Huàshǐ 畫史
A History of Painting by 米芾 (Mǐ Fú, 1051–1107, 宋, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
Mǐ Fú’s running connoisseur’s notebook of paintings he personally examined — the unique unsystematic but indispensable Northern Sòng witness to the contents and provenance of the most important Yuányòu / Shàoshèng-era private painting collections. Entries are entered as Mǐ examined the works, with appraisals of authenticity, descriptions of mounting and seals, and digressions on collation, lineage and connoisseurship. The book is supplemented by Mǐ’s KR3h0023 Bǎozhāng dàifǎng lù (a more orderly catalogue of authenticated jìshū mòjī arranged by category) and his KR3h0022 Shūshǐ (the equivalent running notebook for calligraphy).
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: Huàshǐ in one juàn, by Mǐ Fú of the Sòng. Fú’s zì was Yuánzhāng 元章. Shǐ Hào’s Liǎngchāo zhāiyú says: “Fú styled himself Lùmén jūshì 鹿門居士.” Huáng Jìn’s Bǐjì says: “Yuánzhāng signed himself sometimes Mǐ, sometimes Niè 芉, Fú 芾, or Fú 黻; he also called himself Hǎiyuè wàishǐ 海岳外史 and Xiāngyáng mànshì 襄陽漫仕.” Zhōu Bìdà’s Pínɡyuán-jí has a colophon on Zhāng Yǒuzhí’s Huàdù with the signature Wú’ài jūshì 無礙居士 — that is, Mǐ Yuánzhāng. Fú was by nature fond of the unusual, hence the frequent changes in his name. The Sòngshǐ biography makes him a man of Wú — in error. Fú originally received the position of Hánguāngwèi 浛光尉 in compensation for his mother’s old service in the Xuānrén Empress’s princely household; he rose to Lǐbù yuánwàiláng and zhī Huáiyángjūn. The history calls him “wondrous in brush-and-ink and in painting; a school by himself, especially refined in connoisseurship.” This book all sets out famous paintings he saw in his lifetime, appraising their authenticity, sometimes touching on mounting, collection-history and corrections of error. Generations of connoisseurs have followed it as their compass. There are also entries on works he did not see — such as the imperial-portrait set from the two Hàns through the Suí owned by Wáng Qiú 王球, or the works of Wáng Xiànzhī as reported to him by Lǐ Gōnglín 李公麟. So the Huàshǐ records what he had seen with his own eyes, while the KR3h0023 Bǎozhāng dàifǎng lù sorts by category between “personally seen” and “reliably heard.” Here the seen and the unseen are intermixed and the formats differ — but the two need not be uniform.
Abstract
Mǐ Fú 米芾 (zì Yuánzhāng 元章, 1051–1107) was the dominant calligrapher and painting-connoisseur of the late Northern Sòng. He served as imperial Shūhuà xué bóshì 書畫學博士 (Erudite of the Calligraphy-and-Painting Studies) under Huīzōng and was, in his last years, Lǐbù yuánwàiláng and zhī Huáiyángjūn. The Huàshǐ (composition window c. 1100–1107) is one of three closely linked Mǐ Fú treatises on the visual arts; together with the KR3h0023 Bǎozhāng dàifǎng lù (presented in 1086) and the KR3h0024 Hǎiyuè míngyán (Mǐ’s calligraphic doctrine), they constitute the foundation of all later Chinese connoisseurship literature. The Huàshǐ is in form a connoisseur’s daybook; in substance it is the single most important source for understanding the contents of Northern Sòng private painting collections (Wáng Yǐn 王詵, Sū Shì, Sū Liángsì 蘇良嗣, Li Gōnglín, etc.) and the practical procedures of authentication current at the imperial court at the end of the Northern Sòng.
Translations and research
- Vandier-Nicolas, Nicole. Le Houa-che de Mi Fou (1051–1107) ou Le Carnet d’un Connaisseur à l’Époque des Song du Nord. Paris: PUF, 1964 (full French translation with commentary).
- Sturman, Peter Charles. Mi You-jen and the Inherited Literati Tradition. PhD diss., Yale, 1989.
- Ledderose, Lothar. Mi Fu and the Classical Tradition of Chinese Calligraphy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.
- McNair, Amy. The Upright Brush: Yan Zhenqing’s Calligraphy and Song Literati Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998 (Mǐ Fú as connoisseur).
- Egan, Ronald. The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006 (on Mǐ’s connoisseurship).