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Reinventing the Past: Antiquarianism in East Asian Art and Visual Culture—Part 2 |
< Back Representation and Replication: Chun Jun's Illustrated Catalogues of Ancient Monuments in Eighteenth-Century China Lillian Lan-ying Tseng Yale University This paper investigates how the fascination with ancient monuments impacted the contemporary print culture in the early Qing period, focusing on the illustrated catalogues produced by Chu Jun. It first examines to what extent Chu owed to the given print conventions, particularly the facsimile of model calligraphy and the drawing of antiques, both being established as early as in the Northern Song period. It then explores Chu's various experiments on transforming rubbings into prints as faithfully as possible. It argues that only within the antiquarian context of eighteenth-century China, i.e. the rise of the study of texts on metals and stones (jinshi kaozheng xue), could Chu Jun challenge the limit of print media and create a market that featured delicate negotiations between reproduction and authenticity. Active in the second half of the eighteenth century, Chu Jun was an engraver who developed a profound interest in visiting steles and producing rubbings from the trips. Impressed by Chu's three-decade-long dedication, Niu Yunzhen, a scholar-official revered for his research on Confucian classics, urged Chu to publish his rubbing collection. Together, they began a collaborative project that required Chu’s engraving skill in reproducing rubbings and Niu's knowledge in supplying transcriptions and comments for each stele. Their efforts first resulted in the catalogue entitled Jinshi jingyan lu (The record of bronzes and stone steles through eyes) in 1736. The book, containing objects from Zhou to Han, was revised and republished as Jinshi tu (Illustrations of bronzes and stone steles) in 1743. It was further expanded to incorporate materials from the Three Kingdoms to Tang in 1745. Since Jinshi jingyan lu is now available only through the reproduction in Siku quanshu, this paper will center upon Jinshi tu whose first two volumes came out in 1743 and whose subsequent two volumes followed in 1745. As a professional engraver, Chu Jun was familiar with the convention of "model calligraphy" (fatie) that transcribed writings on various media into woodblock print. Popular since the Northern Song, this mode of reproduction emphasized individual characters and (re)arranged them orderly within the frame of a book. Compared with the “model calligraphy,” the tactic Chu Jun applied to his Jinshi tu was very different; he was more concerned about objects where writings appeared than about writings themselves. Instead of individual characters, it is the diverse formats of steles that were the focal point of representation. In the first two volumes, individual characters were barely recognizable, especially when the stele was tall and the writing was long. In the third and forth volumes, although individual characters were reproduced by their original size, only a fairly tiny portion of them were sampled from the much larger stele. It is evident that Jinshi tu showed a shifting interest from calligraphy to objects. Long before Chu Jun, Song scholars were the pioneers who collected and recorded antiques. Most of them produced textual accounts, such as Oyang Xiu’s (1007-97) Jigu lu and Zhao Mingcheng’s (1081-1129) Jinshi lu. Very few of them ventured on illustrated catalogues, the most renowned being the illustrations of bronze objects in Lü Dalin’s Kaogu tu and those of carved stones in Hong Gua’s (1117-84) Li xu. Chu Jun declared in the preface that his endeavor was to follow the lead of Song scholars, but his visual strategy was far from the examples set by Song forerunners. Rather than drawing, which was favored by Song authors, Chu chose to reproduce rubbings in his Jinshi tu. Not only did he imitate the visual effect of a rubbing, Chu literally "reproduced" a rubbing for each stele: first, based on the original rubbing, the stele and its writing were recaptured by a reduced size on a woodblock; second, a small piece of rubbing was obtained from the woodblock; and finally, the small piece of rubbing was attached to the catalogue. The reproduced rubbings attached to the catalogue had all the uneven features of the original rubbings, including concave strokes of a character and wrinkles resulted from pounding. It is apparent that Chu Jun went beyond the economy of production to pursue the maximal authenticity of rubbings in print. From Chu Jun's departure from the convention of model calligraphy and that of illustrated antiques, this paper further investigates the cultural context that may have motivated Chu’s unusual decision. The passion for visiting steles was renewed by Gu Yanwu (1613-82) as a way to morn the sudden termination of the Ming regime; the scholarly value of steles was reconfirmed by Yan Ruoqu (1636-1740) in his using writings on steles to make up the shortage of ancient documents. The textual studies through metals and stones encouraged the younger generation to collect and appreciate antiques, particularly those with inscriptions. Among them, Wang Shu (1668-1743) was one of the most respected scholar-connoisseurs who knew and decoded ancient writings well, while Jin Nong (1687-1764) was one of the most gifted literati artists who incorporated the engraving flavor from ancient steles into their calligraphy and painting. Growing out of such atmosphere, Niu Yunzhen (1706-58) recognized right away the significance of Chu Jun's rubbings resulted from his numerous visits to ancient steles. With Chu Jun’s professional skill in engraving, they were able to transform the bulky rubbings into a four-volumed catalogue and make them available to the avid readers who cherished inscriptions on steles. Their first product, Jinshi jingyan lu, was admired by their esteemed senior Wang Shu; their ensuing efforts, Jinshi tu, never seized to inspire followers such as Wang Chang (1704-1806), Weng Fanggang (1733-1818) and Huang Yi (1744-1801). As the visual crystallization of textual studies through metals and stones, Jinshi tu displayed a unique balance between reproduction and authenticity, which laid great stress on the format, condition, and location of a stele. The emphasis on objects (rather than calligraphy) and the preference for representing rubbings (not drawings), in turn, reinvigorated the visual expression of antiquarianism and provided the print market with an alternative visual option. |
