Sīlíng hànmò zhì 思陵翰墨志
Sīlíng’s [Sòng Gāozōng’s] Notes on Brush and Ink by 趙構 (Zhào Gòu, Sòng Gāozōng 宋高宗, r. 1127–1162, 1107–1187, 宋, yùzhuàn 御撰)
Note: the Kanripo catalog meta places this work in the Táng dynasty (唐) and gives the author as “高宗趙構” with dates 1107–1187 — but Zhào Gòu is Sòng Gāozōng, not a Táng emperor. The frontmatter is corrected here.
About the work
A single-juàn set of imperial reflections on calligraphy, written by the abdicated Sòng Gāozōng during his retirement at the Déshòu 德壽 palace (1162–1187). The Sòngshǐ·Yìwénzhì records it as Gāozōng pínɡshū 高宗評書; Gāo Shìsūn’s Yànjiān and Yuè Kē’s KR3h0032 Bǎozhēnzhāi fǎshū zàn refer to it as Sīlíng hànmò zhì — a posthumous title (Sīlíng 思陵 = Gāozōng’s mausoleum). It contains the emperor’s own views on the canon, his fifty-year practice, evaluations of Sòng calligraphers (Cài Xiāng 蔡襄, Lǐ Shíyōng 李時雍, Sū Shì, Huáng Tíngjiān, Mǐ Fú, Xuē Shàopéng, Wú Yuè, Xú Jīng), and a celebrated section on the appraisal of inkstones. The text is the principal source for Gāozōng’s much-discussed calligraphic enterprise, which institutionalised a return to the canonical Wáng Xīzhī / Wáng Xiànzhī style after the Northern Sòng generation’s enthusiasm for Huáng Tíngjiān and Mǐ Fú.
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: Sīlíng hànmò zhì in one juàn, imperially composed by Emperor Gāozōng of the Sòng. The Sòngshǐ·Yìwénzhì records “Gāozōng pínɡshū, one juàn; also called Hànmò zhì.” Gāo Shìsūn’s Yànjiān cites it as “Gāozōng hànmò zhì,” and Yuè Kē’s KR3h0032 Fǎshū zàn cites it as “Sīlíng hànmò zhì” — a posthumous re-titling. At a time when Gāozōng ought to have been “sleeping on firewood and tasting gall” — that is, building himself up in the arts of war — he yet pondered over the brush and inkstone, affecting the manner of a peaceful reign: this can indeed be called “abandoning the root to pursue the tip.” Yet on the merits of his calligraphy itself, he had penetrated deeply. Lù Yóu’s Wèinánjí praises his “wondrous comprehension of the Eight Methods, his attention to the antique and refined, his unsparing effort to acquire models and famous paintings, and his unceasing practice of copying and tracing in his idle moments.” Wáng Yīnglín’s Yùhǎi records: “He at first delighted in the manner of Huáng Tíngjiān; later took up Mǐ Fú; in the end abandoned both, devoting himself only to the father-son Wángs, tracing with the hand and copying with the heart. He used to say: in studying calligraphy one should take the ZhōngWáng as model; only after that does one venture out and freely transform to make one’s own school.” Now examining this book — he says of himself that he has not put down brush and ink for fifty years; he says further that in calligraphy the Sòng has produced no system worth naming. For the Northern Sòng he names only Cài Xiāng and Lǐ Shíyōng; for the contemporaries of Sū, Huáng, Mǐ and Xuē he names only Wú Yuè and Xú Jīng — all with notes of dissatisfaction. Only Mǐ Fú’s xíng and cǎo receive considerable approval. His main allegiance is to the Wángs father and son, agreeing precisely with the Yùhǎi’s notice — so this work belongs to his later years. His remark that the imitators of Mǐ Fú gain only the outer countenance — “great-stepping, high-shouldered air, but ignorant that within is the Liùcháo essence steeped in fēnggǔ spontaneously transcendent” — is a piercing observation. His remark that Huīzōng, devoted to calligraphic learning and founder of the academy that nurtured scholars, produced only one Dù Tángjī — a name no calligraphy-school now invokes — is also telling. His one passage on the inkstone, that one should “want a piece of purple jade silently ground, not valuing its eyes,” is even now followed by connoisseurs as a guide. Yuè Kē’s Bǎozhēnzhāi fǎshū zàn quotes this work for an evaluation of Mǐ Fú’s shīwén not present in this edition — perhaps the present has been abridged by Míng hands and is no longer complete. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), tenth month. Chief compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì.
Abstract
Gāozōng of the Southern Sòng — sole survivor of the Jurchen catastrophe of 1126–27 and the founding emperor of the Lín’ān 臨安 restoration — was personally the most accomplished imperial calligrapher of the dynasty. The Hànmò zhì (the more familiar short title) is the principal piece of his theoretical writing on calligraphy and the most extended imperial discourse on the art in pre-Yuán China. Its arguments coordinate with the politico-cultural programme of the Shàoxīng court: a restoration of the classical WèiJìn canon (the Wángs), against the perceived eccentricity and unbalance of the late-Northern-Sòng masters; the production of accurate copies from the Chúnhuà and other model-letter compendia under imperial supervision; and the explicit identification of the emperor’s brush with the legitimating tradition of high antiquity. The Sìkù editors note that Yuè Kē’s Bǎozhēnzhāi fǎshū zàn preserves at least one passage (on Mǐ Fú’s shīwén) not in the received recension, indicating that the text we have is abridged. Composition was on the abdicated emperor’s hand during his retirement (1162–1187); the dating bracket reflects this window.
Translations and research
- McNair, Amy. “Public Values in Calligraphy and Orthography in the Yuan Dynasty.” Monumenta Serica 43 (1995): 263–278 (on Gāozōng’s afterlife).
- Sturman, Peter Charles. Mi You-jen and the Inherited Literati Tradition. PhD diss., Yale University, 1989.
- Murray, Julia K. Ma Hezhi and the Illustration of the Book of Odes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993 (on Gāozōng’s court calligraphic enterprise).
- Wang, Cheng-hua. “Material Culture and Emperorship: The Shaping of Imperial Roles at the Court of Xuanzong.” PhD diss., Yale, 1998.
- Bēi Lóng 卑龍. “Sòng Gāozōng Hànmò zhì yánjiū” 宋高宗翰墨志研究. Shū-pǔ 書譜 1992.
Other points of interest
The passage on inkstones (“a piece of purple jade silently ground, not valuing its eyes”) is among the most-cited classical statements on the connoisseurship of Duān 端 stones.