Yùyì biān 寓意編
Compendium of Resting Intentions by 都穆 (Dū Mù, 1458–1525, 明, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
A one-juàn connoisseur’s notebook by the prominent Wú-school scholar Dū Mù, recording the famous calligraphies and paintings the author had personally examined. The text circulates in two forms: the one-juàn recension included in Chén Jìrú’s Mìjí 秘笈, which the Sìkù editors regard as authentic; and a longer two-juàn form prefixed to the eccentric Tiěwǎng shānhú 鐵網珊瑚 attribution, which the Sìkù editors decisively reject as forgery. The Sìkù editors’ philological argument (based on internal references to events well after Dū Mù’s 1525 death) is one of the model cases of Qīng kǎozhèng of Míng connoisseurship literature.
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: Yùyì biān in one juàn, by Dū Mù of the Míng. Mù has Rénwǔ gōngchén juéshǎng lù, already recorded. This book records famous calligraphies and paintings he had seen; in Chén Jìrú’s Mìjí it has just one juàn. The world’s printed editions also have his Tiěwǎng shānhú 鐵網珊瑚 in twenty juàn, the fifth and sixth juàn of which are titled “Yùyì shàng” and “Yùyì xià” — i.e., two juàn. Comparing: the upper juàn entries on calligraphy and painting each have an attached collector; the lower does not. The upper juàn closes “From the high ancestor of my house onwards we have been fond of accumulating famous paintings; they have all been gradually obtained by enthusiasts, and I have not held them” — the closing phrase of a complete book, not anticipating a lower juàn. Moreover, the lower juàn incorporates Hé Liángjùn’s Shūhuà míngxīn lù, including a Jiājìng dīngsì (1557) “Day of Man” record of observed calligraphies and paintings. According to Wáng Chǒng’s tomb-inscription for Dū Mù, Mù died in Jiājìng 4 (yǐyǒu, 1525); Hé Liángjùn’s Míngxīn lù dates from Jiājìng 36 (1557) — Mù could not possibly have recorded its content. Further, every juàn of the lower portion is headed “Tàipú shàoqīng Dū Mù”; but the middle records a Wén Zhēngmíng landscape made in Jiājìng yǐwèi (1535) and another in Jiājìng wùwǔ (1558) — both after Mù’s death. This is conclusive proof that Tiěwǎng shānhú is a forgery. So the lower juàn is the addition of an unscrupulous hand. We have therefore continued to record only the one juàn printed by Chén Jìrú, preserving the original. What is recorded — the Yán Zhēnqīng Zhēng zuòwèi tiè, Xuē Shàngɡōng’s Zhōngdǐng kuǎnshì tiè — has evidential value. Only the Chénghuà wùshēn (incorrectly so dated, since the Chénghuà era has no wùshēn) is in error — perhaps a memory-slip or a print-slip. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), twelfth month.
Abstract
Dū Mù 都穆 (zì Xuánjìng 玄敬, hào Nánháo 南濠, 1458–1525) of Sūzhōu was one of the central figures of the early Wú-school literati establishment — friend and student of Zhù Yǔnmíng 祝允明 and Wén Zhēngmíng 文徵明’s father Wén Líndé 文林; held office through Tàipú shàoqīng 太僕少卿 (assistant of the Tàipúsì). The Yùyì biān records his observations of calligraphic and pictorial pieces in the major WúSūzhōu collections of the Hóngzhì and early Jiājìng decades. The Sìkù editors’ demonstration that the Tiěwǎng shānhú attribution is a forgery — built on the internal evidence that the Tiěwǎng’s lower juàn references events of 1535–58, well after Dū Mù’s 1525 death — is one of the most precise pieces of textual criticism in the entire Sìkù Yìshù category. The work as authentically Dū Mù’s is the one-juàn recension in Chén Jìrú’s Mìjí, retained here.
Translations and research
- Clunas, Craig. Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China. Cambridge: Polity, 1991 (Wú-school connoisseurship background).
- Cahill, James. Parting at the Shore: Chinese Painting of the Early and Middle Ming Dynasty, 1368–1580. New York: Weatherhill, 1978 (Wú-school painting).
- No standalone Western-language study of the Yùyì biān itself.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ philological demonstration that the Tiěwǎng shānhú attribution is post-Dū-Mù forgery — through internal dating evidence — is a model case in the Qīng connoisseurship literature.