Shūyuàn jīnghuá 書苑菁華
Choice Flowers from the Garden of Calligraphy by 陳思 (Chén Sī, fl. 1259, 宋, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
A twenty-juàn Southern Sòng calligraphic anthology compiled by the Lín’ān bookseller-scholar Chén Sī, complementary to his KR3h0034 Shū xiǎoshǐ. The two together form the principal Southern Sòng response to Zhāng Yànyuǎn’s KR3h0008 Fǎshū yàolù and Zhū Chángwén’s KR3h0019 Mòchí biān. The Shūyuàn jīnghuá gathers more than 160 essays on calligraphy from antiquity through the Northern Sòng, arranged by genre of writing: Fǎ 法 (methods, juàn 1–2), Shì 勢 / Zhuàng 狀 / Tǐ 體 / Zhǐ 旨 (juàn 3), Pǐn 品 (juàn 4), Píng 評 / Yì 議 / Gū 估 (juàn 5), Duàn 斷 (juàn 6), Lù 錄 (juàn 7), Pǔ 譜 / Míng 名 (juàn 8), Fù 賦 (juàn 9–10), Lùn 論 (juàn 11–12), Jì 記 (juàn 13), Biǎo 表 / Qǐ 啓 (juàn 14), Jiān 牋 / Pàn 判 (juàn 15), Shū 書 / Xù 序 (juàn 16), Gē 歌 / Shī 詩 (juàn 17), Míng 銘 / Zàn 贊 / Xù 叙 / Zhuàn 傳 (juàn 18), Jué 訣 / Yì 意 / Zhì 志 (juàn 19), Zázhù 雜著 (juàn 20). The work is the most extensive Sòng anthology of calligraphic writings and is the foundation of the much larger Kāngxī KR3h0061 Yùdìng Pèiwénzhāi shūhuà pǔ.
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: Shūyuàn jīnghuá in twenty juàn, by Chén Sī of the Sòng. This compilation gathers the ancients’ discourse on calligraphy as a parallel and partner to the Shū xiǎoshǐ KR3h0034. [Twenty juàn organisation as above]. More than 160 pieces in total. Because the intention is breadth, the arrangement is somewhat scattered. For example: Xù 序 originally had no form titled xù 叙 — Sū Shì changed the form to avoid his family taboo, but the two are not separate genres; in his Chánglí collection what is written are all xù, not xù. Sī lists xù and xù as two separate headings — and even places Hán Yù’s “Sending Off GāoXián the Monk” (one of Hán’s well-known xù) in the xù category — quite groundless. Again: in the Táng-history’s biography of Wáng Xīzhī, Tàizōng’s “imperial discoursing critique” piece belongs to the genre of zhuànzàn (biography-encomium); Sī titles it instead “Writing after Wáng Xīzhī’s Biography” and places it in zázhù — particularly an ignorance of form. Yet from the Táng onwards, only Wéi Xù’s Mòsǒu KR3h0011 gathered the various sayings, and that was in a slim volume not at all comprehensive; the gathering of the various houses’ transmitted essays, the editorial principle of categorisation for use in collation — these in fact begin with this book. The imperially commissioned Pèiwénzhāi shūhuà pǔ KR3h0061 takes much from this work in its Lùnshū section. Although Sī’s book is rough draft, far from later refinement, the great cart began from the rough wheel, layered ice congeals from steady water — its founding labour cannot be effaced. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), fourth month.
Abstract
Chén Sī 陳思 (fl. Jǐngdìng 景定 era, 1259) was a Lín’ān 臨安 bookseller-scholar who in the closing decades of the Southern Sòng compiled the indispensable 2n0001 Bǎokè cóngbiān 寶刻叢編 (a comprehensive register of stone-cut inscriptions) and several smaller calligraphic compendia of which the Shūyuàn jīnghuá and the KR3h0034 Shū xiǎoshǐ are the two principal survivors. The Sìkù editors regard the Shūyuàn jīnghuá as the foundational Southern Sòng calligraphic anthology, breaking the path that the Kāngxī Pèiwénzhāi shūhuà pǔ later widened into the comprehensive imperial reference. The work also has a textual function: many short Táng and Northern Sòng essays on calligraphy survive only in its pages.
Translations and research
- McNair, Amy. The Upright Brush: Yan Zhenqing’s Calligraphy and Song Literati Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998.
- Wáng Liánqǐ 王連起. Sòng-dài shūhuà jiànbié yánjiū. Shanghai: Shanghai Shuhua Chubanshe, 2003.
- Yú Jiànhuá 俞劍華 (ed.). Zhōngguó gǔdài shū-lùn lèibiān 中國古代書論類編. Beijing: Renmin Meishu Chubanshe, 1957 (collated text).