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Reinventing the Past: Antiquarianism in East Asian Art and Visual Culture—Part 2 |
< Back Material History: Valuing Painting in the Northern Song Peter C. Sturman University of California, Santa Barbara In the study of Chinese painting, the Northern Song was among the first epochs in which antiquarianism was recognized as a key factor in the production of art. It has also long been recognized as a period in which intense interest in the acquisition of art and objects existed both in and outside the court. However, while the obvious link between the two—collecting and the rise of an antiquarian aesthetic—has been tacitly assumed, the link itself has yet to be studied in a comprehensive manner. There have been individual case studies, mostly regarding Li Gonglin (primarily painting) and Mi Fu (primarily calligraphy), but there has been no attempt to examine the full range of collecting habits, the controversies they spurred, and the lasting effects of attitudes and practices that arose in consequence. This paper seeks to address this lacuna in Northern Song art historical studies. The first half of the paper examines collecting among the educated elite, or literati, in the eleventh century from a broad perspective. The second half focuses specifically on painting, both as a collectible item and as a forum for artistic expression informed by collecting activities. The primary theme emphasized throughout is the idea of the literati artist functioning as preservationist, or historian. The private collecting of art was hardly new in 11th century-China—recorded anecdotes establish the practice many centuries earlier—but the rise of the scholar-official class during the Song broadened its interest and attraction. The possession of objects of historical and artistic value was increasingly perceived as an insignia of culture and knowledge. For the first time, a significant body of data appears that allows for an understanding of how and where art was acquired, of relative values and prices. Much of this information is found in the writings of Mi Fu, whose activities as a connoisseur, collector, broker, advisor, and arbiter of taste have long been a matter of interest to later scholars but never systematically studied in the context of his peers. Of particular interest is a theme that is repeated throughout the literature on collecting: the dispersion of collections, the calamities that befall objects and collectors alike. It is a theme familiar from earlier writings about art, but in the late 11th century, as collecting increasingly became an activity of interest among the literati and the cultural and economic stakes involved accordingly rose, the traditional admonition against possession was openly challenged. Mi Fu provided the challenge, and it was directly primarily towards Su Shi, whose writings had gained broad currency. Su Shi’s various comments on the vagaries of collecting are well known; Mi Fu’s less so, but they are equally important, for they represent a new current in thinking about art that emphasizes humanistic concerns consistent with much of Song thought. Mi Fu's thoughts, crystallized in the preface he wrote for his Painting History (Hua shi), are examined as a foil to Su Shi's oft-quoted admonitions about placing value in art. The crux of the issue is materiality—the capability of objects to survive and transmit knowledge of the past. In the second part of the paper attitudes towards the collecting of art evolving in the late 11th century serve as a backdrop for an examination of both the collecting and making of painting. The primary argument is that the overall growth in importance of collecting resulted in a more focused examination of value in painting. This is manifested in a shift from traditional apologies or justifications that largely centered on mimesis and narration of moral didactic values to a more proactive assertion of aesthetic value. Antiquarianism emerges as one particularly notable mode capable of expressing such aesthetic value because of its clear associations with the tasks of preserving and historicizing that had increasingly become perceived as fundamental responsibilities of the literati. |
