Wǔdài mínghuà bǔyí 五代名畫補遺
Supplement to the Famous Painters of the Five Dynasties by 劉道醇 (Liú Dàochún, fl. mid-11th cent., 宋, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
A short Northern Sòng catalogue, in one juàn, supplying twenty-four Five Dynasties painters omitted from Hú Qiáo 胡嶠’s lost Liángcháo mínghuà lù 梁朝名畫錄. Arranged by genre (figures 人物, landscape 山水, beasts 走獸, flower-bamboo-bird 花竹翎毛, architecture 屋木, modelled-sculpture 塑作, wood-carving 彫木) and graded shén 神, miào 妙, néng 能 (no yìpǐn). The notable inclusions: Jīng Hào 荊浩 and Guān Tóng 關同 jointly at the head of landscape; Yáng Huìzhī 楊惠之 among the sculptors; the lady-carver Mistress Yán 嚴氏 (Jìqiǎo fūrén 伎巧夫人) at the head of wood-carving (one of the very few female master artisans named in Chinese art-historical literature). The preface is by Chén Xúnzhí 陳洵直, dated Jiāyòu 4 (1059); the book was thus presented in that year.
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: Wǔdài mínghuà bǔyí in one juàn, by Liú Dàochún 劉道醇 of the Sòng. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì reads: “Wǔdài mínghuà bǔyí, one juàn, edited by Liú Dàochéng 劉道成 of the present dynasty; preface by Fú Jiāyīng 符嘉應, saying that Hú Qiáo once produced a Liángcháo mínghuà lù and that this enlarges it, hence the title Bǔyí”; and separately records the Sòngcháo mínghuà píng, also annotating it “edited by Liú Dàochéng” — naming the man as Dàochéng both times, inconsistent with the present text (Dàochún 道醇). Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí reads: “Wǔdài mínghuà jì, one juàn, by Liú Dàochún; preface by Chén Xúnzhí dated Jiāyòu 4 (1059)” — titling it Jì and not Bǔyí, also inconsistent with this edition. Yet this edition is Máo Jìn’s Jígǔgé faithful reproduction of a Sòng print, the ink and paper perfectly preserved without the slightest defect — the title and the author’s name at the head of the juàn are not corrupt. Both books refer to the same work; Chén Zhènsūn mistitled the book and Cháo Gōngwǔ misrecorded the author’s name; Mǎ Duānlín, compiling the Wénxiàn tōngkǎo, had not seen the book and duplicated it on the strength of the two catalogues. Looking now at the Chén Xúnzhí preface at the front of the juàn, it agrees with what Chén Zhènsūn reports; and the Fú Jiāyīng preface that Cháo Gōngwǔ alleges is in fact a passage from within the Xúnzhí preface — so Cháo had also mistakenly transferred the Sòngcháo mínghuà píng’s preface-note to this entry. So it is not only the Dàochéng / Dàochún slip. Hú Qiáo’s name appears in the Wǔdàishǐ Qìdān zhuàn; the so-called Liángcháo mínghuà lù no longer survives. Liú Dàochún, on Chén Zhènsūn’s information, was a man of Dàliáng; his career is otherwise unrecorded. The entry on Jù Lóngshuǎng in his Sòngcháo mínghuà píng records him as Túhuàyuàn zhīhòu under Shénzōng — so this book was first completed under Rénzōng, and the Sòngcháo mínghuà píng under Zhézōng. The text records only twenty-four Five-Dynasties painters: it gathers up what Hú Qiáo omitted, and does not repeat those already in his record. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 41 (1776), twelfth month. Chief compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì.
Abstract
Together with the better-known KR3h0015 Sòngcháo mínghuà píng by the same author, the Wǔdài mínghuà bǔyí constitutes the earliest surviving systematic record of Five Dynasties painters. The lost Liángcháo mínghuà lù of Hú Qiáo 胡嶠 (a literatus held captive by the Khitan in the 940s and well attested in the Xīn Wǔdàishǐ) was Liú Dàochún’s principal source; this work supplies what Hú omitted. Chén Xúnzhí’s preface dates the work to Jiāyòu 4 (1059), placing it just after Guō Ruòxū’s KR3h0017 Túhuà jiànwén zhì began to circulate and well before Liú’s own KR3h0015 Sòngcháo mínghuà píng (completed under Zhézōng). The Sìkù editors have done significant philological work disentangling the Cháo Gōngwǔ / Chén Zhènsūn entries, which had until then propagated the erroneous “Liú Dàochéng” attribution. The work’s most-cited features are: the joint placement of Jīng Hào and Guān Tóng at the head of the landscape grade — the locus classicus for the JīngGuān pair on which Northern Sòng monumental landscape constructed its descent; and the inclusion of a female master sculptor, Mistress Yán of Jìqiǎo, an unusual record for any pre-modern Chinese art catalogue.
Translations and research
- Sirén, Osvald. Chinese Painting: Leading Masters and Principles. 7 vols. London: Lund Humphries, 1956–58 (uses this work for the Five Dynasties chapter).
- No comprehensive monographic study in English located. Treated in Yú Jiànhuá 俞劍華, Zhōngguó gǔdài huàlùn lèibiān, vol. 1, with collated text.
- Suzuki Kei 鈴木敬. Chūgoku kaiga-shi 中国絵画史. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1981, vol. 1 (uses Liú extensively).
Other points of interest
Liú’s joint placement of Jīng Hào and Guān Tóng at the shénpǐn head of landscape is the historical seed of the standard Northern Sòng pairing “JīngGuān 荊關” and, by extension, of the JīngGuānLǐFàn 荊關李范 master-genealogy of the monumental landscape school.