Shūfǎ yǎyán 書法雅言
Refined Sayings on Calligraphic Method by 項穆 (Xiàng Mù, 16th cent., 明, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
Xiàng Mù’s one-juàn late-Míng treatise on calligraphy in seventeen piān: (1) Shūtǒng 書統 calligraphy’s unified tradition; (2) Gǔjīn 古今 past and present; (3) Biàntǐ 辨體 distinguishing styles; (4) Xíngzhì 形質 form and substance; (5) Pǐngé 品格 rank; (6) Zīxué 資學 natural endowment and learning; (7) Guījǔ 規矩 rule and measure; (8) Chángbiàn 常變 constancy and variation; (9) Zhèngqí 正奇 orthodox and unusual; (10) Zhōnghé 中和 the mean; (11) Lǎoshào 老少 mature and young; (12) Shénhuà 神化 spiritual transformation; (13) Xīnxiàng 心相 heart-aspect; (14) Qǔshě 取捨 choice and rejection; (15) Gōngxù 功序 the order of effort; (16) Qìyòng 器用 implements; (17) Zhīshí 知識 connoisseurship. The work takes the Jìn calligraphers as its principal exemplars and explicitly rejects the Sòng masters: Sū Shì and Mǐ Fú “have edges and angles in fury” (léngjiǎo nùzhāng) and Ní Zàn is “cold and skimpy” (hánjiǎn); the first two can in principle achieve the ancients with diligence, Ní Zàn never. Xiàng Mù was the son of the great connoisseur Xiàng Yuánbiàn 項元汴 (Mòlín 墨林), whose seals on calligraphic and pictorial originals remain — to the present day — the principal criterion of authenticity for many surviving YuánMíng works.
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: Shūfǎ yǎyán in one juàn, by Xiàng Mù of the Míng. Wáng Zhìdēng’s short biography of Mù says: “He was first named Dézhī 德枝; the jùndàfū Xúgōng changed it to Chún 純; he later again changed to Mù, zì Déchún 德純, hào Zhēnyuán 貞元, also Wúxiézǐ 無邪子. Son of Xiàng Yuánbiàn of Xiùshuǐ.” Yuánbiàn’s calligraphic-and-pictorial connoisseurship was first of his time; even today those discussing authentic pieces still use the Mòlín impression-marks to distinguish genuine from spurious. Mù inherited the family learning; through the eye and ear he was steeped, and so was specially skilled in calligraphic method, expressing what he had attained in this book. Seventeen piān: Shūtǒng, Gǔjīn, Biàntǐ, Xíngzhì, Pǐngé, Zīxué, Guījǔ, Chángbiàn, Zhèngqí, Zhōnghé, Lǎoshào, Shénhuà, Xīnxiàng, Qǔshě, Gōngxù, Qìyòng, Zhīshí. Major intent: the Jìn men as ancestor; deprecating Sū Shì and Mǐ Fú for “edges and angles in fury,” and Ní Zàn for “coldness and skimping”: of Shì and Fú diligent effort can bring them to the ancients; of Zàn one finally cannot. Although holding rather extreme positions, in lifelong dedication and deep research, beyond the cigar-and-paper he genuinely has independent attainments; weighed by the principle of “taking from above,” it is indeed a calligrapher’s compass-and-pole. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 42 (1777), ninth month.
Abstract
Xiàng Mù 項穆 (originally Dézhī 德枝, later Chún 純, then Mù; zì Déchún 德純; hào Zhēnyuán 貞元 / Wúxiézǐ 無邪子; of Xiùshuǐ 秀水 in Jiāxīng) was the son of Xiàng Yuánbiàn 項元汴 (1525–1590), the dominant connoisseur of mid-Míng China and owner of the Mòlín collection — one of the largest and most-cited private collections in the history of Chinese painting. The Shūfǎ yǎyán is the family-inherited learning expressed as systematic doctrine. The work’s thoroughgoing pro-Jìn / anti-Sòng position — paralleled by Dǒng Qíchāng’s Nánběi zōng theory in painting — is the most explicit Míng theoretical recovery of the Wáng Xīzhī tradition and one of the principal sources for the late-Míng / early-Qīng Wǎn canonical reaffirmation. The work was extensively drawn upon by the Kāngxī Pèiwénzhāi shūhuà pǔ KR3h0061.
Translations and research
- McNair, Amy. The Upright Brush: Yan Zhenqing’s Calligraphy and Song Literati Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998.
- Clunas, Craig. Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China. Cambridge: Polity, 1991.
- Wei, Betty. Ruan Yuan, 1764–1849: The Life and Work of a Major Scholar-Official in Nineteenth-Century China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006 (afterlife of Xiàng).
- No standalone Western-language monograph on Xiàng Mù.
Other points of interest
The work’s anti-Ní Zàn position — that Ní’s “coldness and skimping” can never reach the ancients — is one of the few Míng critiques of the Yuán “Four Masters” hierarchy and an important counter-voice to the dominant late-Míng pro-Yuán literati consensus.