Chuánshén mìyào 傳神祕要
Essentials of the Secret of Conveying the Spirit (in Portraiture) by 蔣驥 (Jiǎng Jì, fl. 1707–1727, 清, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
A 1-juàn treatise on portrait painting (xiězhēn 寫真 / chuánshén 傳神, lit. “conveying the spirit”) by Jiǎng Jì 蔣驥 (zì Chìxiāo 赤霄, hào Miǎnzhāi 勉齋) of Jīntán 金壇 in Jiāngnán. Jiǎng’s father, Jiǎng Héng 蔣衡 (zì Xiāngfān 湘帆, later renamed Zhènshēng 振生), was a famous late-Kāngxī / Yōngzhèng calligrapher who transcribed the Thirteen Classics and presented them to the inner archive; Yōngzhèng granted him the rank of Guózǐjiàn xuézhèng 國子監學正. Jiǎng Jì’s calligraphy did not reach his father’s level, but his portraiture brought him separate fame. The treatise has 27 headings covering composition, perspective, brushwork, colouring and the rendering of the human face, with original contributions on each. The work’s most distinctive theoretical move is its emphasis on yuǎnqǔ shén fǎ 遠取神法 — taking the shén (spirit) from a distance: Jiǎng explains that close observation (one or two chǐ) produces unfocused vision and lifeless rendering, while distant observation (several zhàng) energises the gaze and the resulting line. The treatment of the eye-rendering (diǎnjīng qǔshén fǎ 點睛取神法) is particularly fine — the position of the pupil within the eyelid frame is shown to encode the sitter’s mental engagement (looking up, level, down, in anger). The Sìkù editors note that previous painting-method treatises had concentrated on figure painting, flower painting and landscape — except for the brief Xiěxiàng mìjué 寫像秘訣 of Wáng Yì 王繹 of the Yuán transmitted in Táo Zōngyí’s Chuògēng lù 輟耕錄, no treatise had been specifically devoted to portraiture. Jiǎng’s work is therefore the first systematic treatise on portrait painting in the Chinese tradition.
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: Chuánshén mìyào in one juàn, by Jiǎng Jì of the present dynasty. Jì, zì Chìxiāo, hào Miǎnzhāi, of Jīntán. His father Héng, zì Xiāngfān, later renamed Zhènshēng, was famous in his generation for calligraphy; he once transcribed the Thirteen Classics and presented them to the imperial archive — the Shìzōng Xiànhuángdì (Yōngzhèng emperor) specially granted him the rank of Guózǐjiàn xuézhèng. Jì’s calligraphy is not on his father’s level, but he was famous specifically for xiězhēn (portraiture). This compilation discusses portrait method — divided into 27 headings; everything on composition, perspective, brush and colour is set out from Jì’s own xīndé (heart-grasped) sayings. The ancients’ painting-method had much on xiězhēn skill; thus Gù Kǎizhī’s exceptional miàojué dāngdài was specifically called by this name. But the transmitted painting-discussions are mostly on figures, flower-and-bird, and landscape; those that take xiězhēn method and form into a single book — besides Wáng Yì’s Xiěxiàng mìjué recorded in Táo Zōngyí’s Chuògēng lù — barely make a sighting. Painting houses have mostly used oral formulas in transmission, so much so that xiězhēn came to be considered “not the shìdàifū art.” But Jiǎng’s careful analysis of subtleties and his setting out of frameworks and examples — this begins from Jiǎng’s book; sufficient to supplement what the ancients had not provided. We may not now prize the distant and despise the recent. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 43 (1778), sixth month.
Abstract
The Chuánshén mìyào is the first and principal treatise on portraiture in the Chinese tradition. Jiǎng Jì’s status as the son of a famous calligrapher who had imperial patronage placed him in a position to elevate the xiězhēn genre — long disparaged as artisanal — into the shìdàifū canon. The Sìkù editors’ endorsement is unusual in granting first-rank theoretical status to a portrait-painting treatise. The 27-heading structure, the emphasis on distant observation and on the careful rendering of pupil placement, and the close anatomical attention to the eye and its surroundings make this work an exceptionally precise statement of Chinese portrait theory. The catalog meta dates Jiǎng’s activity to 1707–1727 — the Yōngzhèng period for the calligrapher father places this work in the late Kāngxī to mid-Yōngzhèng range. The treatise’s preservation in the Sìkù testifies to its acceptance into the canon despite its portraiture subject.
Translations and research
- Vinograd, Richard. Boundaries of the Self: Chinese Portraits, 1600–1900. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. [Key Western-language study; translates and discusses sections of the Chuán-shén mì-yào.]
- Stuart, Jan, and Evelyn S. Rawski. Worshiping the Ancestors: Chinese Commemorative Portraits. Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 2001.
- Cahill, James. The Compelling Image. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1982.
- Yú Jiànhuá 俞劍華 (ed.). Zhōngguó gǔdài huàlùn lèibiān. Beijing: Rénmín měishù chū-bǎn-shè, 1957. [Includes the complete Chuán-shén mì-yào.]
Other points of interest
The Chuánshén mìyào’s 27 headings include such anatomically precise items as “Yǎnzhū shàngxià fēncùn” (the upper-and-lower fractions of the pupil), “Bí, kǒu, miào lì zhènyào” (the structural keys of nose and mouth), “Liǎngshǒu rú liǎngjiǎo” (the two hands like two feet) — the treatise reads as a systematic anatomical guide before the modern arrival of Western anatomical drawing in nineteenth-century treaty-port China.