NánSòng yuànhuà lù 南宋院畫錄
Record of the Southern Sòng Painting Academy by 厲鶚 (Lì È, 1692–1752, 清, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
An 8-juàn historical reconstruction of the Southern Sòng (1127–1279) imperial painting academy by Lì È 厲鶚 (1692–1752) of Qiántáng 錢塘 (Hángzhōu), one of the major kǎozhèng scholars of the early-Qiánlóng period. The book is the principal modern reference for the structure, membership and pieces of the Yùqián huàyuàn 御前畫院 set up by Sòng Gāozōng after the southern crossing in imitation of the Northern Sòng Biànjīng painting academy. Juàn 1 is the general overview (zǒngshù 總述) of the academy’s institutional history; juàn 2–8 are biographies of 96 individual academy painters, organised broadly in chronological order: Lǐ Táng 李唐, Liú Sōngnián 劉松年, Mǎ Hézhī 馬和之, Mǎ Yuǎn 馬遠, Xià Guī 夏珪 and Mǎ Lín 馬麟 receive the longest entries (Mǎ Yuǎn alone fills juàn 7). Each painter’s biography records his life and career, followed by lists of the transmitted pieces with the colophons and poems written on them — drawn principally from Wāng Kěyù’s KR3h0060 Shānhú wǎng, Zhāng Chǒu’s KR3h0055 Qīnghé shūhuà fǎng, and Biàn Yǒngyù’s KR3h0068 Shìgǔtáng shūhuà huìkǎo. The Sìkù editors single out the work’s exhaustive citation and praise its retrieval (cǎizhāi wú yí 採摭無遺), while flagging some unresolved double-attribution disputes (e.g. the Yáng Mèi-zǐ-inscribed Zhào Qīngxiàn Qínhè tú quatrain, attributed by some sources to Mǎ Hézhī, by others to Liú Sōngnián). The work was published shortly before Lì È’s death in 1752; the catalog meta does not date it precisely, but Lì È’s scholarly activity bracket sets the composition between his jǔrén of Kāngxī gēngzǐ 1720 and the late 1740s.
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: NánSòng yuànhuà lù in eight juàn, by Lì È of the present dynasty. È, zì Tàihóng 太鴻, of Qiántáng. Kāngxī gēngzǐ (1720) jǔrén; in Qiánlóng 1 (1736) he was nominated for the Bóxué hóngcí examination. His Liáoshǐ shíyí and other works are separately entered. Sòng Gāozōng after the southern crossing yielded to compromise and made the best of life amid Húshān 湖山 song-and-dance, his task being to ornament the era of peace; accordingly, following the precedent of the old Biàn capital, he set up the Yùqián huàyuàn and gathered skilled craftsmen and painters; among them were the dàizhào and zhīhòu ranks, grading their work — “academy painting” thereafter. At that time, masters like Lǐ Táng, Liú Sōngnián, Mǎ Yuǎn and Xià Guī came to be called the Sì Dàjiā (Four Great Masters). Critics sometimes say their craft is excessively refined, differing in lineage from the Northern Sòng; but at the academy’s start there were still many in the Xuānhé old-people’s lineage, transmitted with each reaching its acme — the genre’s mastery is indeed not later attainable. Hence even fragments of silk and torn paper, collectors all deeply value them. È has compiled Sòngshī jìshì and NánSòng záshì shī — he is most expert in Sòng matters; he therefore here examines the academy painting’s beginning and end and made this book. First the general overview, one juàn; then from Lǐ Táng down, 96 persons in all, each given a detailed biography, with each piece’s transmission and the various books’ recorded colophons and poems appended — well-arranged and reasonably comprehensive. Among the difficulties: a quatrain inscribed by Yáng Mèizǐ on Zhào Qīngxiàn’s Qínhè tú — some books say Mǎ Hézhī painted it, others say Liú Sōngnián painted it — these and similar are not all carefully reconciled. Yet the citation is rich; for the lost stories and yíshì it has effectively gathered all there is. The shǎngjiàn jiā (connoisseur) wishing to research the yuánliú (origins and transmission) will find this work a genuine resource for checking. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), tenth month.
Abstract
The NánSòng yuànhuà lù is the standard reference for the Southern Sòng painting academy, which produced the most influential corpus of Chinese painting between the Yuán reorganisation and the modern era. Lì È’s painstaking citation of his three principal sources (Wāng Kěyù, Zhāng Chǒu, Biàn Yǒngyù) creates an effectively complete digest of the academy material then available. The 96-painter roster establishes a roll-call that has remained the basis of the canon; the Sì Dàjiā identification of Lǐ Táng, Liú Sōngnián, Mǎ Yuǎn and Xià Guī is itself a YuánMíng tradition Lì È here documents and stabilises. The dating range is bracketed by Lì È’s jǔrén of 1720 and his death in 1752, though most likely composed in the 1730s–1740s alongside his other Sòng works. The book is essential for any modern study of Mǎ Yuǎn, Xià Guī or Lǐ Táng — and for the modern provenance of any Southern Sòng academy piece.
Translations and research
- Sturman, Peter C. Mi Fu: Style and the Art of Calligraphy in Northern Song China. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
- Cahill, James. The Lyric Journey: Poetic Painting in China and Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1996.
- Cahill, James. Southern Sòng Academy Painting. (Multiple essays, including the Charles Lang Freer Memorial Lecture, 1977.)
- Edwards, Richard. The Heart of Ma Yuan. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011.
- Murck, Alfreda. Poetry and Painting in Song China: The Subtle Art of Dissent. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2000.
- Vinograd, Richard. “Some Landscapes Related to the Blue-and-Green Manner of Sòng Painting.” Artibus Asiae 41 (1979): 101–131.
Other points of interest
The Yáng Mèizǐ–Zhào Qīngxiàn Qínhè tú attribution controversy that Lì È flags (Mǎ Hézhī vs. Liú Sōngnián) remains an unresolved problem in modern Sòng-painting connoisseurship.