009 Lìdài mínghuà jì, and Zhū’s innovation of the yìpǐn re-shaped all later Chinese painting criticism. An appendix transcribed from Lǐ Sìzhēn’s Huàlù lists 25 painters known only by name.
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: Tángcháo mínghuà lù in one juàn, by Zhū Jǐngxuán of the Táng. Jǐngxuán was a man of Wújùn 吳郡; in office he rose to Hànlín xuéshì. The Yìwénzhì of the Tángshū titles this book Tánghuà duàn, and the Wénxiàn tōngkǎo therefore says that Huàduàn is an alternative name for the Tángcháo mínghuà lù; but Jǐngxuán’s own preface clearly calls his work Huàlù, and so the title Huàduàn is mistaken. Both Tōngzhì and Tōngkǎo describe it as three juàn; this edition has no juàn division, evidently the result of later collation. The Tōngkǎo also mentions a preface by Shāng Zōngrú of Tiānshèng 3 (1025); this present transmission has lost it. As to its divisions: four grades — shén, miào, néng, yì — with shén, miào and néng each subdivided into upper, middle and lower, while the yìpǐn alone is given no rank, in honour of it. Since Yú Jiānwú and Xiè Hè all those who grade calligraphy and painting have mostly followed Bān Gù’s Gǔjīn rénbiǎo’s ninefold scheme; Zhāng Huáiguàn’s Shūduàn first proposed the shénmiàonéng three-grade scheme — equivalent to “upper, middle, lower.” But the separate establishment of the yìpǐn in fact begins with Jǐngxuán, and from then on has been retained unchanged. The four grades cover 124 persons; the head of the juàn lists three Táng imperial princes, who are not assigned to a grade — much as the emperors and empresses are not graded in Huáiguàn’s Shūduàn — meaning, evidently, the principle of “honouring the noble.” Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 42 (1777), third month. Chief compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief collator: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Zhū Jǐngxuán 朱景玄 (Wújùn 吳郡), Hànlín xuéshì in the Tàihé 太和 and Kāichéng 開成 reigns, composed the Tángcháo mínghuà lù in the Huìchāng 會昌 era (841–846), shortly before Zhāng Yànyuǎn’s Lìdài mínghuà jì. Zhū’s own preface restricts his survey to painters whose works he had personally seen and to those whose performance he could confidently rank, refusing to include “names without traces.” The four-grade scheme, with its newly minted yìpǐn category for painters whose work falls outside conventional standards (王墨, 張志和, 李靈省 are the three founding yì exemplars), became one of the most consequential conceptual moves in Chinese art criticism. Sòng critics from Huáng Xiūfù KR3h0016 onward reorganised the relations of yì to the canonical three grades, and the high Song revaluation of yìpǐn directly underpins literati painting theory. The Sìkù editors note that the Tángshū·Yìwénzhì and the Tōngzhì / Tōngkǎo mistitle the work Huàduàn, an error to be set aside in favour of Zhū’s own Huàlù. The appended list of 25 painters known only by name is borrowed from Lǐ Sìzhēn’s Huàlù.
Translations and research
- Soper, Alexander C. “T’ang Chao Ming Hua Lu, Celebrated Painters of the T’ang Dynasty by Chu Ching-hsuan of T’ang.” Artibus Asiae 21.3/4 (1958): 204–230. (Translation with introduction.)
- Bush, Susan, and Hsio-yen Shih, eds. Early Chinese Texts on Painting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985 (selections).
- Cahill, James. Three Alternative Histories of Chinese Painting. Lawrence: Spencer Museum of Art, 1988 (on the yì-pǐn concept).
- Vinograd, Richard. “Some Landscapes Related to the Blue-and-Green Manner from the Early Yuan Period.” Artibus Asiae 41.2/3 (1979): 101–131 (discusses Zhū’s classifications).
- Bush, Susan. The Chinese Literati on Painting: Su Shih (1037–1101) to Tung Ch’i-ch’ang (1555–1636). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971 (on the later afterlife of yì-pǐn).
Other points of interest
The yìpǐn (untrammelled grade) introduced here ranked outside and above the three conventional grades, and is the conceptual ancestor of the entire literati-painting valuation of unschooled, eccentric, and “natural” styles that became dominant from the Northern Song onward.