Shānshuǐ sōngshí gé 山水松石格
Standards for Mountains, Waters, Pines, and Stones by 蕭繹 (Xiāo Yì, Liáng Yuándì, 508–555, attributed)
About the work
A short rhymed-prose treatise on landscape painting traditionally attributed to Liáng Yuándì 梁元帝 Xiāo Yì 蕭繹 (508–555). This is the second of the two recensions of the work preserved in the Kanripo corpus (cf. KR3h0096 Liáng Yuándì shānshuǐ sōngshí gé, the parallel recension transmitted under the imperial-prefixed title); KR3h0097 carries the bare title Shānshuǐ sōngshí gé as found in Lìdài mínghuà jì and Tàipíng yùlǎn. The two recensions overlap at roughly 95% of the text but differ in three significant readings — KR3h0097 reads jiàn hōng 濺渹 (water-splashing roar), sùpíng lián yú 素屏連隅 (the plain screen joining the corner), and pēn zhī wèi róng 噴之蔚榮 (sprayed forth in luxuriant flourishing); these are the smoother, more conventional readings, agreeing with the Sòng-period transmission. The two recensions thus document the parallel preservation of a short Liùcháo / early-Táng technical text through two related but distinct transmission lines.
Abstract
The Shānshuǐ sōngshí gé is one of the earliest preserved technical-instructional Chinese statements on landscape painting, attributed to the bibliophile-emperor Liáng Yuándì 梁元帝. The text in roughly 250 characters of four-character rhymed couplets covers (1) the principles of laying out fěnbì 粉壁 (limewashed walls) and sùpíng 素屏 (plain silk screens) for landscape composition, with attention to scale-relations between paired peaks and to the xiāngyìng 相映 / xiāngyíng 相迎 (mutual reflection / mutual greeting) of head-and-tail and body-and-belly; (2) the principle that natural forms — trees, stones, clouds, waters — have no fixed standard but follow internal coherence; (3) the seasonal-palette canon qiū máo dōng gǔ, xià yīn chūn yīng (autumn fur, winter bone, summer shade, spring blossom) with hot crimsons against cold blues; (4) the pòmò 破墨 (broken-ink) technique with high ink keeping a green tone (gāo mò yóu lǜ) and low ink keeping a russet tone (xià mò yóu chéng); (5) the order of laying out cloud-shadowed terrain (stones first, then branches and twigs); and (6) the closing injunction mì zhī wù xiè yú hùtíng 祕之勿洩於戶庭 (keep it secret and do not divulge it in the household courtyard).
For the question of attribution and date: see the parallel entry KR3h0096. The work is conventionally placed in the late Liáng under Liáng Yuándì but is not catalogued under his name in Suí shū · Jīngjí zhì; the first secure citations occur in late-Táng Lìdài mínghuà jì (847). Modern critical opinion is divided between accepting the attribution as authentic-but-reworked-in-transmission and reading the work as a mid-Táng pseudepigraphic composition placed under the great name of the emperor. The composition window is set wide, 540–555, on the assumption of the conventional attribution. Together with the Huà shānshuǐ xù of Zōng Bǐng (KR3h0095) and the Gǔhuà pǐnlù of Xiè Hè (KR3h0001), the Shānshuǐ sōngshí gé completes the trio of foundational Liùcháo Chinese landscape-painting documents.
Translations and research
- Bush, Susan, and Hsio-yen Shih, eds. Early Chinese Texts on Painting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985 (rep. 2012). [Standard English translation and discussion.]
- Acker, William R. B. (trans.). Some T’ang and Pre-T’ang Texts on Chinese Painting. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1954, 1974.
- Sullivan, Michael. The Birth of Landscape Painting in China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962.
- Fong, Wen C. Beyond Representation: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy 8th–14th Century. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992.
- Yú Jiàn-huá 俞劍華 (ed.). Zhōng-guó huà-lùn lèi-biān 中國畫論類編. Beijing: Rén-mín měi-shù chū-bǎn-shè, 1957.
Other points of interest
The Lìdài mínghuà jì recension preserved here is the principal vehicle by which the pòmò 破墨 technical term and the qiū máo dōng gǔ seasonal palette entered the Sòng-period landscape-painting tradition. Where KR3h0096 reads pēn zhī wèi huí 噴之蔚回 (a slightly corrupt reading), KR3h0097 preserves the cleaner pēn zhī wèi róng 噴之蔚榮 (“sprayed forth in luxuriant flourishing”), referring to the spray of mountain springs around great pines.