Sòngcháo mínghuà píng 宋朝名畫評
A Critical Evaluation of Famous Painters of the Sòng Dynasty by 劉道醇 (Liú Dàochún, fl. mid-11th cent., 宋, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
A three-juàn catalogue of Northern Sòng painters in six genre-categories — figures (人物), landscape and forest-trees (山水林木), beasts (畜獸), flowers and bird-feathers (花卉翎毛), demons-and-deities (鬼神), architecture (屋木) — each subdivided into three grades (shénmiàonéng, each grade further into upper, middle, and lower), covering 92 painters across 54 grade-cells. Liú follows Zhāng Huáiguàn rather than Zhū Jǐngxuán: there is no yìpǐn, on the grounds that the shén grade already encompasses what would otherwise be classed as untrammelled. A painter who excels in more than one genre is graded separately in each — so Huáng Quán 黃筌 and Huáng Jūcǎi 黃居寀 appear both in figures (where they are miào) and in flower-and-bird (where they are shén). The work is the earliest comprehensive Sòng painting catalogue.
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: Sòngcháo mínghuà píng in three juàn, by Liú Dàochún of the Sòng. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì lists both this and the Wǔdài mínghuà bǔyí KR3h0014 as by “Liú Dàochéng” 劉道成, in error. The book is divided into six categories: (1) figures, (2) landscape and forest-trees, (3) beasts, (4) flowers and bird-feathers, (5) demons-and-spirits, (6) architecture; each category divided into shénmiàonéng, and each grade further into upper, middle, and lower. It records over ninety persons. At the head is a preface, anonymously transmitted; its diction is not in the regular preface form — we suspect it is a fāfán (statement of editorial principles) that, since the book had no proper preface, was later detached and made into one. Now: Zhū Jǐngxuán’s Mínghuà lù KR3h0010 divides into four grades shénmiàonéngyì, but this work divides only into three grades — apparently because the shén grade is taken to be sufficient to cover the yì, and so further subdivision is omitted. Again: Huáng Xiūfù’s Yìzhōu mínghuà lù KR3h0016 places Huáng Quán and Huáng Jūcǎi in the lower-middle miàopǐn, but this book places both in miào under figures and in shén under flower-and-bird — meaning that one and the same person, possessed of multiple skills, must be ranked according to the level of each skill. The critical comments are reasonably detailed and fair. The biographical detail given for each is concise but contains much that is useful for collation. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 43 (1778), fifth month. Chief compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì.
Abstract
The Sòngcháo mínghuà píng is the first comprehensive critical catalogue of Northern Sòng painters and the principal source for ranking and stylistic placement of figures such as Huáng Quán and his son Huáng Jūcǎi, Guō Zhōngshù 郭忠恕, Yān Wéngùi 燕文貴, Liú Wéntōng 劉文通 and Wáng Dàozhēn 王道真. Liú compiled it under Zhézōng (1086–1100), some thirty years after his KR3h0014 Wǔdài mínghuà bǔyí (1059); the internal terminus is Liú’s reference to Jù Lóngshuǎng 句龍爽 as Túhuàyuàn zhīhòu under Shénzōng (1067–1085), giving an internal post quem of 1067. The Sìkù editors note that the apparent preface is in fact a displaced fāfán. Liú’s most consequential analytical move — grading the same painter separately in each genre he practises — distinguishes his catalogue from the Táng Mínghuà lù and from the Sìchuān-focused Huáng Xiūfù KR3h0016 Yìzhōu mínghuà lù: it allows for finely calibrated specialist appraisal, which the Northern Sòng’s emerging painter-specialisation made critically necessary.
Translations and research
- Soper, Alexander C. “Liu Tao-ch’un’s Sung-ch’ao Ming-hua p’ing.” Artibus Asiae 23.2 (1960): 88–98.
- Maeda, Robert J. Two Sung Texts on Chinese Painting and the Landscape Styles of the 11th and 12th Centuries. New York: Garland, 1978.
- Bush, Susan, and Hsio-yen Shih, eds. Early Chinese Texts on Painting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985 (selections).
- Yú Jiànhuá 俞劍華. Zhōngguó gǔdài huàlùn lèibiān 中國古代畫論類編. Beijing: Renmin Meishu Chubanshe, 1957, vol. 1.