Bǎozhēnzhāi fǎshū zàn 寶真齋法書贊
Encomia on the Calligraphic Models of the Bǎozhēn Studio by 岳珂 (Yuè Kē, c. 1173 – c. 1240, 宋, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
Yuè Kē’s family-collection catalogue and encomium-anthology, recording the calligraphic models held by his branch of the great Yuè 岳 clan — Yuè Kē was the grandson of the patriot general Yuè Fēi 岳飛 (the Èguó zhōngwǔwáng) and son of the Fūwéngé dàizhì Yuè Lín 岳霖. The work proceeds by category: imperial autographs first; then Jìn and LiángChén pieces; then Táng to Five-Dynasties to Sòng pieces (with the Táng ÈrWáng tracings further subdivided from the miscellaneous Táng tracings; the Five Dynasties opening with the three kings of WúYuè; the Sòng closing with the Èguó family transmission — Yuè Fēi’s autographs). For JìnTáng pieces, where the leaf is short, each piece is given its own zàn (encomium); for the more numerous Sòng pieces, related pieces are grouped and zàn-ed together. The text was lost as a single book early in the Yuán period, but the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn preserved most of it; the Sìkù editors reassembled twenty-eight juàn from those fragments. The work is one of the principal sources for the Southern Sòng private calligraphy collection at its high point, and uniquely preserves Yuè Fēi’s autograph correspondence.
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: Bǎozhēnzhāi fǎshū zàn, by Yuè Kē of the Sòng. Kē, zì Sùzhī 肅之, hào Yìzhāi 亦齋, also Juànwēng 倦翁. Grandson of the Èguó zhōngwǔwáng Yuè Fēi; son of the Fūwéngé dàizhì Yuè Lín. In office: Hùbù shìláng and Huáidōng zǒnglǐng. The book takes his family’s collection of calligraphic models from JìnTáng through the Southern Sòng, with a colophon for each and a zàn attached. His grandfather’s and father’s autographs are gathered in a separate Èguó chuánjiā tiè appended at the end. Kē lived in the depleted years of the Southern Sòng restoration, and after his family’s misfortunes and exile: hence the entries that touch on contemporary affairs are heavily charged with fervor — feeling visible in the diction. Of the various houses’ ancient tiè he is especially careful in collation. His prose, too, can deploy all the styles — fresh and many-shifting, layer on layer, inexhaustible: this is the connoisseur made literary man. Kē’s other works — Jiǔjīng sānzhuàn lì, Tíngshǐ, Jīntuó cuìbiān, Kuìtán lù — are widely transmitted, but this work all the catalogues have failed to mention; only Mǐ Fú’s Wàijì, in the Yīngguāngtáng tiè records one entry — Kē’s own engraving of a Mǐ Fú autograph — and the text is briefer than this version. This is because that was a tièhòu báwěi (colophon after the model-letter), while this is the editorial compilation into a book — the same as the difference between Ōuyáng Xiū’s Jíɡǔ lù in its genuine-original form and its collected-printed form. The original was excerpted and re-distributed by the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn; the juànmù (chapter-titles) are no longer extant. We have now examined what survives and reassembled by category: imperial autographs first; then Jìn through LiángChén; then Táng-Five-Dynasties through Sòng pieces; the Táng tracings further subdivided into ÈrWáng and miscellaneous; the Five Dynasties opening with the three kings of WúYuè; the Sòng closing with the Èguó chuánjiā. Each category has at its head a general label — e.g., “WúYuè wáng pàndú,” “Èguó chuánjiā tiè” — which establishes the divisions. Each category-label is followed by a general zàn — e.g., for the Táng-traced ÈrWáng, the “Zhēnguān wèixīng…” passage, for the no-name pieces the “fēijìlù bùgài…” passage — by which to confirm the divisions. Total zàn not attached to a specific piece: the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn discarded them all; only these two survive, attached to adjoining tièwěi (colophon ends) — barely sufficient to reconstruct the original organising principle. The tiè grouped together, JìnTáng with short leaves, have a separate zàn per piece; Northern-Southern Sòng with their abundant correspondence have grouped zàn — and for each tiè the original / cursive / leaf-count / line-count, signing-and-emendation, are noted under the sub-heading. Roughly editable. Twenty-eight juàn in all. Among these, lost anecdotes and lost facts that confirm or correct the histories, short pieces and long compositions that supplement or correct the literary collections — for example, Zhū Xī’s Chǔyì memorial in nearly ten thousand characters, Xǔ Hún’s Niǎolán hundred-piece anthology divergent in text by more than a thousand characters — much useful evidential work. Of the tiè listed, those preserved in stone-cut form barely one in ten; those preserved in autograph one in a hundred — all transmitted through Kē’s compilation. The book lay obscured and scattered for several centuries; in the present sagely age of letters it has been retrieved and again come to view: we may call it Kē’s great good fortune, and indeed the great good fortune of all calligraphic houses. As to disagreement about earlier worthies’ calligraphic readings — Kē’s text in places has variant readings; where the [imperial-collated] Chóngkè gétiè has settled them, we have respectfully followed; where multiple readings are all defensible, we have preserved both, not effacing the substance. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 49 (1784), tenth month.
Abstract
Yuè Kē 岳珂 (c. 1173 – c. 1240; zì Sùzhī 肅之, hào Yìzhāi 亦齋 / Juànwēng 倦翁), grandson of Yuè Fēi and son of the rehabilitated Yuè Lín, served as Hùbù shìláng and as Huáidōng zǒnglǐng in the Jiādìng (1208–1225) and Shàodìng (1228–1234) periods. The Bǎozhēnzhāi fǎshū zàn is the principal Southern Sòng family-collection catalogue and a unique source: through its zàn (encomia) it preserves a level of personal engagement with the pieces missing from the more bureaucratic KR3h0026 Xuānhé shūpǔ. Its principal historical value is the Èguó chuánjiā tiè — Yuè Fēi’s surviving autograph correspondence — which is the single most important source for Yuè Fēi’s hand and for the textual record of the patriot general’s resistance to the Jīn. Yuè Kē’s earlier works (e.g. the Tíngshǐ, Jīntuó cuìbiān) made him an authority on the JīnSòng war and on the rehabilitation of his grandfather’s reputation; the Fǎshū zàn mobilises that scholarly capacity through the medium of the calligraphic colophon. The Sìkù reassembly from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn fragments yielded the present 28-juàn recension.
Translations and research
- McNair, Amy. “Public Values in Calligraphy and Orthography in the Yuan Dynasty.” Monumenta Serica 43 (1995): 263–278 (background).
- Wáng Liánqǐ 王連起. Sòng-dài shūhuà jiànbié yánjiū. Shanghai: Shanghai Shuhua Chubanshe, 2003.
- Cao Baolin 曹寶麟. Zhōngguó shūfǎ shǐ — Sòng-Liáo-Jīn juǎn. Nanjing: Jiangsu Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 1999 (uses Yuè Kē extensively).
- No standalone Western-language monograph or translation.
Other points of interest
The Èguó chuánjiā tiè — the appendix containing Yuè Fēi’s correspondence preserved through this work — is the principal documentary source for Yuè Fēi’s autograph hand and is regularly cited in modern studies of the patriot general’s textual record.