Ní Yúnlín xiānsheng shī jí 倪雲林先生詩集
Mr. Ní Yúnlín’s Poetry Collection by 倪瓚 (撰)
About the work
A six-juǎn poetry collection of Ní Zàn 倪瓚 (Yúnlín, 1301–1374), one of the Yuán sìjiā painters and a central figure in the late-Yuán Wúzhōng literary geography. The compilation was made by Jiǎn Xī 蹇曦 (style-name Cháoyáng) of Jīngxī 荊溪 (Yíxīng, Chángzhōu region) and prefaced by Qián Pǔ 錢溥 (Hànlín shìdú xuéshì of Yúnjiān) in Tiānshùn 4 gēngchén (1460). Six juǎn in form: juǎn 1 sìyán gǔshī and wǔyán gǔshī; juǎn 2 qīyán chángshī; juǎn 3 wǔyán lǜshī; juǎn 4 qīyán lǜshī; juǎn 5 wǔyán juéjù and liùyán juéjù; juǎn 6 qīyán juéjù. The opening sìyán poem Yìxīng yìmèng piān 義興異夢篇 is dated Zhìzhèng 11 xīnmǎo = 1351, and the subsequent zhīzhèng 10 (1350) inscriptional gloss locates Ní at Chóngjūsì 重居寺 in Jīngxī for four months. The Qián Pǔ preface is one of the principal mid-Míng documentary anchors for Ní Zàn’s late-Yuán biography.
Tiyao
(There is no separate WYG tíyào in the SBCK source. The Tiānshùn 1460 preface by Qián Pǔ supplies a closely parallel biographical sketch: Ní as a Wú native who in the late-Yuán gēju — when warring lords were seizing the southeast — alone declined to “xiànmóu xiàolì shòunéng” and held to qīngzhēn juésú (pure-and-true, world-rejecting) integrity. He was originally wealthy; in maturity he turned light-of-wealth-and-loving-of-learning; built the Qīngmì gé to store antiques; loved to paint xīshān zhúshí and to compose verse; was strangely fastidious in cleanliness, like the Sòng-era Hǎiyuè (Mǐ Fú); but also fond of self-effacement, almost as though dull-witted; ultimately gave up his entire estate as worn slippers; lived a biǎnzhōu (single skiff) life burning incense and writing brushwork in the Wǔhú Sānmǎo (Tàihú and Sūngjiāng river-channels), mixing with fisherfolk and old farmers — much like the Tiānsuízǐ (Lù Guīméng) of old. — Of those whose lucky service was praised in the day, the biāochí diànxùn (gust-and-lightning) names disappeared without trace; only Ní’s poetry and painting are still in the world — a single sheet treated like gǒngbì (a precious round-jade-disk). Ní’s poetry had only been seen in tíyǒng (inscriptional verses); Jiǎn Xī of Jīngxī gathered them into the present six juǎn and sent the manuscript to the capital for Qián Pǔ to evaluate and circulate. Qián characterizes Ní’s verse as qīngxīn diǎnyǎ jiǒngwú yīdiǎn chénsú qì — placeable alongside Táo Qián, Wéi Yìngwù, Cén Shēn, Liú Chángqīng. Tiānshùn 4 gēngchén (1460), chrysanthemum-month, day-after-full-moon. Qián Pǔ of Yúnjiān, Hànlín shìdú xuéshì.
Abstract
Ní Yúnlín xiānsheng shī jí preserves Ní Zàn’s surviving verse output in a fundamentally Míng-era recension. The SBCK source for our KR4d0575 entry is the Tiānshùn 4 (1460) print by Jiǎn Xī of Jīngxī, prefaced by Qián Pǔ. (The WYG SKQS preserves a parallel recension — Qīngmìgé quánjí 清閟閣全集 (12 juǎn, edited by Cáo Péilián), which is the entry KR4d0576 following in the catalog.) Ní’s biographical positioning — as one of the Yuán sìjiā painters, as a Wúxī wealthy Tàihú floating recluse, as a fastidious eccentric — makes the collection foundational for any treatment of late-Yuán painter-poets and especially for the social history of the painter-recluse class. Composition window: from c. 1325 (Ní’s young maturity) through to Hóngwǔ 7 (1374); the named pieces in the opening juǎn (1351 etc.) anchor the corpus in the mid-1340s onward.
The collection’s documentary load is unusually high for a biéjí: many poems are tíhuà (painting inscriptions) and correspond to specific surviving paintings (e.g. the Qīngmìgé tú 清閟閣圖 sub-corpus). Studies of Ní’s painting routinely cross-reference the verse for dating, occasion, and patronage.
Translations and research
- Major Western-language treatment: James Cahill, Hills Beyond a River: Chinese Painting of the Yüan Dynasty, 1279–1368 (1976); Susan Bush and others on Yuán painting theory.
- David Sensabaugh, “Life at Jade Mountain: Notes on the Life of the Man of Letters in Fourteenth-Century Wu Society” (1986) and subsequent work on Yùshān and Ní Zàn.
- Wǔ Tóng 武同 and Wén Hè-bīn 文鶴賓, Chinese-language critical editions of Ní Zàn’s collected works (Shànghǎi gǔjí chūbǎnshè).
- Treatment in Maxwell Hearn and Wen C. Fong’s work on Yuán painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Other points of interest
- The relationship between Ní’s verse and his painting inscriptions is a major topic in Yuán literary-art history; many of the qīyán juéjù preserved here are the inscription verses on dated surviving paintings.
- The 1460 Jiǎn Xī compilation is the principal Míng-era recension; it predates the slightly larger Cáo Péilián Qīngmìgé quánjí recension that the Sìkù prints as KR4d0576.
Links
- SBCK SB14n253.