Zhao Mengfu (1254 - 1322) Yuan Dynasty

Calligraphy in xing shu (running script) of the ‘Perfection of Wisdom’ or ‘Heart’ Sutra, part of the Maha Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra (Boruobolomiduo jing), by Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322), signed and dedicated by the artist, consisting of 287 characters, written in black ink on five sheets of paper, mounted in form of an album, bound in silk, with two of the artist’s seals, sixty collectors’ seals and one colophon



The album consists of:



1. Cover with title slip inscribed in li shu (clerical script)
Yuan Zhao Songxue shu xin jing zhen ji
‘Genuine example of the Heart Sutra written by Zhao Songxue of the Yuan’
with two seals of Tan Fu (Ju an; Tan Tianqi) and inventory labels.



2. Half title, numbered yi (‘one’), inscribed in xing shu:
Zhao Wenmin duo xin jing jing pin
‘Masterpiece of the Heart Sutra by Zhao Wenmin’.



3. Title page inscribed in li shu:
Songxue weng mao shu xin jing. Dingsi shi yue han lu
‘Heart Sutra written by the hand of the venerable Songxue, ‘cold dew’ period of the tenth month of the year dingsi’, with two seals of Yuan Kewen (Pou cun; Han yun). The date is equivalent to the period between the 8^{th and 22nd day of the 10th month of the year 1917.}



4. Further half title, numbered er (‘two’), inscribed in xing shu:
 Zhao Wuxing shu duo xin jing
‘Heart Sutra written by Zhao Wuxing’



5. Two blank pages with one seal of Zhao Yongxiao (Jian gu tang) and four seals of Zhao Zhiqian (Ding guang fo zai shi duo luo so po shi jie fan fu; Can jing yang nian; Zhao Zhiqian yin; Wei wu dou mi che yao).



6. Blank page, numbered san (‘three’), with one undeciphered collector’s seal.



7-11. Five pages with five leaves of Zhao Mengfu’s calligraphy comprising the complete text of the Sutra in its short version; with interpunctation marks in red ink.



7. The first leaf of the calligraphy is headed by the title of the Sutra and bears eight seals of Xiang Yuanbian (Shen Pin; Zi sun yong bao; Tao li; Xiang Yuanbian yin; Molin bi wan; Ping sheng zhen shang; Zijing; Mo Lin, the latter two cut in half by remounting) and one undeciphered collector’s seal (cut in half); with one seal of Yunli (Chunsiyuan jian cang) and four unidentified collectors’ seals on the mounting.



10. The fourth leaf of the calligraphy bears four seals of Xiang Yuanbian (Shen Pin; Molin shanren; Xulangzhai; Xiang shu zi).



11. The fifth leaf of the calligraphy contains the final invocation of the Sutra, written in four lines, like a poem, followed by the title of the Sutra, the artist’s signature and dedication, reading
Songxue Daoren feng wei Rilin heshang shu
‘Calligraphy respectfully offered to the Buddhist priest Rilin by Songxue Daoren’. 



This is followed by two seals of Zhao Mengfu, Zhao Zi’ang shi (‘Mr. Zhao Zi’ang’) and Songxuezhai (‘Pine and Snow Studio’). The leaf further bears twelve seals by Xiang Yuanbian (Shen Pin; Ji ao; Zijing suo cang; Molin sheng; Xiang Zijing jia zhen cang; Molin zi (cut in half); Jing yin an zhu (cut in half); Shen yu xin shang; Zijing fu yin; Zi sun shi chang; Xiang Molin jian shang chang; Zijing fu yin); with one seal of Tan Fu (Ju an shou cang) and five unidentified collectors’ seals on the mounting.



12. Blank page with five collectors’ seals, three of them of Yuan Kewen (Bai song shu cang; Han yun xin shang; Ba jing ge), two others undeciphered.



13. Colophon by Yuan Kewen in kai shu (regular script), with four seals of Yuan Kewen (An guan; Yuan Kewen; Hanyun zhi yin; Yuankuang). The colophon states:



The venerable Songxue wrote this Heart Sutra:
Rolling billows and delicate threads!
Truly an authentic example of Molin’s calligraphy.
The collectors’ seals are fine and plentiful,
including also the small seals Shen Pin,
which shows that it was highly valued in Ming times as well.
In our time it is difficult to see much of Zhao’s writing,
of genuine examples there is not even one in a hundred.
Then suddenly I came across this copy, formerly in the collection of Wang Wenmin.
When I acquired it from this relative’s family, my secret enjoyment was profound.



Yuan, himself a collector of ancient jade seals, then relates his acquisition of the seal An guan which appears to the right of the colophon, which he describes as an exquisite white jade seal with coiled snakes as knob, and ends with the phrase



Respectfully inscribed by the Buddhist disciple Yuankuang of Nanping on the duanwu day of the year jiwei. The date refers to the 5^{th day of the 5th lunar month, the day of the dragon boat festival, of the year 1919.}



14. Blank page with one seal of Yuan Kewen (An guan) and three seals of Tan Fu (Tan Fu; Tan Tianqi; Ming Wei).



 

Collection of Xiang Yuanbian (1525-1590) and probably in his family until 1645

Collection of Yunli (Kangxi to Qianlong period)

Collection of Wei Jiasun (mid 19th century)

Collection of Wang Wenmin (late 19th century)

Collection of Yuan Kewen (1890-1931)

Collection of Tan Fu (late 19th century - early 20th century)

Collection of Zhang Renjie (1877-1950)

Thence by descent to the present owners

The proper name for the present calligraphy may be Maha Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra 'The Heart of the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra'. Maha Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra, 'The Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra' is a larger body of Mahayana literature to which the 'Heart Sutra' belongs to, and ti is the 'heart' or essence of the whole collection.

Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322) of Wuxing in Zhejiang province, also known as Zi’ang, Songxue, Wenmin and Wuxing, was the most eminent calligrapher, influential painter, and acclaimed poet of the Yuan period (1279-1368). Although a descendant of the Song ruling house (960-1279) and resident in southern China, he was in 1286 summoned by Khubilai Khan (1216-1294) to serve at the Mongol court in Dadu (Beijing). Unlike many other southerners he followed the call, served as administrator and court painter under four Yuan emperors, was particularly favoured by emperor Renzong (r.1311-20), and repeatedly promoted to become eventually Director of the Hanlin Academy. Although criticised by some Song loyalists for serving the foreign dynasty, his contribution to Chinese culture was universally recognized and secured him an unchallenged place in Chinese art history as the leading artist of his time. He is granted with having made outstanding contributions to the development of Yuan painting and calligraphy by liberating the conservative styles of the south which had become stagnant and restrictive due to the prolonged isolation of the Southern Song (1127-1279). As a southerner exposed during much of his life to northern aesthetic sensibilities developed under the Jin (1115-1234), he managed to inject new life into the arts of painting and calligraphy by drawing inspiration from the different regional styles.

Buddhism played an important role at the Mongol court where Tibetan Lamaist monks were highly influential and the Pags-pa Lama (1235-80) was a most powerful adviser to the emperors. When Pags-pa died, Zhao was commissioned to write a memorial inscription for him. Zhao’s extant paintings include a number of Buddhist subjects, such as depictions of Sakyamuni, Bodhidharma, and monks, and several Buddhist texts are preserved in his hand. He is recorded to have written several versions of the Heart Sutra, but only one other version appears have survived, today preserved in the Liaoning Provincial Museum (published in the Illustrated Catalogue of Selected Works of Ancient Chinese Painting and Calligraphy 1997, p.55, no.1-070). It contains the same text written on six leaves and is dedicated to another Buddhist priest.

The story of Zhao Mengfu writing the Heart Sutra for Priest Gong in exchange for tea, became a popular topos, analogous to the tale of Wang Xizhi, China’s foremost calligrapher and great model of Zhao, writing in exchange for a flock of geese. Qiu Ying (died c.1552) was commissioned to execute a painting of this subject, which appears to be lost, but is known from copies, one of which is in the Cleveland Museum of Art (published in Eigth Dynasties of Chinese Painting 1980, pl.165). The Cleveland handscroll is accompanied by a colophon by Wang Shimou (1536-1588), where he relates the story of the scroll and mentions a poem by Zhao Mengfu about his exchange of the calligraphy for tea. The scroll was originally mounted with Zhao’s Heart Sutra written for Priest Gong, which was then lost, and later remounted by Wang Shimou with another version of the Heart Sutra written by Zhao for Priest Li, which today is also lost.

The Heart Sutra, propagating total denial of the reality of the phenomenal world, is one of the most important Mahayana texts and became a popular text for copying, probably partly due to its brevity (for a full translation see Conze 1973, pp.142f.). Such copying had the dual function of serving as a calligraphic exercise and representing an act of devotion.

The collecting history of the present calligraphy can largely be tracked by its many seals. It can be traced back to Xiang Yuanbian (1525-1590), one of the greatest art collectors of the Ming period (1368-1644). Not having taken the official examinations, Xiang distinguished himself instead as a connoisseur of art by building up a phenomenal collection of paintings and calligraphies. He is known to have owned at least ninety-three different seals and the works that passed through his hands generally bear many seal impressions. Ch’en Chih-mai (Goodrich and Fang, 1976, p.543) writes “That a work of art bears his many seals means generally that it had passed his close and expert scrutiny and is therefore the more treasured on that basis.” The present calligraphy bears twenty-four seals of Xiang Yuanbian.

Xiang’s collection appears to have remained in his family until the end of the Ming dynasty. When the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) troops entered his home town Jiaxing in Zhejiang in 1645, the collection was dissolved, but escaped destruction on account of its high reputation. The works were dispersed among many different collections, but a large part entered the Qing Imperial collection and eventually ended up with the Qianlong emperor, who mentions Xiang frequently in inscriptions and colophons. The present calligraphy, however, appears to have come to Yunli instead, 17^th son of the Kangxi emperor and uncle of Qianlong, who died during the Qianlong reign. He is known primarily as a poet, with a studio named ‘Hall of Spring Mildness’ and published ‘Collected Works from the Hall of Spring Mildness’ (Chunhetang ji). The present calligraphy bears one seal reading ‘Collected for Appreciation in the Garden of Spring Mildness’. 

Therafter, the calligraphy is recorded with Wei Jiasun, a well-known mid-19th century collector. One seal reading Jiangutang (‘Hall for appreciating antiques’) was the name of Wei's studio name.  This seal was carved by his best friend,Zhao Zhiqian (1829-1884), a scholar, bibliophile, calligrapher, painter and poet, who was particularly renowned as a seal carver. This particular seal has a long inscription on its four sides discussing the history asscociated with it and is illustrated on the cover of a recently published seal script dictionary (Zhong Zhou 1991). Four other seals belong to Zhao Zhiqian, who propably viewed his friend's Sutra on several occasions. His seals on the pages preceding the calligraphy are cut in very distinctive styles.

Yuan Kewen (1890-1931), second son of Yuan Shikai, known as a scholar and collector of paintings, calligraphies and coins, probably wrote the title page which bears two seals of his, and appended a colophon with four seals on the colophon page itself and four more seals on the pages before and after.  He states in the colophon that he received this album from the family of his relative, Wang Wenmin, who owned this album before him.  The colophon was apparently written at the time when he was exchanging the Sutra with Tan Fu, a famous seal carver, for one of Tan's jade seals (an guan). 

Tan Fu probably wrote the title slip of the cover, which bears two of his seals, and added one more seal to the mounting of the final leaf of the calligraphy and three others to the page now following the colophon.

In the Republican period (1911-1949) the calligraphy was owned by Zhang Renjie (1877-1950) who brought it to the United States probably in 1939. Zhang, also known as ‘Curio Chang’, a government official and later businessman and antique dealer, was an early supporter of Sun Yatsen and patron of Chiang Kai-shek. He served as Governor of Zhejiang province and during his posting as Attaché at the Chinese Embassy in Paris in 1902, founded Tonying & Co. Inc., a well-known trading company for the sale of Chinese antiques, tea and silk. After his death in New York, the company’s stock was dispersed in several sales at Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, in the 1950s. The present calligraphy, however, remained with the family.

Sources:

Edward Conze (tr.), The Short Prajnâpâramitâ Texts, London, 1973

Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, 1980

L. Carrington Goodrich and Fang Chaoying (eds.), Dictionary of Ming Biography1368-1644, New York and London, 1976

Arthur W. Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, Washington, 1943

Illustrated Catalogue of Selected Works of Ancient Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, vol.xv, Beijing, 1997

Li Chu-tsing, The Autumn Colours on the Ch’iao and Hua Mountains: A Landscape by Chao Meng-fu, Ascona, 1965

Li Chu-tsing, ‘The Role of Wu-hsing in Early Yüan Artistic Development under Mongol Rule’, John D. Langlois (ed.), China Under Mongol Rule, Princeton, 1981, pp.331-370

Shane McCausland, Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322) and the Revolution of Elite Culture in Mongol China, Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University, 2000

Marilyn Wong Fu, ‘The Impact of the Reunification: Northern Elements in the Life and Art of Hsien-yü Shu (1257?-1302) and Their Relation to Early Yüan Literati Culture’, John D. Langlois (ed.), China Under Mongol Rule, Princeton, 1981, pp.371-433

Zhong Zhou (comp.), Jing bian jin shi da cidian, Hefei, 1991

 

 

Some Observations on Zhao Mengfu
by Marilyn Wong Gleysteen

To call Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322) a “renaissance man” of the Yuan period may be an exaggeration, but he was certainly a man of many parts– an official of highest rank, poet, painter and the calligrapher of the age. In painting alone, he was a master of all subject matters and an innovator, too: figure painting, both religious and secular, animals, especially four-footed creatures, landscapes, bamboo and rocks. In calligraphy, Zhao was versatile in the extreme, writing in all the script types – standard, both large and small sizes, draft and modern cursive , and lastly seal and clerical scripts-- at a time when masters were known for only one or at most two scripts. His insight into antiquity and his ultimate devolution of his collected insight into art forms recognizable as his “stylistic signature” would earn him his place in calligraphy history. His personal visibility and bloodline, as an eleventh generation descendent of the Song founder serving the Mongol conquerors, had garnered him notoriety and fame. The extent of his calligraphic influence alone, not to mention his ideas on painting, can be seen in the “ Zhao style” dominating the period. Contemporaries, recognizing his versatility and his intuition into the past, commented on these traits in their poems and colophons. In the effort to identify as many of Zhao’s sources s possible, and his subsequent influence, modern scholarship has assumed a keen interest in accruing as much historical data to assist the interpretive process, and as modern viewers historians are engaged in a process of reconstruction that is as much literary as visual, and to some extent, theoretical, in naming and identifying these ancient works.

Zhao’s calligraphy influenced younger masters, serving as models for emulation, and by the time of his death, for the engravers of printed books to be distributed through the empire. (See Mote & Chu, “Calligraphy and the East Asian Book,” The Gest Library Journal , Special Issue vol. 2.2, spring 1988, esp. pp. 111-170, with essay by C.P. Ch’en.)  When we think of Zhao, this “man for all seasons,” and the complexity of his personal background with its various implications, we can be thankful that his talent found outlet in artistic pursuits, whether visual, literary or musical, as he was also a noted player of the guqin, the seven-stringed zither that was long associated with the man of letters since Confucius’ time.  To the extent that current art historical assessments regard him as a revolutionary, possibly an enfant terrible, in his creative merging of painting with the calligraphic arts, he remains unchallenged in that dual sphere alone until the late Ming artistic giant Dong Qichang (1555-1636) emerged to dominate the seventeenth century.  Dong’s critical esteem for Zhao and his recognition of their mutual accomplishments certainly helped to solidify the towering position that Zhao Mengfu can now claim in the history of art. (For a recent critical assessment, see McCausland, “Zhao Mengfu & The Revolution of Elite Culture in Mongol China,” Ph. D diss., Princeton University, 2000; and Xu Bangda, “Tung Ch’i-ch’ang’s Calligraphy” in Ho, The Century of Tung Ch’i-ch’ang, Cleveland, 1992, vol. I, pp. 105-132.)

Zhao came from a family of calligraphers and artists who happened to be reigning monarchs. At least four of his Southern Song imperial ancestors possessed to a greater or lesser degree an interest in the arts and displayed a notable calligraphic hand: Gaozong (reigned 1127-1162), Xiaozong (reigned 1162-1189), Ningzong (reigned 1194-1224) and Lizong (reigned 1124-1264). But it was his Northern Song ancestor, the emperor Huizong (Zhao Ji , reigned 1100-1126), who regardless of his imputed loss of the empire to the Jurchen, established for all time the artistic standards by which later emperors and even private collectors were to measure themselves. Huizong’s justly celebrated “slender gold style” (shoujin shu) of calligraphy was not however, the object of Zhao’s attention in the calligraphic sphere; rather the emperor’s passion for collecting, and his connoisseurship of art and antiquities provided a worthy background and precedent for Zhao’s collecting instincts and sense of history. In all, rich family roots set the stage for Zhao’s unprecedented level of achievement in the twin arts.

In calligraphy it was Gaozong’s hand that was a chief source of influence for Zhao in his “early” style, small regular-running script (xiao xing kai), along with the late Han master Zhong You (151-230). The soft, rounded contours in Zhao’s calligraphy can be traced in part to the influence of his Southern Song ancestor, evident in the earlier part of his calligraphic career of the 1280s to about 1290. Fundamentally, both Gaozong and he drew from the same calligraphic source, the Jin master Wang Xizhi (303-361) and his tradition.

Zhao’s personal correspondence style of running script (xing shu) is the one that placed a stamp on his era and the one dominating his “middle” period from about 1290 to the 1310s. Even if it may be argued that slightly older contemporaries also bear similar formal features indicative of a  “period style,” it was with Zhao that we later associate this “look.” In his personal running hand, he so thoroughly assimilated his sources, that even as we recognize their origins, we sense his achieved equilibrium. During the various phases of emulating and assimilating a model, Zhao was able to exert his individuality by stressing certain formal and technical characteristics of the model that pleased him. In essence during the act of brushing a character, he was re-formulating and building the end result through his imagined ideal of that form stroke by stroke, structure by structure. Thus, the actual act of “free copying” (lin ) with the model at hand, an advanced exercise in the hands of a calligrapher with a developed eye such as Zhao’s, constituted in toto a re-enactment, a correcting and a re-integrating process that coordinated visual and personal bodily responses in eye, arm and hand, resulting in the completed brushed form.

Especially in the formal commissioned works of his “later” period, from 1310 to his death in 1322, and due to his position of influence, Zhao’s highly polished standard and running scripts achieved a degree of formal regularity in presentation that lent itself to replication in various forms. His personal engagement in the study of past masters’ works was often closely related to the script type, size and ultimately the function of a particular work, whether a personal letter, a transcription of a known text, or a commemorative memorial to be carved into stone. (See Fong, “The Yuan dynasty,” in Fong, Images of the Mind: Selections from the Elliott Family Collection, 1984, pp. 94-105; and Sun, “ A Quest for the Imperishable,” in Harrist & Fong, The Embodied Image: Chinese Calligraphy from the John B. Elliott Collection, 1999, pp. 302-319.)

Zhao’s search for and intuitive grasp of what he and his contemporaries called “gu yi” (ancient ideas, concepts of antiquity) and “gu fa” (ancient methods, techniques)  appears as  a driving force in their artistic lives.  A slightly older contemporary  Xianyu Shu (1246-1302), a collector, calligrapher and connoisseur from north China who had traveled south to serve in minor office, was also in pursuit of similar goals, a certain calligraphic excellence, the antique and the  antiquities themselves. He was only one of a group of likeminded friends, northerners (Han ren ) and southerners like Zhao (Nan ren), as well as educated Central Asians (se mu ren)  who formed a literary and artistic circle of collectors and connoisseurs whose exploits were documented in exchanges of poems, eulogies, dedications and in colophons, whether collected in their published works or attached to extant scrolls. Such friends would have an influence on the appreciation and exchange of antiquities in an art market whose enthusiastic participation was not unlike that of today’s.  In this regard calligraphic works were part of a network of antiquities eagerly sought out and collected. (See A. Weitz, “ Collecting and Connoisseurship in Early Yuan China: Zhou Mi’s Yunyan guoyan lu ,” Ph.D diss., Kansas University, 1994.) 

Several important works came to Zhao’s notice once he answered the summons of Mongol emperor Shizu’s (Khubilai, reigned 1260-1294) and went north in the period after 1287. Among the earliest and most persistent sources for his smaller-sized standard, running and cursive scripts were a number of examples associated with Wang Xizhi. Chief among these was the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection (Lanting ji xu, text preface dated 353). Zhao’s interest in the Orchid Pavilion Preface was sparked by his early friendship with Xianyu Shu in Hangzhou. This northerner’s interests and personality were a happy complement to Zhao’s southern temperament and they shared an early interest in locating Wang Xizhi’s works, most surviving in the replicated form of the ink rubbing taken form the stone stela on which the original works had been carved for preservation and reproduction. The Orchid Pavilion Preface that Zhao knew survived in the form of a bona fide copy executed by the ranking Tang dynasty court calligrapher, Ouyang Xun (557-641), who served the emperor Tang Taizong, the most aggressive propagator and preserver of the Wang tradition. Zhao’s colophons to the copy known as the version belonging to the monk Dugu testify to Zhao’s passion for this work. (See Illustrated Catalogues of the Tokyo National Museum: Chinese Calligraphies, 1980, no. 316, pp. 175-182, 216-217.)  He took the work, which was said to be a Northern Song rubbing taken from Ouyang’s transcription,  on a month-long boat trip north to the capital in the year 1310. Colophons by others on the album date back to the Northern Song, plus Xianyu’s preceding Zhao’s, after which they are all are crowned by thirteen (!) of Zhao’s encomia. These thirteen colophons, in addition to his assiduous transcribing of the Lanting text itself and of other works associated with the Wang tradition testify to his absolute devotion to that legacy as it was left to him in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.

What are the features that distinguish Zhao Mengfu’s running script hand? First, the overall “look” is elegant, pliant, well-practiced to a fault, with fluent disciplined characters proceeding in close vertical procession, bordered by an ample spaciousness between columns of characters. Individually, each character exhibits its most pleasing aspect frontally, with a strong upward tilt and tall rectangular shape. This noticeable frontality, setting up the structure of the character in its most engaging orientai on, resulted in an opening up and slight flattening of the more three-dimensional impression of Wang’s characters. Zhao’s characters have little torsion, and in this respect differ from Wang’s method of presenting a character  in which there is a central axis around which the stroke elements and structure realize an almost three-dimensional, gyroscopic potentiality. It was from Wang that the Song master Mi Fu (1052-1107) derived his theory that a character has “eight sides”. As for Zhao’s perception, after his lifelong pursuit of Wang’s essence, it is of interest that he actually rejected, or excised, one of the major features that made Wang’s style so revolutionary in the eyes of someone such as Mi Fu and modern scholars. (See Wen Fong’s analysis of this three dimensionality as one of the key “inventions” of Wang Xizhi, in “Chinese Calligraphy: Theory and History,” in Harrist & Fong, The Embodied Image: Chinese Calligraphy from the John B. Elliott Collection, 1999, pp. 37-42.)  In other words, what Zhao derived from the Wang style, possibly from his excessive copying of rubbings, whose stroke forms must be differentiated intuitively,  was something different from what we perceive today as significant in the model. However, it was sufficient for Zhao to have had this intensive period of searching and the immersion, as it was part of a larger picture into the art of the past.

Second, Zhao’s handling of the brush shows a fondness for an emphatically “exposed” brush tip, producing a pointed almost ornamental “head” in the entering stroke. In his larger writing, he modified this exposed head to a deliberately flattened and squared brush tip. After this crucial entering movement, and continuing to grip the brush at a slant, he would proceed either horizontally or vertically with a determined energy, following through to the final release, whether in a right or left diagonal stroke. Thus Zhao exposed the energy almost completely in the release strokes. The question of his source for the square brush has been identified and is said to derive from his discovery of an otherwise unknown Wei master, Shen Fu(act. 6^th century). (See Yang, “Masterpieces by Three Calligraphers,” in Murck and Fong, Words and Images, 1991, p. 37; this master apparently has no extant works.)  These characteristics differentiate his writing from Northern Song masters (and from Gaozong), whose steady practice of Yan Zhenqing (709-785) in standard script invariably engendered a practice using a concealed brush tip, producing a “head” with a slight curl and more rounded and less deliberate entrances. Zhao’s direct approach to the brush created characters that were easily picked up by later generations, including copyists. His use of the emphatic flat brush held at a slant also produces simple flat strokes influenced by his early study of  draft cursive (zhang cao), the more ancient version of cursive where each character, while abbreviated, remains separate from the other.

Third, and possibly his most distinctive feature, was a fluency in the linking movements between individual strokes that were often emphasized as much as the dominant stroke itself. This habitual movement was probably derived from his study of the Tang master Li Yong (678-747), and it exposes the transitional energy between individual strokes. Combined with the alternating rhythm between brush movements, such linkages distinguish his style as a whole.  Thus Zhao’s unique and dynamic manner of manipulating the brush and of orienting characters vis a vis each other produce an impression of outwardly radiating energy in individual characters, and in a sense of vigor emanating from the calligraphy, regardless of script type. This type of exposed force influenced later Yuan and especially Ming masters. For all the elegance and grace of Zhao’s writing, the elevated energy level of his brush connections produced an undeniably dynamic look and feel as one glances down the page that was extremely attractive to later calligraphers. Certainly by the Ming, with an outstanding master of the twin arts as Wen Zhengming (1470-1559), we see a similar homage to the Wang tradition, but with an even more exposed, sharper, angularity informing all the brushwork, and with an even more increased interest in the transitional energy in the linking strokes.

Running hand was the script he used for personal correspondence, for the majority of colophons he wrote to ancient and contemporary works, and for transcriptions of favorite texts by literati, and on rare occasion, for Buddhist and Daoist sutras. The two versions of the “Heart Sutra” now extant in running script were written and dedicated to individual monks, one to his teacher, Zhongfeng Mingben (1263-1323), and one to an unidentified monk, Rilin. Perhaps because the intimacy of their relationship in Buddhism took precedence over respect for the text itself, Zhao chose to write the scripture in running script. His selection of running script to write sutras, such as the “Heart Sutra” while unusual, does have precedent. Examples written in draft cursive as early as the eighth century have been found at Dunhuang . (See Ecke, A History of Chinese Calligraphy, Hong Kong, 1993, p. 260). Extant and recorded transcriptions of these texts reveal Zhao to be an advocate and practitioner of the three teachings (“San jiao he yi” ) of Confucius,  Laozi and the Buddha, a practice that reached its height in the Yuan period. Generally speaking, the most respectful transcription of a sacred text would be written in small block script (xiao kai), a neat regular hand on paper or silk that was usually scored with vertical lines. An example of such a scripture is Zhao’s transcription of the “Daoist Sutra of Constant Purity and Tranquility,” written in strict small regular script on silk drawn with a linear grid. It bears an unusual signature , “Shui Jing Gong daoren,” followed by two seals with his personal and studio names using his customary water-based seal paste.

One of the finest examples of Zhao’s small sized running script is his transcription of the text of Su Shi’s prose-poems on the “Red Cliff.” This album is dated to 1301 with the calligraphy preceded by Zhao’s imaginary portrait in ink on paper of Su himself. (The album is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei; see Gugong Fashu: Yuan Zhao Mengfu moji, Taipei, 1973, pp. 1-14).  It is one of the finest figural renderings of the Yuan period, and demonstrates the art of calligraphic painting in seal and clerical scripts to delineate a human figure. All calligraphic brush techniques are employed to evoke the poet’s sensitive, slightly troubled visage, simple scholar’s robe and bamboo walking staff. The strength of brushline entails a process of engraving into the paper with the brush tip, the shaft held firmly upright as if executing the rounded seal characters of zhuan shu . The power of Zhao’s imagination was put to full use in his projection of the calligraphic technique to the service of reducing a three-dimensional human image to the paper survace, much the way he would use the variety of brush methods available in clerical, cursive or flying-white scripts to engrave and coax  images of horses, a sheep or goat out of the brush onto the paper to powerfully lifelike effect.  It is this transference of his highly charged psychic energy though the nerve and muscles of his body, arm, hands and fingers through his sensitive brush touch that endows the forms with a power that exceeds pure mimesis.

Zhao’s technical mastery and perfection in his standard script could be considered a double-edged sword, especially in the eyes of a rival such as Dong Qichang. While Dong copied certain examples of Zhao’s work and especially admired his small standard script, Dong regarded him as his nemesis, someone to be conquered and dismissed. One aesthetic issue in particular bears mentioning and revolves around the terms “sheng”  (“raw”) and “shu”  (“cooked” or “ripe”). Dong wrote: “Zhao’s calligraphy appeals to the popular eye because of its “technical beauty” (shu); mine emanates  an elegant atmosphere due to its “rawness.” (See Xu Bangda’s study of Dong’s calligraphy in Ho, The Century of Tung Ch’i-ch’ang (1555-1636), vol. I, pp. 105-132).  From an aesthetic standpoint, Dong felt that Zhao’s technical superiority was his downfall, and that his writing would achieve greater heights if only Zhao could shed some of that skillfulness and return to the elusive “ raw” state. Dong Qichang made a famous pronouncement characterizing the calligraphic art of the Jin masters as excelling in yun “resonance”, the Tang masters as excelling in fa  “method,” and the Song masters in yi  “concepts.” How would Dong have characterized the Yuan while facing his nemesis, Zhao Mengfu?  Essentially Dong’s criticism of Zhao’s hand as being too adroit (shu) was a problem because it led to vulgarity. But was it not thisw very quality that made Zhao’s writing was so popular and so widely copied? For that reason, would Dong have said that the Yuan masters excelled in su, having possibly too much of the “common touch”?

This very popularity and the influence of Zhao’s style meant that imitations and forgeries have been rife since his lifetime. How to separate the wheat from the chaff? The badly written genuine article from the well executed copy? Judgements about quality and authenticity inevitably rely on the visual experience of the beholder and one’s accumulated understanding of studied examples by the master in question. In Chinese calligraphy, the personal brush habits and vitality of the strokes, the disposition of the strokes and formal structure of individual characters, and the placement and flow of the characters in a vertical column comprise the major elements on which to base one’s judgements. The most difficult works are those in which slippage occurs on several fronts, including the quality of the seals, seal paste and coherence of the signature. Whatever Dong’s opinion of Yuan calligraphy, the impact of Zhao’s style reverberated throughout the Ming and afterward, especially in the realm of printed books, which the “Zhao style” infused with new life. When the power and wealth of the Ming court sponsorship of printed books and the artistic force of Zhao’s calligraphy came together, this impact would remain alive at least until the great eclipse by the magnificent epigraphical movement of the seventeen h century into the early modern period. (See Bai, Fu Shan’s World: The transformation of Chinese calligraphy in the 17^th century, 2003.) [MWG]

 

 

Marilyn Wong Gleysteen graduated from Mount Holyoke College and received her doctorate in Chinese Art & Archaeology from Princeton University in 1983 (as Marilyn Wong Fu). From 1966-68 she worked at the Palace Museum in Taipei, and in 1973-75 she was assistant curator of Chinese art at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. She later taught at Yale University, George Washington University, the University of Virginia, Columbia University, University of Maryland and Georgetown University. Her publications include co-authoring Studies in Connoisseurship (1973) and Traces of the Brush: Studies in Chinese Calligraphy (1977) with Shen C.Y. Fu. She was a contributor to the 1992 catalogue, The Century of Tung Ch'i-ch'ang (1555-1636), writing the entries on Dong's calligraphy. Since retiring from research and teaching, she has been studying the Chinese guqin and pursuing her interests in music, dance and opera.