Bǐzhèn tú 筆陣圖
Diagram of the Battle Formation of the Brush by 衛鑠 (Lady Wèi, 272–349) attributed; with appended postface attributed to 王羲之 (Wáng Xīzhī, 303–361)
About the work
A short calligraphic treatise traditionally attributed to Lady Wèi 衛夫人 (Wèi Shuò 衛鑠, 272–349), the early-Eastern-Jìn woman calligrapher of the Hédōng Wèi 河東衛 lineage, with an appended postface (Bǐzhèn tú hòu 筆陣圖後) traditionally ascribed to her pupil Wáng Xīzhī 王羲之 (303–361). The text is in two parts: (1) a short prose statement on the materials and methods of writing — selection of brushes (mountain hare-fur of the eighth-and-ninth months, head one cùn and shaft five cùn), inkstones (slightly-dry new stone, balanced moisture and roughness), ink (Lúshān pine-soot with Dàijūn deer-glue, aged ten years and hard as stone), paper (Dōngyáng yúluǎn paper, void-soft and clean), and the principle that the calligrapher’s whole bodily strength must be conducted through the brush at every stroke — followed by the famous seven bǐzhèn 筆陣 (brush-formation) image-characterisations of the basic strokes: 一 (horizontal) “like clouds spread over a thousand lǐ of battle-array, dimly possessing form”; 丶 (dot) “like a stone falling from a high peak, kēkē as if collapsing”; 丿 “snapping rhinoceros and elephant”; 乚 “the discharge of a hundred-jūn crossbow”; 丨 “vine of ten thousand years dried”; 乀 “collapsing waves running with thunder”; 𠃌 “the sinew-knot of a stiff crossbow.” (2) The Bǐzhèn tú hòu, in Wáng Xīzhī’s voice: the famous extended military metaphor (paper = the battle-array; brush = sword and lance; ink = helmet and armour; water-and-inkstone = city-walls and moats; mind = general; basic skill = lieutenant; structure = stratagem; brush-flourish = auspicious-or-ominous; entries-and-exits = command-orders; bends = killings); a self-narrative of Wáng’s calligraphic education — first studying with Lady Wèi, then crossing the Jiāng to study Lǐ Sī, Cáo Xǐ, Zhōng Yáo, Liáng Hú, Cài Yōng’s Shíjīng, and Zhāng Chàng’s Huáyuè bēi, on which he reflects “I now realise that to study Lady Wèi alone was to waste years and months”; and a closing line dating the composition to “the year I was 53” (i.e. 355/356), with the injunction cáng zhī shíshì, qiānjīn wù chuán 藏之石室，千金勿傳 (hide it in a stone chamber, do not transmit it for a thousand pieces of gold).
Abstract
The Bǐzhèn tú and its appended hòu are foundational to the entire post-Táng Chinese calligraphic theoretical tradition: the brush-formation imagery for the seven basic strokes — silver hooks, falling stones, vines of ten thousand years, collapsing waves — became the standard pedagogic vocabulary of kǎishū learning, and the military metaphor for the calligraphic apparatus runs through every subsequent treatise on brush-method down to the Qīng (e.g. Bāo Shìchén 包世臣 Yìzhōu shuāngjí, Liú Xīzǎi 劉熙載 Yì gài).
The attribution is, however, a matter of long-standing scholarly contest. The work is not cited in Suí shū · Jīngjí zhì nor Jiù Táng shū · Jīngjí zhì; the first secure citations occur in mid-Táng (Sūn Guòtíng’s 孫過庭 Shū pǔ of 687 may allude to it, though Sūn does not name Lady Wèi as its author; the Mòsōu 墨藪 of c. 800 is the first text to give the full attribution and the Bǐzhèn tú hòu); in particular the appended postface contains anachronisms (the cited Bǐshì lùn allegedly recovered from Zhōng Yáo’s tomb in Tàikāng and the dating “53rd year” do not align with the standard Wáng Xīzhī chronology). Modern critical opinion is that both the tú and the hòu are most likely Táng-period compositions placed under the great names of Lady Wèi and Wáng Xīzhī — the work is, in this reading, a Táng pedagogical text reaching back through the WèiJìn calligraphic genealogy. Barnhart’s “Wei Fu-jen’s Pi Chen T’u and the Early Texts on Calligraphy” (ACASA 18, 1964) remains the standard analysis. The Kanripo recension is the standard short text, drawn from the Mòsōu / Fǎshū yàolù transmission line preserved in the Sòng Tàipíng yùlǎn. The composition window is therefore set wide: a terminus a quo of 320 (Lady Wèi’s earliest plausible mature composition) and a terminus ante quem of c. 700 (the latest plausible terminus before the secure mid-Táng citations).
Translations and research
- Barnhart, Richard M. “Wei Fu-jen’s Pi Chen T’u and the Early Texts on Calligraphy.” Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America 18 (1964): 13–25. [The fundamental analysis of the work’s transmission, attribution, and authenticity questions.]
- Chang, Ch’ung-ho, and Hans H. Frankel (trans.). Two Chinese Treatises on Calligraphy: Treatise on Calligraphy (Shu pu) Sun Qianli, Sequel to the “Treatise on Calligraphy” (Xu shu pu) Jiang Kui. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. [The standard English translation of the closely-related Sūn Guò-tíng tradition.]
- Driscoll, Lucy, and Kenji Toda. Chinese Calligraphy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1935 (rep. New York: Paragon, 1964). [Discusses the Bǐ-zhèn tú in the context of the medieval Chinese calligraphic theoretical tradition.]
- Ledderose, Lothar. Mi Fu and the Classical Tradition of Chinese Calligraphy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.
- Cuī Ěr-píng 崔爾平 (ed.). Lì-dài shū-fǎ lùn-wén xuǎn 歷代書法論文選. Shàng-hǎi shū-huà chū-bǎn-shè, 1979 (rev. 2014). [The standard modern annotated text.]
- Hsiung, Ann-Marie. “The Female Voice in Calligraphic Theory: A Reading of the Bǐ-zhèn tú.” In Tradition and Modernity: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Kuei-fen Chiu et al., Taipei: National Taiwan University, 2007.
Other points of interest
The Bǐzhèn tú is the principal premodern Chinese instance of a foundational calligraphic theoretical text attributed to a woman — and the attribution, even if Táng-period, secures Lady Wèi’s place in the classical calligraphic genealogy. The appended postface is also the locus classicus for the famous list of calligraphic models that the young Wáng Xīzhī is said to have studied (Lǐ Sī, Cáo Xǐ, Zhōng Yáo, Liáng Hú, Cài Yōng’s Shíjīng, Zhāng Chàng’s Huáyuè bēi) — a list that orientates the entire subsequent received history of pre-Wáng calligraphy. The closing injunction “hide it in a stone chamber, do not transmit it for a thousand pieces of gold” became proverbial.