Huàjì 畫繼
A Continuation (of Zhāng Yànyuǎn and Guō Ruòxū) by 鄧椿 (Dèng Chūn, fl. 1127–1167, 宋, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
Dèng Chūn’s continuation, in ten juàn, of Zhāng Yànyuǎn’s KR3h0009 Lìdài mínghuà jì (which ran from antiquity to Huìchāng 1, 841) and Guō Ruòxū’s KR3h0017 Túhuà jiànwén zhì (from Huìchāng through Xīnínɡ 7, 1074): hence “Jì” — “continuation.” It covers the ninety-four years from Xīnínɡ 7 (1074) to Qiándào 3 (1167), recording 219 painters. The work is divided into three parts: (a) juàn 1–5 by social category (Shèngyì 聖藝 imperial painting; Hóuwáng guìqì 侯王貴戚 princes; Xuānmiǎn cáixián 軒冕材賢 high officials; Yánxué shàngshì 巖穴上士 recluses; Jìnshēn wéibù 搢紳韋布 minor officials and commoners; Dàorén nàzǐ 道人衲子 Daoists and monks; Shìzhòu fùnǚ jí huànzhě 世胄婦女及宦者 hereditary clansmen, women and eunuchs); (b) juàn 6–7 by genre (immortals and Daoists/Buddhists; figures and portraiture; landscape and rocks; flower-bamboo-bird; beasts-insects-fish; architecture-boats-carriages; vegetables-fruits-medicinal herbs; minor scenes and mixed paintings); (c) juàn 8 Míngxīn juépǐn 銘心絕品 — Dèng’s record of works he had seen and could not forget; juàn 9–10 Záshuō 雜說 in two parts (Lùnyuǎn 論遠 on the ancients, Lùnjìn 論近 on contemporaries). The book is the principal Southern Sòng source for late-Northern-Sòng and early-Southern-Sòng painting, especially for the Huīzōng academy and the great pictorial collections of Zhèng Yún 鄭雲, Lǐ Cángyī 李藏一, Liú Yìshàn 劉益善 and Lǚ Líng 呂凌.
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: Huàjì in ten juàn, by Dèng Chūn of the Sòng. Chūn was a man of Shuāngliú 雙流 (Shǔ). His grandfather Dèng Xúnwǔ 鄧洵武, during Zhènghé, served as Zhī Shūmìyuàn shì. At that time, painting-studies were most honoured. Chūn, using his family’s traditions and what he had seen and heard, composed this book. The title “Jì” — Táng Zhāng Yànyuǎn’s Lìdài mínghuà jì runs from Xuānyuán to Huìchāng 1; Sòng Guō Ruòxū’s Túhuà jiànwén zhì runs from Huìchāng 1 to Sòng Xīnínɡ 7; Chūn’s book runs from Xīnínɡ 7 to Qiándào 3 (1167), continuing the two earlier books — hence the title. The recorded persons, from emperors above down to artisan-craftsmen, number in those ninety-four years 219 in all. Juàn 1–5 are by [social] category: Shèngyì, Hóuwáng guìqì, Xuānmiǎn cáixián, Yánxué shàngshì, Jìnshēn wéibù, Dàorén nàzǐ, Shìzhòu fùnǚ jí huànzhě — each compartment and class summarising the technical abilities of one age. Juàn 6–7 are by genre: Xiānfó guǐshén, Rénwù chuánxiě, Shānshuǐ shùshí, Huāzhú língmáo, Chùshòu chóngyú, Wūmù zhōuchē, Shūguǒ yàocǎo, Xiǎojǐng záhuà — each pointing out merits and faults to clarify the various masters’ technical achievements: warp and woof complementing each other, so that no single excellence is missed. Juàn 8: Míngxīn juépǐn — recording rare paintings he had seen and could not forget; this is the special feature of the book. Juàn 9–10: Záshuō in two parts, Lùnyuǎn and Lùnjìn: the former on appraising painting in general, the latter on contemporary painters’ anecdotes. At the end of Lùnyuǎn there appears suddenly an item on Sòng-era záshì; we suspect this is a transmission error in the sequence. With contemporary men recording contemporary art, the selection inevitably runs broad, and many of these painters’ works are not transmitted, so that today some of these names are unknown — but in his rankings he neither favours the Huīzōng academy’s “investigation of things and preservation of method,” nor the unrestrained brushwork of Shí Kè 石恪 and his ilk — quite balanced. Furthermore he is comprehensive and exhaustive, so that later connoisseurship has consulted him as evidence. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 43 (1778), ninth month.
Abstract
Dèng Chūn (a man of Shuāngliú 雙流 in Shǔ, fl. 1127–1167), the grandson of Huīzōng’s Zhī Shūmìyuàn shì Dèng Xúnwǔ 鄧洵武, was uniquely positioned to record both the late-Huī-zōng academy and the early Southern Sòng painters: his family had access to the Huīzōng inner circle and inherited its painting collection, and he himself lived to see the Qiándào (1165–1173) consolidation of the Lín’ān court’s painting establishment. The Sìkù editors particularly praise his methodological balance: he neither idealises the Huīzōng academy’s géwù shǒufǎ (investigative literalism) nor over-elevates the unrestrained Five-Dynasties-Sòng brushwork of Shí Kè. His third major innovation, the Míngxīn juépǐn chapter, opens a new genre — the personal sighting register of unforgettable works — that connoisseurs from Yuán Shānhúwǎng through Míng Qīnghé shūhuà fǎng take up as a model. Internal post quem 1167, the date of Qiándào 3.
Translations and research
- Soper, Alexander C. “A Northern Sung Descriptive Catalogue of Paintings: The Hua-chi by Teng Ch’un.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 69 (1949): 18–28.
- Bush, Susan, and Hsio-yen Shih, eds. Early Chinese Texts on Painting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985 (selections).
- Bush, Susan. The Chinese Literati on Painting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.
- Yú Jiànhuá 俞劍華 (ed.). Huà-jì / Huà-jì bǔyí 畫繼補遺. Beijing: Renmin Meishu Chubanshe, 1963 (collated text).
Other points of interest
The Míngxīn juépǐn chapter is the prototype for all later récit-style “sighting registers” in Chinese connoisseurial literature, from Yuán Shānhúwǎng through Míng Qīnghé shūhuà fǎng and Qīng Shíqú bǎojí.