Shānshuǐ chúnquán jí 山水純全集
Compendium on the Wholeness of Landscape Painting by 韓拙 (Hán Zhuō, fl. 1097–1121, 宋, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
Hán Zhuō’s systematic late Northern Sòng treatise on landscape painting, completed by 1121 (Xuānhé 3, the date of Zhāng Huái’s preface). In one juàn of nine chapters: on mountains; on waters; on forest-trees; on rocks; on clouds, mists, vapours, mountain light, and the four atmospheric conditions of wind, rain, snow and fog; on figures, bridges, beasts, passes, walls, monasteries, mountain residences, boats, carts, and the four seasons; on the use of ink, structural method, and faults of vital movement; on viewing pictures and on the connoisseur’s eye; on past and present students. Hán’s preface refers to ten chapters; one has dropped from the received text. Together with Guō Xī’s KR3h0018 Línquán gāozhì jí, this is the principal Northern Sòng systematic landscape painting treatise; but where Guō Xī articulates an artistic doctrine, Hán Zhuō reads as an academy manual — the Sìkù editors note that the principal absence is precisely the post-Sū-Shì literati emphasis on “transcendent feeling beyond the brush” (逸情遠致超然于筆墨之外).
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: Shānshuǐ chúnquán jí in one juàn, by Hán Zhuō of the Sòng. Zhuō, zì Chúnquán 純全, hào Qíntáng 琴堂, a man of Nányáng 南陽. The Shūshǐ huìyào KR3h0043 notes he was good at painting landscape and rock-clusters, and composed the Shānshuǐ chúnquán jí — i.e., this book. Separate editions also give the title as Shānshuǐ chúnquán lùn, a transmission error. His career is otherwise indistinct. The closing colophon, by Zhāng Huái of Yīmén dated Xuānhé xīnchǒu (1121), records: “since the Shàoshèng period (1094–1097) I have carried my umbrella to the capital, presented my art, was favourably received by Dūwèi Wáng Jìnqīng, who recommended me to the Princely Estate of the present sovereign; subsequently when His Majesty ascended the Bǎowèi I was made jīhòu (Attendant) of the Hànlín shūyìjú, repeatedly advanced to Zhícháng mìshū dàizhào (Reader-in-Attendance of the Imperial Library), and now bear Zhōngxùnláng.” So he was an artist in Huīzōng’s imperial painting academy. This compilation: chapter on mountains, then on waters, then on forest-trees, then on rocks, then on clouds-mists-vapours and on light-wind-rain-snow-fog, then on figures-bridges-beasts-passes-walls-monasteries-mountain-residences-boats-carts and on the four seasonal scenes, then on the use of ink, the methods of structure, and the diseases of vital-movement, then on viewing-pictures and connoisseur’s-discernment, then on past and present students — nine chapters. The preface self-counts as ten — perhaps one has been lost. His doctrine is largely about rule-and-measure. As to “transcendent feeling, distant goal, soaring above brush and ink” — he hardly approaches it. So is the academy style: yet they are not without their painters’ rule-and-method. Examine Dèng Chūn’s Huàjì KR3h0030, which records “Hán Ruòzhuō 韓若拙 of Luòyáng, skilled in língmáo and in portrait — at the end of Xuānhé he answered the imperial call to go to Goryeo to paint the king’s likeness; war intervened and he did not go.” The two men are contemporaries, of the same hometown, and both painters — the names differ by one character. Possibly two reports of one man. Cannot be resolved. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), tenth month. Chief compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì.
Abstract
Hán Zhuō (zì Chúnquán 純全, hào Qíntáng 琴堂, of Nányáng 南陽) belonged to Huīzōng’s Hànlín shūyìjú, the imperial painting academy. Zhāng Huái’s Xuānhé 3 colophon traces his career from Shàoshèng (1094–97) on. The Shānshuǐ chúnquán jí is the principal academy-side response to Guō Xī’s KR3h0018 Línquán gāozhì jí: where Guō Xī works literary doctrines and atmospheric subjectivities, Hán Zhuō provides the kind of comprehensive landscape technical compendium an academy student would need. The book is the most-cited Northern Sòng source for the technical vocabulary of cūnfǎ 皴法 (texture-strokes), yúnqì 雲氣 (cloud-and-vapour), and the catalogue of figures, animals, structures and boats integrated into the landscape view. The Sìkù editors’ identification of the post-Sū-Shì literati emphasis as missing from Hán’s vocabulary is precise: Hán’s work belongs to the academy tradition that Mǐ Fú, in KR3h0024 Hǎiyuè míngyán, scorned and that the later literati canon excluded — yet its survival makes it the only systematic record of the academy’s own theoretical horizon at its high point.
Translations and research
- Maeda, Robert J. Two Sung Texts on Chinese Painting and the Landscape Styles of the 11th and 12th Centuries. New York: Garland, 1978 (translates Shānshuǐ chúnquán jí in full).
- Bush, Susan, and Hsio-yen Shih, eds. Early Chinese Texts on Painting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985 (selections).
- Murck, Alfreda. Poetry and Painting in Song China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000.
- Foong, Ping. The Efficacious Landscape: On the Authorities of Painting at the Northern Song Court. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2015 (uses Hán extensively for academy practice).
Other points of interest
Hán’s chapter on the “sānyuǎn of Guō Xī” introduces three further “yuǎn” (新三遠 kuòyuǎn 闊遠, míyuǎn 迷遠, yōuyuǎn 幽遠), an academy elaboration of Guō Xī’s compositional triad that is sometimes called Hán Zhuō’s “six distances” — the most-cited technical contribution of the work.