CAEA - Center for the Art of East Asia

Reinventing the Past: Antiquarianism in East Asian Art and Visual Culture—Part 1

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Cataloguing Antiquity: Song Scholarship on Ancient Objects
Yun-Chiahn C. Sena
University of Texas, Austin

This paper examines the multiple concepts of gu 古, or antiquity, in Song antiquarian writings on ancient objects. Contemporary studies on the Song antiquarian movement have addressed these writings as a whole, disregarding their vastly dissimilar backgrounds. Such a treatment assumes a homogenous view of antiquity shared by all Song antiquarians in spite of the differences in their intellectual interests and social positions. Through careful analyses of the structure and content of Song antiquarian writings this paper demonstrates that there existed multiple views of antiquity in the Song antiquarian movement. These various conceptualizations of the past were reflective of underlying differences in cosmological outlooks, political agendas, intellectual inclinations, and faith in the validity of established historiography and received textual traditions on the part of the authors or social groups responsible for the production of these works. The multiplicity of approaches to antiquity represented in these catalogues is thus an expression of the varied and complex roles that Song intellectuals played within the state and as private scholars.

The rediscovery of the past during the Song is one of the most significant intellectual movements in Chinese history. With the spread of collecting ancient objects among Song intellectual elites and eventually to the imperial court, writings about ancient objects, including inventory-type catalogues and research essays on particular items, became a prevalent genre of writing. The efforts made by Song antiquarians to document in writing the physical properties of ancient objects, the details of their discovery and transmission, and the attempts to understand the meanings and functionality of these objects in a broader historical and intellectual context make these antiquarian writings ideal for understanding the ways in which Song antiquarians interpreted antiquity. This paper focuses on two most important works of Song antiquarian writings, namely Kao gu tu 考古圖, or Illustrated Catalogue of Examined Antiquity (preface dated 1092), compiled by Lü Dalin 呂大臨 (1046–1092), and the Chong xiu Xuanhe bo gu tu 重修宣和博古圖, or Revised Illustrated Catalogue of Xuanhe Profoundly Learned Antiquity (compiled early 1120s), commissioned by Song Emperor Huizong宋徽宗 (Zhao Ji 趙佶, 1082–1135, r. 1101–1125). The former was a compilation primarily based on ancient objects in private collections, of which the collectors belong to the social class of scholar-officials, while the latter was an official record of ancient objects in the imperial collection established under the auspices of the emperor. A survey on the context in which these two catalogues were produced indicates that together the two catalogues represented a broad range of Song collectors and their antiquarian activities. A preliminary research on the structure and content of the two catalogues also reveals that they not only document prominent Song collections with systematic research results and pictorial representations, they also reflect major schools of thought on antiquity by preserving parts of important antiquarian writings which are no longer extant.

The structural similarity between Kao gu tu and Bo gu tu indicates a fluid circulation of antiquarian knowledge across the boundary of private and state-sponsored collections. What was being circulated throughout society was not only knowledge about the collected ancient objects, but also the objects themselves. Many ancient objects that appear in the earlier catalogue are found in the later one as well, indicating a transmission among private and imperial collections. Records about ancient objects passed from one collector to another are also plentiful in the earlier catalogue. The structural similarities between the two catalogues also indicate a collective effort between private collectors and the imperial court to systematize knowledge about antiquity. The structural comparison also reveals critical differences between the two catalogues. The starkest difference is found in the introductory essays in the later catalogue, which are absent in the earlier one. The introductory essays group and prioritize ancient objects according to their ritual functions and significance, as interpreted on the basis of traditional ritual cannons, mostly importantly, Zhouli 周禮, or the Zhou Rites. Such a ritualistic interpretation of ancient objects based on what was believed to be faithful documentation of ancient rites points to the underlying agenda on the part of the imperial court, that is, state ritual reform—to make Song state rites conform to the ones practiced in antiquity.

The Song court's desire to reform its state ritual by reviving that of antiquity can be further understood by analyzing the content of Bo gu tu. For example, in the introduction to the category of ding 鼎-tripods, it is argued that the ancient ritual, represented by ding-tripods, epitomizes the connection between the cosmological design of the universe and the orderly human society prescribed in the Confucian cannon. The Song court believed that it was possible to reconstitute ancient rituals through the encyclopedic analyses of the vessel types, decor, as well as the inscriptional texts often found on the vessels. By reconstituting and, more importantly, practicing ancient rituals, the Song court intended to achieve a thorough comprehension of the cosmological design and, as a result, an ideal human society. With such a ritualistic emphasis the Song court conceptualized an antiquity that was constituted with symbols and codes, formulated with xing 形, or forms, and shu 數, or numbers, for which the ancient objects provided visual images and physical forms, while the Confucian ritual cannon provided interpretations.

Compared to the Song court's ritualistic view of antiquity, the conceptualization of antiquity represented in Kao gu tu is much less systematic and more diverse. A sentiment expressed by the compiler, Lü Dalin, in his preface indicates a humanistic approach to ancient objects and towards antiquity. For Lü Dalin and his like-minded Song intellectuals ancient objects are yiji 遺跡, or left-behind traces, of the ancient sages. For this reason ancient objects offer a material mediation, as opposed to the textual one found in Confucian cannons, which allows the Song intellectuals to make virtual contact with the ancients. By handling and studying the left-behind traces, Lü Dalin and his peers were able to "meet" the ancients in person. The humanistic interest in antiquity leads to discussions primarily centered on the inscriptional texts found on ancient objects, which contain names of people and places in the past.

The perception of ancient objects as traces from the past also indicates a historical approach to antiquity. The emphasis on the historicity of ancient objects is signified by the careful and consistent documentation of each object's provenance in Kao gu tu. Such an effort to record the origins of ancient objects is entirely missing in the court commission. The concern for historical accuracy reflects a common anxiety among Song intellectuals regarding a perennial problem in transmitted historical narratives and canonical texts—the process of transmission unavoidably introduces biases and mistakes. The inscriptional texts found on ancient objects provide an alternative source to transmitted texts and thus make possible a cross-examination between contemporary textual traditions and ancient material. Even though the texts from ancient objects are often too brief or stylized to provide meaningful comparisons with received texts, Song antiquarians, such as Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007–1072) and Zhao Mingcheng 趙明誠 (1081–1129), hold fast the belief that there once existed in antiquity a zhen 真, or "truthful and uncorrupt," cultural origin, of which the received traditions in later times are merely lesser and deviated versions.

In addition to the humanistic and historical approaches to antiquity, there is an interest in the anthropological dimension of antiquity expressed in Kao gu tu, especially in the mundane objects collected by Li Gonglin 李公麟 (mid 11th c. –1106). The inclusion of objects, such as garment hooks and lamps, in Kao gu tu suggests a secular view of antiquity, which is not found in the catalogue commissioned by the court. Li's own writing on his collection, quoted in Kao gu tu, also showed a wide range of sources, from which he drew for interpretations of ancient objects. Rather than based strictly on ritual canons, his sources include historical anecdotes, secular literature and even ancient paintings. Li's anthropological approach to antiquity is however heavily conditioned by his concerns for nomenclature—Li Gonglin was often overly eager to match an ancient object or a motif on an object with names or terms he found in ancient sources. As a result, Li's understanding of ancient objects was at times informed more by the associated sources than by the objects themselves.

The analysis of Song approaches to antiquity exemplified in these two catalogues illustrates a widely diverse picture of the Song antiquarian movement. Although all the approaches originated from a common faith in and reverence of antiquity, the conceptualization of antiquity in these approaches differs according to Song antiquarians' political, intellectual, and personal positions. The contrast between the views held by the private collectors in Kao gu tu and the court view expressed in Bo gu tu seems to suggest a distinction between the secular-historical and the sacred-ritual, which was further implied by the division of private collectors vs. the imperial court. However, the dichotomy was upset by the fact that many private collectors in Kao gu tu were also state officials and thus supportive of the state ritual reform. In addition, the revision of Bo gu tu was executed by scholar-officials who were also known for their secular-historical interpretations of ancient objects in their private writings. The roles of Song antiquarians both as state officials and as private intellectuals required them to alter their perspectives when they shifted from one social role to another. The multiplicity in conceptions of antiquity in the Song antiquarian movement thus can be seen as the result of increasingly complex social and intellectual roles for elite members of the Song society.