Yànshǐ 硯史
History of Ink-Stones by 米芾 (Mǐ Fú, 撰)
About the work
A one-juàn monograph on the yàn 硯 (ink-stone) by the most famously eccentric of Northern-Sòng connoisseurs, Mǐ Fú 米芾 (1051–1107). Composed at some point in Mǐ Fú’s adult connoisseurship — likely after his service as hánguāngxiàn wèi 含光縣尉 at Duānzhōu 端州 (the source of the most prized Duān-stone, Duānxī yàn 端溪硯), and before his death in 1107. The work surveys twenty-six varieties of ink-stone, from jade through Càizhōu white stone, with especially detailed comparative analysis of the two great Sòng standards — Duān-stone (端石) and Shè-stone (歙石). Mǐ Fú insists throughout that he records only ink-stones he has personally tested and used in actual writing — an empirical-connoisseur posture that distinguishes the work from earlier hearsay-based stone-treatises.
Tiyao
We submit that the Yànshǐ is by Mǐ Fú of the Sòng. The work opens with one section, “Quality of Use” (yòngpǐn 用品), discussing how a stone ought to be judged by its ink-developing capacity (fāmò 發墨) as the supreme criterion. There follow appendices: one on “Quality of Nature” (xìngpǐn 性品) on the hardness-or-softness of stone-substance; one on “Quality of Form” (yàngpǐn 樣品) systematically listing Jìn-period ink-stones, Táng-period ink-stones, on down to the Sòng — the differences in form-and-fabric. The middle records twenty-six varieties of ink-stone from jade ink-stone down to Càizhōu white ink-stone, with especially detailed discrimination of Duān-stone and Shè-stone. He himself states that all the stones noted are ones he has personally seen and used — those not so verified he does not record. His care in this is unusually scrupulous. The end records the qīngcuì diéshí 青翠疊石 (one piece) and the zhèngzǐshí 正紫石 (one piece), both reckoned as rarities of all ages; but he alone does not mention the so-called “Southern Táng Ink-Stone-Mountain” (Nántáng yànshān 南唐硯山) — perhaps at his time this had not yet entered his Bǎojìn Studio (Bǎojìnzhāi 寶晉齋) collection, or had already been exchanged-for by Xuē Shàopéng 薛紹彭; this we cannot determine. Mǐ was originally a master of calligraphy; all stones, fine or wormy, came under his personal testing — hence his discussion fully reflects the inner principles of the ink-stone, unlike other writers’ ear-fed reports. His investigation of the changes-in-form across the ages is especially precise-and-accurate, and indeed offers help to the literary-study connoisseur of antiquities.
(Note: this tíyào is the first of a combined six-text tíyào covering KR3i0003–KR3i0007 plus the Biàn shèshí shuō 辨歙石說 — all six being short Sòng ink-stone monographs that the Sìkù editors evidently grouped together.)
Abstract
The Yànshǐ is the most authoritative single Sòng work on ink-stones and the prototype of empirical connoisseurship literature in the pǔlù tradition. Mǐ Fú had served as xiàn wèi (sub-prefectural defender) of Hánguāng (= modern Héshān, Guǎngdōng) — adjacent to the Duānzhōu ink-stone quarries — early in his career, around 1080, and the work is grounded in his firsthand inspection of the Duān-stone source. The dating is not certain: the work refers to material from Mǐ’s middle-and-later career and so was probably finalized in the period 1090–1107.
The Yànshǐ exercised an immediate influence: the anonymous Shèzhōu yànpǔ (Sòng, KR3i0004 by Táng Jī 唐積) of 1066 had been the standard pre-Mǐ source for Shè-stone; the Shèyàn shuō and Biàn shèshí shuō (KR3i0005), the anonymous Duānxī yànpǔ (KR3i0006), and the anonymous Yànpǔ (KR3i0007) — all collected in the Bǎichuān xuéhǎi — were assembled in the early Southern Sòng under the direct influence of Mǐ’s empirical example. Mǐ Fú’s Yànshǐ is the standard reference for the assertion that all zǐshí 子石 (a supposed variety of Duān-stone) reports are spurious — he denies, on the basis of personal inquiry at Duānzhōu, that any such stone exists.
Mǐ’s connoisseur-eccentric reputation — the bàishí (rock-bowing) anecdotes are canonical — gives the Yànshǐ an unusual character: it is at once a connoisseur’s manual and a personal-aesthetic document, with the author’s strong tastes everywhere apparent. The text was preserved in the Bǎichuān xuéhǎi 百川學海 collection and so reaches the Sìkù through a stable transmission. Citations are by Mǐ Fú’s zì Yuánzhāng 元章 in most pre-Yuán Sòng materials.
Translations and research
- Egan, Ronald. 1994. Word, Image and Deed in the Life of Su Shi. Cambridge MA: Harvard. Treats Mǐ Fú in his cultural context.
- Egan, Ronald. 2006. The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China. Harvard. Discusses the pǔ-lù genre and ink-stone connoisseurship.
- Sturman, Peter Charles. 1997. Mi Fu: Style and the Art of Calligraphy in Northern Song China. New Haven: Yale UP. The standard English-language monograph on Mǐ Fú.
- Léng Jiànlì 冷建立. 2010. Sòng-dài pǔ-lù wén-xiàn yán-jiū 宋代譜錄文獻研究. Běijīng: Rénmín wénxué chū-bǎn-shè.
Other points of interest
The Yànshǐ is one of the principal sources for Mǐ Fú’s vehement attacks on Duān-stone-mongering — specifically the contemporary fashion for zǐshí 子石 (“child-stones”) which Mǐ Fú dismisses as commercial-fraud, on the basis of his own inquiries at the Duānzhōu quarries. The work is cited by every subsequent Chinese ink-stone treatise — the Sòng Duānxī yànpǔ (KR3i0006), the Sòng anonymous Yànpǔ (KR3i0007), Gāo Sìsūn 高似孫 Yànjiān (KR3i0008), and the great Qiánlóng-era Qīndìng Xīqīng yànpǔ (KR3i0009) — and remains the foundational text for ink-stone connoisseurship.
Links
- Chinese Text Project
- Wikipedia (Mi Fu)
- Wikidata Q706833