Japanese Typographic Design and the Art of Letterforms
Gennifer Weisenfeld2011, Bridges to Heaven: Essays on East Asian Art in Honor of Professor Wen C. Fong
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Abstract
Reassessing the Dating of Chinese Jade Forked Blades zhixin jason sun Regionalism in Han Dynasty Stone Carving and Lacquer Painting 259 anthony barbieri-low Contents part three out in the world : the public figure Pedagogue on the Go: Portraits of Confucius as an Itinerant Teacher julia k. murr ay The Ming Imperial Image: The Transformation from Hongwu to Hongzhi dor a c.y. ching An Analytical Reading of Portraits of Emperor Qianlong and His Consorts chen pao-chen The Making of Royal Portraits during the Chosŏn Dynasty: What the Ŭigwe Books Reveal yi sŏng-mi A Group of Anonymous Northern Figure Paintings from the Qianlong Period james cahill Josetsu's Catching a Catfish with a Gourd: Cultural Agendas and the Early Fifteenth-Century Shogunal Academy richard stanley-baker volume two part four working on faith : buddhist and daoist arts A Tale of Two Scrolls: The Luo Nymph Rhapsody in Peking and London roderick whitfield Visualizing Paradise and Configuring Conventions: Cave 334, Dunhuang jennifer noering m c intire The Three Purities Grotto at Nanshan, Dazu 495 anning jing A Change of Clothes: The Selective Japanization of Female Buddhist Images in the Late Heian and Kamakura Periods nicole fabricand-person part five le arning from nature : the l andsc ape and the garden Multipanel Landscape Screens as Spatial Simulacra at the Mogao Caves, Dunhuang foong ping Commentary on the Rock lothar ledderose Strange Pictures: Images Made by Chance and Pictorial Representation in an Album by Xuezhuang robert e. harrist, jr. Beyond the Representation of Streams and Mountains: The Development of Chinese Landscape Painting from the Tenth to the Mid-Eleventh Century shih shou-chien Reconfirming the Attribution of Snow-Capped Peaks to the Early Qing Painter Zhang Jisu shen c.y. fu Northern Song Landscape Styles in the Seikadō Ten Kings of Hell Paintings cheeyun kwon A Handscroll of Orchid and Bamboo by Zhao Mengfu and Guan Daosheng chu-tsing li The Lion Grove in Space and Time david ake sensabaugh Brushwork Behavior from Song to Qing joan stanley-baker part six collection and appreciation : the arts on displ ay Seeking Delight in the Arts: Literary Gathering by Ikeda Koson helmut brinker Practices of Display: The Significance of Stands for Chinese Art Objects jan stuart Imaging Oriental Art in Late Nineteenth-Century America: The Walters Collection Catalogue hui-wen lu part se ven tr ansmit ting the image : inscriptions and copy work, print and photogr aphic media Calligraphy and a Changing World: A Study of Yang Weizhen's Inscription for the Collection of Ancient Coins hui-liang chu Copying in Japanese Art: Calligraphy, Painting, and Architecture yoshiaki shimizu A Study of the Xinjuan hainei qiguan, a Ming Dynasty Book of Famous Sites lin li-chiang Chinese Print Culture and the Proliferation of "One Hundred Beauties" Imagery christine c.y. tan
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Section of fusuma-e. Ink on paper. Daisen-in Collection. Kyoto. ic. Ikeno Taiga (1723-76). Mount Fuji in Mi-style. One of twelve views. Hanging scroll. Ink and light colors on silk. log x 29.5 cm.Tokyo University of Arts. K325-12. 2. Anonymous. Spring Landscape. 1053. Wall painting. Colors on wood. 374.5 x 138.6 cm. Phoenix Hall, Byodoin. Uji. 3a. Su Shi (1037-1101). (Attributed). Twisted Bare Tree by Recumbent Rock. Mounted with others in handscroll format. Ink on paper. Shanghai Museum. 3b. Wang Tingyun (1152-1202). Secluded Bamboo and Withered Tree. Section, handscroll. Ink on paper. H. 38 cm. Fujii Yurinkan. Kyoto. 4a. Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322). Old Tree, Bamboo, and Rock. Album leaf. Ink on paper. 54.1 x 28.3 cm. National Palace Museum. Taipei. 4b. Xuechuang Puming (fl. mid-fourteenth century). Lonely Fragrance on the Precipice. Dated 1343. Hanging scroll. Ink on silk. 109.5 x 45.7 cm. Imperial Household Collection. Tokyo. After Japanese Ink Paintings (hereafter JIP) no. 75. 4c. Tesshf Tokusai (d. 1366). Orchids, Rock, and Bamboo. Hanging scroll. Ink on paper. 51.3 x 32.6 cm. The Art Museum, Princeton University. Lent anonymously. vii Inscribed by Yinyuan Longqi. Hanging scroll. Ink and colors on paper. Ca. 183 x 94 cm. Manpukuji Collection. Uji. 12a. Zhang Qi (fl. mid-seventeenth century). Portrait of Feiyin Tongrong. Hanging scroll. Ink and colors on silk. Manpukuji Collection. Uji. 12b. Kita Soun (fl. mid-seventeenth century). Portrait of Yinyuan Longqi. Hanging scroll. Ink and colors on silk. H. ca. 138 cm. Manpukuji Collection. Uji. 13a. Zhang Qi. Ink Landscape. Inscription dated 1645. Hanging scroll. Ink on silk. Manpukuji Collection. Uji. 13b. Wang Lan (fl. mid-seventeenth century). Landscape "in the style of Wu Zhen." 1655. Hanging scroll. Ink and light colors on paper. Manpukuji Collection. Uji. 13c. Jifei Ruyi. Landscape. After 1655. Hanging scroll. Ink on paper. Nakama Collection. Kyushu. (Including detail). 14a. Cai Hui (fl. mid-seventeenth century). Landscape. 1651. Handscroll. Ink and light colors on paper. Manpukuji Collection. Uji. (Includes detail). 14b. Zhang Ruitu (1576-1641). Towering Peaks and Cascading Falls. Hanging scroll. Ink on silk. Osaka Municipal Museum. 14C. Wang Jianzhang (fl. 1628-44). Searching for a Poem in the Mountain Shade. Hanging scroll. Ink on paper. 153.83 x 49.15 cm. Ex Ching Yuan Chai Collection. 15a. Hattori Nankaku (1683-1769). Ink Landscape. Hanging scroll. Ink on paper. ill x 29 cm. Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. British Columbia, Canada. 15b. Gion Nankai (1676-1751). Autumn Landscape. 1707. Hanging scroll. Ink and light colors on paper. 87.5 x 31.5 cm. Yabumoto Collection. Hyogo. silk. 95.1 x 47.2 cm. Yabumoto Collection. Hy6go. 20b. Ikeno Taiga. Plum Blossom with a Bird. Hanging scroll. Finger painting. Ink on paper. 110.5 x 55 cm. Kobayashi Collection. Tokyo. K3o. 20c. Ikeno Taiga. Grapes. Fan painting. Finger painting. Ink on paper. 14.75 x 36.37 cm. Fujii Collection. Osaka. K.96. 2od. Shen Quan signature from finger-painted Prunus (L) and Horses (R). 21a. Shen Quan. Wild Horses. Hanging scroll. Ink and colors on silk. 152.7 x 43.5 cm. Yamato Bunkakan Collection. Nara. 21b. Yosa Buson. Horses in Wintry Woods. Hanging scroll. Ink and colors on silk. 128.4 x 55 cm. Private collection. Kyoto National Museum.
PICTORIAL ART AND ITS PUBLIC IN EARLY IMPERIAL CHINA
During the reign of Emperor Huan (147-67) of the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) a family of merely local renown invested 'everything they had' in the construction of four decorated offering shrines for recently deceased men of the clan. According to inscriptions at the shrines, some of these men had held minor offices; others had devoted themselves to the study of the Confucian classics. They were typical of that class of scholars, officials and aspiring officials who were both the product and the mainstay of the Han imperial bureaucracy, the same bureaucracy that, some two centuries earlier, had displaced the hereditary military aristocracy characteristic of pre-Han society. 1 Today the Wu family enjoys something more than local renown, and all because of their decorated shrines, which have received the attentions of scholars for almost a thousand years. This venerable historiography may account for the fact that the shrines have been mentioned more frequently than most monuments in comparisons between Han and pre-Han times. Generally speaking these comparisons have not focused upon the social differences between petty lords and aspiring bureaucrats, but have emphasized instead the abandonment of the 'stylized' forms of pre-imperial vessel decor in favor of more 'realistic' modes of representation in Han times. 2 There is a difficulty with this comparison. Although more representational than the cauldron decor of the ancient kings, the pictures displayed at these shrines are far from what we would call 'realistic'. This discrepancy has given rise to much speculation concerning the style of the Wu Shrines engravings. The date, location, and function of the shrines have all been cited to explain the oddities of their style. Amidst this wealth of scholarship, no more than a few lines have been written of the patronage of these monuments, yet it may well be in its patronage that the art of the Han contrasts more sharply with the art of pre-imperial China. In 1948 it was suggested that the didactic and political character of many Han reliefs was due to the influence of the state controlled art production apparatus of the Han empire. The histories tell us that lacquerwares, mirrors and
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*Prior to the 17 th century the predominant trend in Chinese landscape painting was that produced in the scholarly culture of Suzhou, known as the Wu School and well represented by this painting by Tang Yin in the Robert Ellsworth collection and hanging downstairs. The subject of this painting is the two figures seated in the hut in the foreground, * which to my reading represent the gentlemen who came to epitomize close and understanding friendship: the musician Boya and the woodcutter who best understood Boya's music, Zhong Ziqi of the Warring States period (475-221 B.C). The elegance and culture of these two men express well the ideals of literati culture in Suzhou. Scholarship, poetry, painting, calligraphy, connoisseurship of fine works of art —always following a subtle sensibility and often understood fully only by members of this coterie—were the hallmarks of Suzhou society, which dominated the culture of China in the middle Ming dynasty period. We will return a bit later to the lifestyles of these men but for the moment, let us focus on the landscape that surrounds the figures in this painting. *The mountain forms are energetic and almost contorted in their variety and dynamism. *The large trees are well articulated and feature different kinds of foliage, adding characteristics of realism and interest. Present is the age-old convention of crab-claw roots, used since at least the Song dynasty. The mountain forms and surfaces are described with a number of different texture strokes: the ax-shaped cun stroke for the hard and angular foreground boulders, stringy hemp-fiber strokes for the round mountain surfaces at the top, a sprinkling of moss-dots to suggest contour and foliage at the top of the peaks, and pale washes for the mountain range in the hazy distance. * It was paintings such as these that were most esteemed prior to the period of our attention but by the end of the 16 th century were losing critical favor in relation to the rival yet nearby Songjiang School. *Jumping right in to the most influential figure for early 17 th century paintings, as well as calligraphy, and whose style continued to have an impact for at least the next three centuries and whose theories still exert an impact today is Dong Qichang (1555-1636) of this Songjiang school, and in the opinion of Richard Barnhart was the person who laid the foundations of modern Chinese painting. Despite his eventual attainments and circle of illustrious friends, Dong Qichang came from a family of commoners. But he was especially intelligent and early on gained advantageous tutoring posts, such as to the family of Xiang Yuanbian—whose grandson Xiang Shengmo is pictured here and painted this gathering. In 1589 Dong Qichang succeeded in gaining the prestigious jinshi degree and went on to hold high-level posts in the Hanlin Academy, Ministry of Rites, and as imperial tutor. However, despite—or maybe because of the favor he enjoyed at court, he soon retired in 1598, and returned home to Huating, near present
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Zhejiang University Journal of Art and Archaeology 浙江大學藝術與考古研究 1 (2014): 129-182. , 2014
This study uses printed Buddhist frontispieces to reevaluate Xi Xia visual culture and its connections to neighboring cultures-the Song, the Khitan Liao, and the Jurchen Jin. Many frontispieces, produced in large numbers with Chinese woodblock printing technology, have been excavated at Khara Khoto, Inner Mongolia, and sites in Gansu and Ningxia. Applying a visual approach, the author pays special attention to the uses of modular motifs across cultures. The production of Buddhist texts and frontispieces in early Yuan Hangzhou attests to the legacy of Xi Xia visual culture, which was promoted by Tangut monks active at the Chinese court and in the Jiangnan area. Far from being peripheral, Xi Xia's visual culture participated in dynamic dialogues with its neighbors and deserves a reassessment.
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This essay examines a number of statements on painting and visual perception by Chinese literati artists of the late Mingearly Qing periods. It argues that the approaches to pictorial representation and creativity entailed in these statements reveal a considerable impact of Buddhist theories of consciousness. In the theories analyzed, pictorial representation is discussed in terms of ways and modes of how the mind relates to the world. As will be demonstrated, the function of expressing cognitive organization in representation is given more prominence than the function of rendering an external reality. The view of pictorial representation as being essentially what the mind produces in its relation to the world provides a basis for the assumption of a fundamental affinity between the creation of an image and the process how phenomenal reality unfolds by virtue of cognitive operations. This assumption seems to broadly underpin the painting theories discussed. And it is this assumption that provides a clue how and why the literati artists adopt Buddhist theories of cognition to the understanding of art. In the last section of the essay, we turn to the sources which cast still another perspective on artistic practice, namely a practice which captures a single moment of pure direct perception.
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The paper examines explanatory notes written by the Chinese mentors (xiansheng 先生) for the popular prints nianhua年畫collected by the Russian sinologist Vasily Alexeev (1881–1951) during his studies in China in 1906–1909. The studied portion of the noted is stored in the archives of the State Museum of History of Religion (Saint-Petersburg). These commentators possess higher or lower level of learning in Confucian classics and traditional literature; some of them are industry insiders with good knowledge of pictures' meanings. The paper views their notes as a representation of 'the greater culture' evaluation or commenting on 'the minor culture' of the popular prints. Closer reading of the mentors' notes reveals their intention to show off rudimentary knowledge of the classics, which is not always relevant to the content or questions raised by V. Alekseev.
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