Lara Blanchard and Kara Kenney n early thirteenth-century Chinese handscroll of a river landscape, well known for its subtle rendering of time, presents an intriguing view into the dynamic relationship between a court painter and his imperial patron. This painting, known as Twelve Views of Landscape (Shanshui shier jing 山水十 景, figs. 1.1-1.4, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri) is the concluding fragment of a longer composition, originally comprising twelve scenes. Twelve Views of Landscape is notable for bearing captions that designate the last four surviving sections of the painted landscape. Together, text and image provoke complex associations. Although the captions correspond to the scroll’s pictorial imagery, they are evocative rather than straightforward descriptions of discrete scenes. They are poetic in form and allude to a well-known poetic and pictorial theme originating in the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127), the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers. The painted images are not a simple visual rendering of the written text but an expansive improvisation upon it, and the composition includes its own allusions to the Eight Views theme. The painting and its captions are attributed to two individuals who overlapped at the Southern Song (1127-1279) court: the painter Xia Gui 夏珪 (fl. ca. 1180-1224) and Empress Yang Meizi 楊妹子 (1162-1233). Ever since Empress Yang was identified as the calligrapher—a relatively recent discovery1—art historians have been unable to settle on which came first, the text or the image, and thus the interaction between the empress and the court painter has remained ambiguous.2 There are three distinct possibilities for the way the image might have been produced. First, the empress composed her poetic captions for a completed painting by Xia Gui—in other words, the captions were an afterthought.3 Second, the empress could have commissioned the painting from Xia Gui and presented him with preconceived titles to illustrate.4 Both of these scenarios would represent relatively well-understood models of Chinese artistic practice and patronage.The third possibility is that the empress and the court painter might have collaborated to some extent.5 A careful analysis of the interplay between image and text in Twelve Views of Landscape suggests premeditation on the part of both painter and calligrapher and strengthens the argument that Xia Gui and Empress Yang worked closely together in order to create this artwork. Empress Yang Meizi is a notorious figure of the Southern Song period. She was born to a family of indeterminate origin. Her mother was an accomplished musician at the court under Emperor Gaozong 高 (r. 11271162) and a favorite of Empress Wu 吳 (1115-1197) before leaving the palace. When Yang Meizi was about twelve years old, her mother died, and Empress Wu summoned the girl back to the court,6 where she received an education appropriate for a palace lady. She eventually became an honored concubine of Emperor Ningzong 寧 (r. 1194-1224).7 In 1197, palace official Yang Cishan 楊次山 (1139-1219) claimed her as his niece, and thereafter she relied upon him to advance in the palace.8 When Ningzong’s wife died in 1200,Yang Meizi was one of two concubines favored for the position of replacement empress, but the emperor’s advisor Han Tuozhou 韓佗冑 (1152-1207) recommended against her: she was regarded as calculating, while her rival, Cao Meiren 美人, was considered meek and temperate. Still, Yang Meizi ultimately triumphed, possibly because of her intellect and her skill at calligraphy,9 or possibly through deception. One account relates that Ningzong intended to spend time with each concubine privately before making his decision, but Yang Meizi interrupted his meeting with the preferred candidate, proceeding to get the emperor drunk and persuading him to write and sign two edicts declaring her empress that very night. She became empress in 1202 and conspired to have Han Tuozhou killed five years later: he was ambushed by soldiers who beat him to death in an imperial garden. After Emperor Ningzong’s death, she was instrumental in having Emperor Lizong 理 (r. 1225-1264) installed on the throne instead of the designated heir, Zhao Hong 趙竑 (d. 1225). Lizong invited her to rule with him from “behind the lowered screen,” and she received the title of empress dowager. Although she stepped down as regent after a year, citing her age as the reason, she retained the title of empress dowager. She died about seven years later.10 Yang Meizi had a history of working closely with court painters, especially Ma Yuan 馬遠 (fl. before 1189-after 1225) and his son, Ma Lin 馬麟 (fl. early to mid-thirteenth century).Throughout her years in the palace, Critical Matrix Fall 2009 Collaboration Traces of Collaboration: Empress Yang’s Captions for Xia Gui’s Twelve Views of Landscape by Lara Blanchard and Kara Kenney A 2 3 4 Traces of Collaboration Lara Blanchard and Kara Kenney Figure 1.1: Xia Gui and Empress Yang Meizi, Twelve Views of Landscape, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279), handscroll, ink on silk, 27.9 x 230.5 cm. Section 1.The Nelson Atkins-Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 32-159/2. Figure 1.3: Xia Gui and Empress Yang Meizi, Twelve Views of Landscape, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279), handscroll, ink on silk, 27.9 x 230.5 cm. Section 3.The Nelson Atkins-Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 32-159/2. Figure 1.2: Xia Gui and Empress Yang Meizi, Twelve Views of Landscape, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279), handscroll, ink on silk, 27.9 x 230.5 cm. Section 2.The Nelson Atkins-Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 32-159/2. Figure 1.4: Xia Gui and Empress Yang Meizi, Twelve Views of Landscape, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279), handscroll, ink on silk, 27.9 x 230.5 cm. Section 4.The Nelson Atkins-Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 32-159/2. Critical Matrix Fall 2009 Collaboration 5 Traces of Collaboration Lara Blanchard and Kara Kenney she commissioned paintings of different genres, not only landscapes but also architectural scenes and images of flowering trees. Some of the paintings appear to have relatively public functions (meant to solidify political alliances or to provide didactic explication of women’s roles), while others appear more personal in nature (meant to profess religious devotion or convey an intimate message to the emperor).11 Most bear poetic inscriptions of her own composition in her own calligraphy.12 Although many of these works might now be understood as examples of artistic collaboration, they were not so designated at the time. Because of the inherently unequal relationship between an imperial poet and the subordinate artisan,13 these works instead have been described as more or less straightforward examples of imperial patronage—and usually recorded under the name of the court painter alone. Unlike his patron Yang Meizi, very little biographical information about the painter Xia Gui survives. Much of what is known about him is summarized in this passage from a fourteenth-century critical text: Xia Gui’s courtesy name was Yuyu, and he was from Qiantang. He served at Ningzong’s court as painter-in-attendance, appointed to wear the golden belt. He excelled at figure painting. He mulled over proportion, and the color of his ink was like powder; his brush method was archaic, and the flow of his ink was dripping wet—unusual work! His snow scenes were all in the style of Fan Kuan [ca. 960-1030]. No Academy landscape painter since Li Tang [ca. 1070-ca. 1150] could surpass him. your servitor Xia Gui,” at the lower left corner.18 The painting is generically described as a landscape scroll (shanshui juan 山水卷) in some seventeenthand eighteenth-century catalogues of painting,19 which may indicate that it was known under a different title when it was first created. Notably, the connoisseur Wu Sheng 吳升 (fl. ca. 1712) refers to the scroll as Landscape Scroll in Response to the Court (Yingzhi shanshui juan 應制山水卷).20 Twelve Views of Landscape was probably cut into two scrolls sometime between 1750 and 1900, and one part has since disappeared.21 However, two copies of the painting, in the Yale University Art Gallery (figs. 2.1-2.8) and the National Palace Museum in Taipei, seem to preserve the complete pictorial composition.22 Since at least the sixteenth century, connoisseurs have recognized the captions as imperial in origin, but for much of that time, they have assumed that Emperor Lizong was the calligrapher.23 Wang Guxiang 王穀祥 (15011568), who wrote a colophon for the Nelson-Atkins Museum scroll, appears to be the first to make this assertion: This scroll can be included among classic paintings. It is signed by the court painter. Each of the titles at the top has a small double-dragon seal; at that time this brushwork of Lizong’s could be assessed as subtle grade. Looking at the Xuanbao collection in mid-spring of the renxu year of the Jiajing reign era [1562]. Written by Wang Guxiang. 夏珪字禹玉，錢唐人，寧 朝待詔，賜金帶。善畫人物。 高低醞釀，墨色如傅粉之色，筆法蒼老，墨 淋漓， 奇作也。雪景 學 寛。院人中畫山水，自李唐以 ， 無出其 者也。汀4 6 此卷乃經進之畫，其欵 臣,其 各題皆 雙龍小印， 當是理 之筆可為妙品矣。 寳藏之嘉靖 戌仲春之望。 王穀祥題。汁4 Exactly 150 years later, Wu Sheng concurred on the captions’ authorship: Altogether twelve scenes; for each scene Lizong wrote an inscription in standard script and stamped small, round, doubledragon imperial seals the size of coins. Landscapes dominate Xia Gui’s surviving paintings. His landscape style derives from that of court painter Li Tang, whose late works were notable for their use of negative space or emptiness, monochrome ink washes, and the diagonally organized composition15—all elements that appear in Twelve Views of Landscape. In this painting, the large expanses of negative space denote sky or water, and the deft handling of ink wash creates a misty atmosphere. Axecut brushstrokes—commonly associated with Xia Gui and his contemporary Ma Yuan, but also dating back to Li Tang16—represent eroded shorelines and jagged rocks. Though undated, Twelve Views of Landscape must be a work from late in the painter’s career.17 It is signed chen Xia Gui hua 臣夏珪畫, “painted by More recently, however, Marc F. Wilson has argued convincingly that Empress Yang added the captions to the scroll.26 Beneath them are the single-dragon seals of an empress, not an emperor’s double-dragon seals. In fact, Empress Yang used a single-dragon seal elsewhere as well: Hui-shu Lee has identified it on two examples of her calligraphy inscribed on round fans.27 To some extent, the misattribution of Empress Yang’s hand in this scroll reflects the Critical Matrix Fall 2009 Collaboration 共十 景，每景理 摽題楷 大如錢壓雙龍小圓壐。汁5 7 Traces of Collaboration mutability of her style, as connoisseurs properly attributed other examples of her inscriptions.28 Lee suggests that Empress Wu was her mentor in many aspects including calligraphy, and, like other members of the Southern Song imperial family,Yang Meizi learned to write in the style of Emperor Gaozong, whose calligraphy served as a standard. Later, Empress Yang successfully imitated the style of her husband Ningzong’s writing, serving as one of his principal “ghostwriters.”29 The fact that it has taken so long to recognize Empress Yang’s calligraphy on Twelve Views of Landscape suggests that no surviving external evidence links the empress to this painting nor documents her interaction with Xia Gui. Therefore, to understand their interaction, it is necessary to rely on textual and visual analysis of the scroll itself.The complicated interrelationship of the captions and the pictorial imagery suggests that neither is truly secondary to the other. Text and image imply a great deal of forethought on both sides, indicating that the empress and the court painter may have worked together closely to conceive a unified work. Let us focus first on Empress Yang’s four-character captions. Though neither of the surviving copies of the painting bears the captions found on the Nelson-Atkins scroll, they were fortunately recorded in later painting catalogues, and thus the captions for the first eight scenes, which might otherwise have been lost, have been preserved. Although there are alternate versions for the first, second, and fifth captions, the variants are quite close in meaning. The captions, which primarily suggest setting and sometimes indicate time of day, activity, and mood, correspond well to the content of the paintings (which, as in all Chinese handscrolls, are read right to left):30 1. “Riverbank, Playful Wandering” (Jiang gao wanyou 江臯玩遊) or “Riverbank, Official Wandering” (Jiang gao guanyou 江臯 遊). Both the Yale (fig. 2.1) and National Palace Museum versions of the painting show a scholar-official mounted on a donkey and accompanied by two servants. Negative space suggests both river and mist; the silhouette of mountains emerges near the top margin. 2. “River Islet, Resting Hook” (Jiang zhou jing diao 江洲靜釣) or “Stream Islet, Resting Hook” (Ting zhou jing diao 洲靜釣). Both the Yale (fig. 2.2) and National Palace Museum versions of the painting show an islet in the river, just beyond a bluff with trees. The resting hook of the caption implies fishing, but the perspective of the painting makes it impossible to render an underwater fishhook. 3. “Sunlit Market, Blowing Mist” (Qing shi chui yan 晴市炊煙).31 8 Critical Matrix Fall 2009 Lara Blanchard and Kara Kenney Both the Yale (fig. 2.3) and National Palace Museum versions of the painting show a cluster of buildings around an open area, and figures walking through it. One building can be identified as a wine shop or restaurant because of its flag and the tables and benches visible within. 4. “Clear River, Slanting Gaze” (Qing jiang xie wang 清江寫望). Both the Yale (fig. 2.4) and National Palace Museum versions of the painting show an arched bridge spanning the river, with two figures at the center gazing out across the expanse of water, in the direction of boats. Another boat is moored next to the bridge. 5. “Dense Thicket of Delightful Flavor” (Maolin jia qu 林佳趣) or “Dense Thicket of Peaceful Flavor” (Maolin qing qu 林清趣). Both the Yale (fig. 2.5) and National Palace Museum versions of the painting show a cluster of trees growing from eroded banks and a forest partially obscured by mist. 6. “Steps in Thin Air, Misty Temple” (Ti kong yan si 梯空煙寺). Both the Yale (fig. 2.6) and National Palace Museum versions of the painting show a bridge, with one figure on it, leading to a recess in the cliff where two figures sit. What may be a temple building, dimly viewed through the mist, perches atop the cliff. 7. “Spirit Cliffs, Facing in Sequence” (Lingyan dui yi 靈巖對奕). Both the Yale (fig. 2.7) and National Palace Museum versions of the painting show another cluster of trees above a fenced viewing area, with mountains opposite. 8. “Strange Peaks, Nourishing Refinement” (Qi feng yun xiu 奇峰孕秀). Both the Yale (fig. 2.8) and National Palace Museum versions of the painting focus on jagged mountain peaks. 9. “Distant Mountains, Writing Geese” (Yao shan shu yan 遙山 鴈). All three extant versions of the painting, including the Nelson-Atkins scroll (fig. 1.1), show the dim silhouettes of mountains and a line of geese sketched against the sky. 10. “Misty Village, Returning Ferry” (Yan cun gui du 煙村歸渡). All three extant versions of the painting, including the Nelson-Atkins Collaboration 9 Lara Blanchard and Kara Kenney Traces of Collaboration scroll (figs. 1.1-1.2), show woods and the roofs of a village emerging from mist on a diagonally receding spit of land, as well as a boat with a ferryman and two passengers crossing the river. Another small boat is moored. 11. “Fisherman’s Flute, Pure Solitude” (Yu di qingyou 漁笛清幽). All three extant versions of the painting, including the Nelson-Atkins scroll (figs. 1.2-1.3), show three occupied fishing boats on the river and nets hung up to dry on the bank. A fisherman seen from the back, in a posture that suggests flute-playing, sits in the boat closest to the bank. The painter uses negative space to suggest solitude. “River, Sky, Twilight Snow” (Jiang tian mu xue 江天暮雪) “Lake Dongting Autumn Moon” (Dongting qiu yue 洞庭秋 ) “Xiao Xiang Night Rain” (Xiao Xiang ye yu 瀟湘夜雨) “Misty Temple, Evening Bell” (Yan si wan zhong 煙寺晚鐘) “Fishing Village, Setting Sun” (Yu cun luo zhao 漁村落照) The first eight captions appear to match the beginnings of both the Yale copy and the National Palace Museum copy, which makes it unlikely that either scroll deviated much from the lost section of the Nelson-Atkins scroll. Certainly the final sections of all three paintings are remarkably similar. Each of the four-character captions constitutes a pair of two-character phrases familiar from classic poetry,32 fitting the empress’s pattern of citing the poetic tradition. EmpressYang’s captions correspond significantly to the theme of the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers, which was popular among the literati, in Buddhist circles, and at court (at least in certain periods).33 In the context of a scholar-official’s eremitism or Buddhist retreat, the theme concerns withdrawal from society, and it carried overtones suggesting the cultivation of personal integrity. It apparently originated with the scholar-official Song Di 宋迪 (ca. 1015-ca. 1080), who first completed a set of murals on the theme and subsequently rendered it in other formats as well, including handscrolls.34 Each of the Eight Views was associated with its own four-character poetic title, composed by Song Di himself and recorded by the scholar Shen Gua 沈括 (1031-1095). Those titles might most literally be translated as follows:35 1. “Level Sand, Geese Descending” (Ping sha yan luo 沙雁落) 2. “Distant Shore, Sail Returning” (Yuan pu fan gui 遠 帆歸) 3. “Mountain Market, Clearing Mist” (Shan shi qing lan 山市晴嵐) Like EmpressYang’s captions for Twelve Views of Landscape, these titles represent the pairing of two-character poetic phrases. It is quite easy to find echoes of the titles in Empress Yang’s captions. The “sunlit market” (qing shi 晴市) of her third caption, for example, is a distillation of Song’s third title, taking the word “market” (shi 市) from the first part and “clearing” (qing 晴) from the second and recombining them to make a new phrase.36 The “misty temple” (yan si 煙寺) in her sixth caption is a direct citation of the same image in Song’s seventh title. Other allusions are subtler. The “thin air” (kong 空) of Empress Yang’s sixth caption may refer to the “sky” (tian 天) of Song Di’s fourth title. Her “returning ferry” (gui du 歸渡), in the tenth caption and “evening mooring” (wan bo 晚泊), in the twelfth may both evoke Song’s “sail returning” (fan gui 帆歸), in his second title. In some places, even the repetition of single characters may be significant: both writers employ the images of wild geese (yan 雁), fishing (yu 漁), evening (wan 晚), and a village (cun 村)—and of course references to the river (jiang 江) and to mist (yan 煙) are ubiquitous, given the subject matter. In fact, all of the correspondences could likely be explained in the same manner—in any long composition of a riverscape, some stock images are bound to be included—were it not for one reference that clarifies Empress Yang’s interest in the theme of the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers. Years after Song Di completed his painting and composed titles for it, the Chan Buddhist monk Juefan Huihong 覺範惠洪 (1071-1128) wrote two sets of poems (a set of eight-line poems and a set of quatrains) for the scenes; these circulated and became quite well known in their own right.37 John Hay has proposed that Empress Yang’s caption for the ninth scene of Xia Gui’s painting, “Distant Mountains, Writing Geese,” may allude to the last couplet of one of Huihong’s eight-line poems for Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers.38 The poem corresponds to Song Di’s first title, “Level Sand, Geese Descending,” and Alfreda Murck translates it as follows: Lake’s autumn colors are like burnished bronze, Evening sun whitens sand, light is diffused; Fluttering about to land, more calling and crowding, By fives, by tens, among dense rushes. Not yet returned to Xixing, anxious at growing old, Critical Matrix Fall 2009 Collaboration 12. “Misty Bank, Evening Mooring” (Yan di wan bo 煙堤晚泊). All three extant versions of the painting, including the Nelson-Atkins scroll (figs. 1.3-1.4), show sailboats moored by the riverbank, a temple gate just visible through the mist, and a path curving around the hills with two load-bearing figures. 10 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 11 Traces of Collaboration A cloudless evening sky, the heavens as if swept; At the wind-borne sound of a flute, they rise alarmed, Writing cursive script in the air like Wang Xizhi. 湖容秋色磨青銅，夕陽沙白光濛濛。翩翻欲 更嘔 ， 十十五五依 叢。西 未歸愁欲老，日暮無雲天似掃。 一聲風笛忽驚飛，羲之 空作行草。39 The whole of Huihong’s poem is a description of flying geese, mentioned in the poem’s title and implied in the poem’s text. The concept of geese “writing cursive script in the air” is rather unusual, although Huihong clarifies his meaning by invoking the preeminent calligrapher Wang Xizhi 王羲之 (ca. 307-ca. 365), who loved geese and found inspiration for writing in their movements.40 Empress Yang’s use of the phrase “writing geese” is unlikely to be a coincidence, and John Hay is probably correct to assume a link between her caption and Huihong’s poem. It is possible, however, to take Hay’s observation a step further to identify correspondences between the painted images of Twelve Views of Landscape and the earlier poetry. Considering that Huihong’s poem was written for an entirely different painting, the degree to which the imagery seems applicable to what was originally the ninth scene of Xia Gui’s painting, “Distant Mountains, Writing Geese,” is astounding. Perhaps the viewer first notices what is encapsulated in Empress Yang’s caption: the isolation of the painted geese against the mountain’s silhouette. However, Xia Gui’s geese—or the abbreviated, barely legible squiggles that he uses to evoke a line of geese in flight—resemble the cursive script explicitly described in Huihong’s poem. Other parallels between Xia Gui’s painting and Huihong’s poem are evident. The emptiness of the painted sky evokes the poetic “swept heavens.” The pictorial scene seems to be set in late afternoon or early evening, as suggested by the atmospheric quality of the ink wash, and the poem is set at the same time. And, while the flute mentioned in the poem is not shown in this scene, a figure does play a flute farther along in the painting in what was originally the eleventh scene, titled “Fisherman’s Flute, Pure Solitude.” Since the pictorial scenes represent a continuous landscape, it is not difficult to imagine that the geese seen here startle at the sudden sound of that faraway flute. Xia Gui seems to have absorbed the imagery of Huihong’s poems, and in fact he begins to reinvent this material, linking multiple pictorial scenes with individual poems—an unprecedented interpretation that serves to integrate the whole. Thus, both Empress Yang in her text and Xia Gui in his painting reference the well-known imagery of Eight Views of the Xiao 12 Critical Matrix Fall 2009 Lara Blanchard and Kara Kenney and Xiang Rivers and also forward new poetic and visual interpretations of that imagery. If one continues to read Huihong’s eight-line poems on the Eight Views theme, similar correspondences with the pictorial imagery reveal themselves. One may compare the original tenth scene of the handscroll, “Misty Village, Returning Ferry,” to Huihong’s poem for the seventh of the Eight Views, titled “Misty Temple, Evening Bell.” Murck’s translation reads: Ten years of carriages and horses, yellow dust path, Late in the year a traveler’s mind distracted by a myriad thoughts; Abruptly startled by a sound: a bell from where? Temple in misty village in the remotest place. Beyond the stream a dwelling glimpsed between tall bamboo, Wanting to summon a small boat but no one to ferry me; A gaunt figure leaning on wisteria staff, west wind at his back, A returning monk enters the mist and vines and disappears. 十 馬黃塵路，歲晚 心紛萬緒。猛省一聲何處鐘， 寺在煙村最深處。隔谿脩竹露人家，扁舟欲喚無人渡。 紫藤瘦倚背西風，歸僧自入煙蘿去。4汀 This poem contains all the images found in Empress Yang’s caption: it refers to both a misty village and a ferry, and the character gui 歸, “to return,” describes the monk of the last line. Xia Gui, for his part, not only elaborates upon Huihong’s images in this scene, but also, once again, takes the images of the poem and inserts them into other pictorial scenes. For example, consider the misty temple mentioned in both Song Di’s title and Huihong’s poem. Xia Gui appears to seize upon this image as a trope ideal for visualization: he paints a misty temple in the sixth scene (which only survives in the copies), and a temple gate emerging from mist in the last scene. Because all temples had bells, one might imagine that either painted temple would serve to imply the sound of the bell so important in Huihong’s poem, ringing throughout the fictive space of the scroll—including in this tenth scene, which itself does not include a temple. Travel, too, is an important trope in the poem, and Xia Gui references it multiple times: in the image of the mounted scholar in the first scene of the painting (only surviving in the copies), in the ferry that appears in the tenth scene, and in the moored sailboats of the final scene. The way that Xia Gui takes Huihong’s images and combines them in new ways stands as both an homage to and a departure from scenes of the Eight Views, which are usually readily recognizable because of their embodiment of the poetic text. This practice is similar to what Empress Yang does with Collaboration 13 14 Traces of Collaboration Lara Blanchard and Kara Kenney Figure 2.1. Attributed to Xia Gui, River Landscape (Twelve Views of Landscape), handscroll, ink on silk. Section 1. Yale University Art Gallery, The Hobart and Edward Small Moore Memorial Collection, Gift of Mrs. William H. Moore. Figure 2.3. Attributed to Xia Gui, River Landscape (Twelve Views of Landscape), handscroll, ink on silk. Section 3. Yale University Art Gallery, The Hobart and Edward Small Moore Memorial Collection, Gift of Mrs. William H. Moore. Figure 2.2. Attributed to Xia Gui, River Landscape (Twelve Views of Landscape), handscroll, ink on silk. Section 2. Yale University Art Gallery, The Hobart and Edward Small Moore Memorial Collection, Gift of Mrs. William H. Moore. Figure 2.4. Attributed to Xia Gui, River Landscape (Twelve Views of Landscape), handscroll, ink on silk. Section 4. Yale University Art Gallery, The Hobart and Edward Small Moore Memorial Collection, Gift of Mrs. William H. Moore. Critical Matrix Fall 2009 Collaboration 15 16 Traces of Collaboration Lara Blanchard and Kara Kenney Figure 2.5. Attributed to Xia Gui, River Landscape (Twelve Views of Landscape), handscroll, ink on silk. Section 5. Yale University Art Gallery, The Hobart and Edward Small Moore Memorial Collection, Gift of Mrs. William H. Moore. Figure 2.7. Attributed to Xia Gui, River Landscape (Twelve Views of Landscape), handscroll, ink on silk. Section 7. Yale University Art Gallery, The Hobart and Edward Small Moore Memorial Collection, Gift of Mrs. William H. Moore. Figure 2.6. Attributed to Xia Gui, River Landscape (Twelve Views of Landscape), handscroll, ink on silk. Section 6. Yale University Art Gallery, The Hobart and Edward Small Moore Memorial Collection, Gift of Mrs. William H. Moore. Figure 2.8. Attributed to Xia Gui, River Landscape (Twelve Views of Landscape), handscroll, ink on silk. Section 8. Yale University Art Gallery, The Hobart and Edward Small Moore Memorial Collection, Gift of Mrs. William H. Moore. Critical Matrix Fall 2009 Collaboration 17 Traces of Collaboration Lara Blanchard and Kara Kenney her captions. For a more complicated example of cross-referencing, one may compare the adjacent “Fisherman’s Flute, Pure Solitude” and “Misty Bank, Evening Mooring” scenes (eleventh and twelfth in Xia Gui’s original painting) to two different poems by Huihong. His poem for “Fishing Village, Setting Sun” reads (in Murck’s translation): Jade-green reeds whistling, the wind sighs, In village lanes sand is bright, scattering remnants of sun; Beyond a thatched fence millet steaming, fragrance drifting, Opposite the gate, fishing nets hanging, silver shimmering. A poled boat gradually nears the Peach Blossom Inn, Assaulting the nose the pungent fragrance of heady wine; Hoisting baskets, following you, ample for our intoxication, Lying, viewing rivers and mountains, reds and greens blur. Here, the poetic references to a fishing village and fish seem appropriate for Xia Gui’s depiction of fishermen in “Fisherman’s Flute, Pure Solitude.” The last couplet of Huihong’s poem, with its references to “pure state,” “chanting alone,” and “oblivion,” seems the most relevant to the “pure solitude” of Empress Yang’s caption; Xia Gui renders it as a vast expanse of negative space. Meanwhile, Huihong’s phrase “Lower the sails, stop at the shore” seems an apt description of the moored sailboats in “Misty Bank, Evening Mooring.” Because “evening mooring” implies traveling on long journeys,44 the sailboats depicted here may be the boats of travelers resting in the temple for the night. The complicated relationship between the captions and painted imagery of the scroll’s final two scenes and these two poems by Huihong again suggests that Xia Gui and Empress Yang were both carefully considering ways of not only incorporating citations to the EightViews imagery, but also reinterpreting this classic theme. An unusually close correspondence can be found between the third and fourth scenes of Xia Gui’s painting, “Sunlit Market, Blowing Mist” and “Clear River, Slanting Gaze” (only surviving in the Yale and National Palace Museum copies), and Huihong’s poem for “Mountain Market, Clearing Mist.” Murck’s translation of the poem reads: Last night’s rain is letting up, mountain air is heavy, Blowing mist, sun and shadow, light moves between trees: Silkworm market comes to a close: the crowd thins out, Public willows by market bridge: golden threads play; Whose house with flower-filled plot is across the valley? A smooth-tongued yellow bird calls in spring breeze; Wine flag in vast distance—look and you can see: It’s the one west of the road to Yellowbark Knob village. 碧葦蕭蕭風淅瀝，村巷沙光潑殘日。隔籬炊黍香浮浮， 對門登網銀戢戢。刺舟漸近桃花店，破鼻香來覺醇釅。 籃就儂博一醉，臥看江山紅綠眩。42 We have already noted that the flute in the first of these two painted scenes, “Fisherman’s Flute, Pure Solitude,” may have derived from Huihong’s poem for “Level Sand, Geese Descending.” Huihong’s poetic images of the fishing net and poling boats are also included in this penultimate scene, and the gate, the load-bearing figures, the river, and the mountains of his poem appear in the final scene of the painting, “Misty Bank, Evening Mooring.” Other images from these two scenes can be found in what Huihong wrote for “Xiao Xiang Night Rain”: Porch windows of Yuelu Hall were just before my eyes, Clouds appeared and suddenly rolled up the hanging scroll; Gentle wind is creating foam-capped waves, Lower the sails, stop at the shore, spend the night at a fishing village; Fires are lit among dense reeds, evening meals prepared, The waves respond [to rain drops] making what seem to be fish; Intensely moved by the pure state and life’s ordinary affairs, Under leaky awning, chanting alone, oblivious of dawn. 嶽麓軒窗方在目，雲生忽收圖畫軸。軟風為作白頭波， 倒帆斷岸漁村宿。燈火荻叢營夜炊，波心應作出魚兒。 絕憐清境 生 ，蓬漏孤吟曉不知。43 18 Critical Matrix Fall 2009 宿雨初收山氣 ，炊煙日影林光動。蠶市漸休人已稀， 市橋 柳金絲弄。隔谿誰家花滿畦，滑唇黃鳥春風啼。 酒旗漠漠望可見，知在柘岡村路西。45 We have already discussed the ways that the first image of the third caption plays upon Song Di’s title; after reading Huihong’s poem, it becomes clear that Empress Yang’s second image, “blowing mist,” is a direct citation of the second line of the poem. Additionally, the “slanting gaze” of her fourth caption seems to encompass Huihong’s phrase “look and you can see” in the poem’s seventh line. In the third and fourth scenes of Xia Gui’s painting, one finds many of the images evoked by Huihong: trees, a market, a crowd that has dwindled to only a few figures, a bridge with two figures gazing Collaboration 19 20 Traces of Collaboration Lara Blanchard and Kara Kenney across the water, a wine shop’s flag, a house across the river, and a road. This is hardly unthinking fidelity to Huihong’s poem, for many of his images have no pictorial counterpart. Still, the sheer number of images that do correspond strongly suggest that both Empress Yang and Xia Gui sought inspiration from this particular poem when composing this section of the scroll. Intriguingly, there is also evidence that Xia Gui deliberately used paintings of Mountain Market, Clearing Mist as a source for this particular passage of his composition. Several extant paintings thought to depict the third of the Eight Views bear a fundamental resemblance to the third and fourth scenes of Twelve Views of Landscape: they all feature a market on the right and a bridge on the left. Significantly, these Mountain Market paintings can all be associated in some way with Song dynasty artists.46 Alfreda Murck identifies the bridge as part of the Mountain Market iconography,47 and this suggests that these two scenes draw upon both poetic and pictorial sources. Richard Barnhart’s study of Eight Views paintings discusses how many of them derive from the development of prototypes of the theme among prominent artists of the Southern Song. Pictorial iterations of the theme became so conventional as to approach formula, making it easy to identify later versions of the Eight Views.48 Thus, we find not only multiple correspondences between Empress Yang’s captions, Xia Gui’s painted scenes, Song Di’s titles, and Huihong’s eight-line poems, but also connections between Xia Gui’s painted scenes and pictorial imagery of the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers. Indeed, Twelve Views of Landscape must have been rather similar to earlier depictions of the Eight Views.Valérie Malenfer Ortiz notes that the latter were “series of discrete views” set in the lush southern landscape, a description that applies equally well to Xia Gui’s painting. She surmises that both were likely used “to address a specific patron and situation.”49 Song Di’s original painting concerned the passage of time, and Twelve Views of Landscape exhibits similar concerns.50 Considering the degree to which both captions and painting appear to draw on Eight Views imagery, it seems that the best explanation is that both Empress Yang and Xia Gui might have had the earlier texts and paintings in mind when they created their scroll.51 At the same time, they clearly intended their work to be innovative, not a reiteration of the theme. Twelve Views of Landscape incorporates literary and pictorial allusions to the theme of the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers, but it also diverges significantly from the earlier texts and pictures. Xia Gui and Empress Yang mix conventional images with fresh motifs, resulting in new scenes and new titles. Undoubtedly, Empress Yang was thinking of the textual tradition of Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers when she composed her captions. Many of her phrases seem like direct or indirect citations of the earlier work, and her choice of four-character pairs of poetic phrases is especially telling.The theme appears to have been a familiar one at the Southern Song court in the early thirteenth century: Xia Gui himself is credited with numerous compositions of the Eight Views, recorded in both Chinese texts and Japanese catalogues. Richard Barnhart speculates that he painted the theme in multiple formats, including small album leaves, fans, hanging scrolls, handscrolls, and screens. Although many of these compositions have since disappeared, at least eleven attributed to Xia Gui or in his style can still be found in various collections.52 Certainly, like Empress Yang, he was given to citation in his work. In some cases he referenced the compositions of other painters; for example, Ogawa Hiromitsu has noted a “compositional resemblance” between Xia Gui’s Sailboat in the Rain and Li Tang’s Kôtô-in Landscapes, suggesting that the backgrounds have been reversed or inverted. In other cases, Xia Gui cited his own compositions: the “Misty Village, Returning Ferry” section of Twelve Views of Landscape bears some resemblance to the first half of his handscroll Streams and Mountains, Pure and Remote.53 This pattern of citation supports the idea that the painter may have looked to earlier compositions of Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers (perhaps including his own) as a source for a work such as Twelve Views of Landscape. Empress Yang and Xia Gui created intertwining references to their closely related sources, and so it seems likely that they discussed how best to integrate the literary and pictorial elements of their scroll. If the patron and the painter together considered how to design a work that stands as an innovation upon the Eight Views theme, it would suggest a deliberation of purpose that matches what we know of Empress Yang’s patronage of other court painters. This is exemplified in the painting Apricot Blossoms Leaning against Clouds (fig. 3), which conveys a personal message from Empress Yang to Emperor Ningzong.The work appears to be a collaboration between court painter MaYuan and the empress, who composed and inscribed the following poetic couplet, ostensibly on a flower, at the top right of the composition: Receiving the wind, she presents her unsurpassing beauty; Moistened with dew, she reveals her red charms. Critical Matrix Fall 2009 Collaboration 迎風呈巧媚， 露逞紅妍。54 Many of the images in Empress Yang’s inscription work as gendered and erotic metaphors. Countless examples of poetry describe the (masculine) wind blowing through (feminine) flowers and leaving them disheveled. Such a description served as a metaphor for a man’s sexual relations with multiple 21 22 Traces of Collaboration Lara Blanchard and Kara Kenney women, reflecting practices of polygyny in Chinese society. This metaphor would be especially apt as a reference to an emperor’s sexual relationships, for emperors typically took numerous concubines. The first line of Empress Yang’s inscription turns this common metaphor on its head: it interprets the same situation from the perspective of the flower, here standing for one woman, asserting her erotic agency in presenting herself to her lover. In the second line of the poem, the image of dew evokes a sexually aroused woman. Hui-shu Lee suggests that in this poem, Empress Yang addresses her husband so explicitly in order to gain his favor. Ma Yuan’s painting, on the other hand, presents a subtly erotic image. He paints a branch of an apricot tree that forks such that it appears to frame Empress Yang’s inscription. Lee has proposed two possible interpretations of the work. She suggests that just as the poem emphasizes the woman’s receptivity, the branch of the apricot blossom tree “spreads its arms in erotic welcome.”55 Elsewhere, she has forwarded an even bolder but quite convincing reading: that the forked branches represent Empress Yang opening not her arms to Ningzong, but her legs.56 In that case, the bright red blossom located at the crotch of the branches—the “red charms” of the empress’s poem—could represent Empress Yang’s sex. Lee points out that Empress Yang’s seals, located between her inscription and the “splayed ends” of Ma Yuan’s blossoming branch, serve to highlight the suggestiveness of the entire work.57 Because text and image complement each other so well, it is likely that the empress and the artist communicated frequently as they planned the composition of Apricot Blossoms Leaning against Clouds. Empress Yang’s poem adds a layer of meaning to the painting that might otherwise be overlooked, while Ma Yuan’s painting helps the viewer visualize both the lush beauty and the boldness of the poem’s subject. Lee writes that Empress Yang’s inscriptions “never dominate” the pictures they accompany.58 Instead, inscription and picture work together to convey the empress as not only self-consciously sexual but also assertive, subverting conservative notions of what constituted appropriate behavior for women. This particular pairing of text and image suggests a rather proactive role for the empress, but the painting as a whole could not succeed without the strategies for conveying meaning that would fall within the purview of the court painter. Most likely, Empress Yang and Ma Yuan collaborated here in order to shape a particular reading.The empress could easily have adopted a similar working model with Xia Gui on Twelve Views of Landscape. One remarkable aspect of Empress Yang’s collaboration on Apricot Blossoms Leaning against Clouds, and in fact something that marks many of her collaborations with court painters, is that it is possible to identify a reason for her unusual involvement in the creation of the painting: she used Apricot Blossoms as a form of self-expression and to accomplish a particular goal, in this case to initiate an intimate exchange with her husband. In the case of Twelve Views of Landscape, one again sees that the empress took a personal concern with the composition, yet the reason for this is not entirely evident.59 A clue to a possible reason for making this painting can be found at its top left corner, where one finds the nearly illegible seal of Empress Yang’s successor and Lizong’s consort, Empress Xie Daoqing 謝 清 (nickname Meixia 美霞, 1208-1282). Marc Wilson suggests that Empress Yang presented the scroll to the younger woman, for whom she served as mentor.60 Because we cannot precisely date Twelve Views of Landscape, and because Empress Yang does not dedicate the scroll to Xie Daoqing, one cannot say for certain whether Empress Yang had her younger counterpart in mind while working on this painting. Still, it is possible that the scroll was intended to represent the bond between the two women, and this allows us to identify Empress Yang’s putative audience. Xie Daoqing became Lizong’s empress in 1227, while Yang was empress dowager, directly as the result of the latter’s efforts. Lizong wished to marry a woman of great beauty and privilege, but Empress Yang argued that Xie Daoqing, a rather unfortunate daughter of a concubine, was a better choice. Like EmpressYang, Xie Daoqing was orphaned at an early age. Her grandfather had served as an official under Empress Yang, and when the latter heard of the family’s misfortunes, she summoned Xie Daoqing to the palace. Empress Yang’s success was due in part to the support given to her by an influential empress, and perhaps for this reason she chose to help another young woman in similarly straitened circumstances. Like Empress Yang, Empress Xie gained considerable power, ultimately becoming empress dowager herself.61 Certainly, if Empress Yang gave Empress Xie the Twelve Views scroll, the gift commemorated their close relationship and likely cemented her influence over Lizong’s wife (and perhaps Lizong himself, by extension). However, it may have been instructive as well. In alluding to a theme that would promote the value of integrity, Empress Yang may have been making an assertion about her own integrity (which had certainly been questioned at times) as well as suggesting the general importance of this quality to the younger woman. Moreover, at this point in Empress Yang’s career, she had on several occasions collaborated with painters in order to further her own agenda. In choosing to give Xie Daoqing this painting, she may have particularly intended to demonstrate that collaboration with painters could work to one’s advantage. Hui-shu Lee suggests that Empress Xie followed in Empress Yang’s footsteps in some regards, possibly becoming well versed in literature and calligraphy;62 Critical Matrix Fall 2009 Collaboration 23 Traces of Collaboration Lara Blanchard and Kara Kenney it is tempting to see the impetus for such development in examples such as this scroll. Though impossible to know whether Twelve Views of Landscape was truly the result of an ongoing collaboration between a court painter and his patron, the visual and textual evidence strongly suggests that Xia Gui and Empress Yang worked in tandem on this composition from the beginning. Captions and painted scenes seamlessly integrate into each other, with the captions adding a layer of meaning to the painting, the painted scenes expanding upon the poetic captions’ abbreviated images, and both alluding to the poetic and pictorial traditions of the period. The collaborative mode appears to have been particularly appealing to the empress, who commonly worked closely with various court painters in order to achieve her own ends: in most cases, this resulted in her own status becoming ever more secure, whether she used paintings as a means of acknowledging the crucial alliances that allowed her to advance, reminding the emperor of the advantages he gained from their personal relationship, or, toward the end, shoring up her own reputation and reiterating her power. To some extent, this may have been a function of her position as a woman at the court, one who continually needed to negotiate her changing roles as concubine, empress, and finally empress dowager. Empress Yang’s unusual collaborative practice makes her neither precisely artist nor precisely patron, but something in between, resulting in a body of work that illuminates her concerns. Notes The authors wish to acknowledge several sources of support. We are both grateful for the encouragement of editors Marcelline Block and Megan Heuer, as well as that of the faculty members of the Art Department at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. A series of Faculty Research Grants awarded by the Provost’s Office and funding provided by the Honors Program supported research and writing. In addition, we wish to thank several individuals who provided input on earlier versions of this essay: Elizabeth Brotherton, Robert E. Harrist, Jr., Erika L. C. King, and Stanley Mathews, among others. Christopher J. Slaby (Hobart College ’09) provided invaluable help as research assistant. Any remaining errors are, of course, our own, and unless otherwise indicated, translations are Lara Blanchard’s. 24 Critical Matrix Fall 2009 Figure 3. Ma Yuan and Empress Yang Meizi, Apricot Blossoms Leaning against Clouds, album leaf, ink and color on silk. National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. Collaboration 25 Traces of Collaboration Lara Blanchard and Kara Kenney (Endnotes) Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and The Cleveland Museum of Art, with essays by Wai-kam Ho et al. (Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1980), 72, 75-76. 2 Marc F. Wilson in ibid., 76; John Hay, “Poetic Space: Ch’ien Hsüan and the Association of Painting and Poetry,” in Words and Images: Chinese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting, ed. Alfreda Murck and Wen C. Fong (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 181; Valérie Malenfer Ortiz, Dreaming the Southern Song Landscape: The Power of Illusion in Chinese Painting (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 96. 3 Marc F. Wilson has proposed that Xia Gui’s completed painting inspired Empress Yang’s captions in Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, 75-76. Chu Hui-liang 朱惠良 suggests that this was relatively standard practice for Empress Yang in “Imperial Calligraphy of the Southern Sung,” trans. Chou Shan, in Words and Images, 306. For more on the practice of inscribing poems on paintings in the Song dynasty, see Ronald C. Egan, “Poems on Paintings: Su Shih and Huang T’ing-chien,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 43, no. 2 (1983): 413-51; and Li Qi 李栖, Liang Song tihuashi lun 宋題畫詩論 (Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1994). 4 This argument is supported by what we know of the creative practice of Song academy painters. At the court of Emperor Huizong 徽 (r. 1101-1125), one of the ways that the Xuanhe Academy assessed painters’ abilities was to challenge them to create pictorial interpretations of lines of poetry; Wai-kam Ho, “Aspects of Chinese Painting from 1100 to 1350,” in Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, xxviii-xxix. The Southern Song emperor Gaozong 高 (r. 11271162) commissioned paintings from Ma Hezhi 馬和之 (fl. ca. 1130-ca. 1170) to illustrate the Confucian classic of poetry titled Book of Songs (Shi jing 詩經), which he then had inscribed with the text of the poems; Xu Bangda, “The Mao Shih Scrolls: Authenticity and Other Issues,” trans. Robert Harrist, in Words and Images, 282-83; cf. Xia Wenyan 夏文彥 (1296-1370), Tuhui baojian 圖繪寶鑑, 2 vols. ([Shanghai]: Shenzhou guoguangshe, 1929), 1:4.4a. 5 As Ortiz writes of Twelve Views of Landscape in Dreaming the Southern Song Landscape, 94, 95, “The cooperation of imperial patrons and artists in combining painting, poetry, and calligraphy for political reasons was common at the Song court,” and “beyond the relationship between painting and poetry emerged a communication between the artist and his patron.” Huishu Lee has described the interaction of Empress Yang with other court painters as essentially collaborative in “The Domain of Empress Yang (1162-1233): Art, Gender and Politics at the Southern Song Court,” 2 vols. (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1994), 1:173-84, 285. 6 Priscilla Ching Chung and H. Chiba, “Yang Hou,” in Sung Biographies, ed. Herbert Franke, 3 vols. (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag GMBH, 1976), 3:1222-23. 7 Lee, “The Domain of Empress Yang,” 1:86-89. 8 Chung and Chiba, “Yang Hou,” 3:1224. 9 Lee, “The Domain of Empress Yang,” 1:93-94. 10 Ibid., 1:94-95, 108-11, 113-23, 125-31; Chung and Chiba, “Yang Hou,” 3:1224-26. 11 Hui-shu Lee suggests that Empress Yang commissioned and inscribed paintings of the Ladies’ Classic of Filial Piety, now in the National Palace Museum; that she similarly commissioned and inscribed paintings representing Chan Buddhist monks, possibly as part of her religious practice; and that Ma Yuan’s Banquet by Lantern Light, in the National Palace Museum, and Twelve Scenes of Water, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, both of which Yang inscribed, had political functions. Lee, “The Domain of Empress Yang,” 1:154-56, 229-43, 247-56, 271-85. We will discuss Yang’s habit of commissioning paintings as intimate messages below. 12 Chu, “Imperial Calligraphy of the Southern Sung,” 306. 13 Lee, “The Domain of Empress Yang,” 1:179-83. Xia, Tuhui baojian, 1:4.9b. Mary S. Lawton, “Li Tang,” Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner, 34 vols. (London: Macmillan Publishers, 1996), 19:478; see also Richard Edwards, “The Landscape Art of Li T’ang,” Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America 12 (1958): 52. 16 Edwards, “The Landscape Art of Li T’ang,” 49. 17 Not all agree on this point: one art historian has argued that the Nelson-Atkins Museum scroll may be a Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) copy of the original painting, though he does not consider the authorship of the Southern Song imperial inscriptions; Suzuki Kei, “Hsia Kuei and the Pictorial Style of the Southern Sung Court Academy,” in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Chinese Painting (Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1970), 432-33. 18 Trans. Wilson in Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, 72. 19 Bian Yongyu 卞永譽 (1645-1712), comp., Shigu tang shuhua kao 式古堂 畫彙考, 60 juan (1682; reprint, 80 vols., Shanghai: Jiangu shushe, 1921), 61:14.64a-65a; Gao Shiqi 高 奇 (1645-1704), comp., Jiang cun xiao xia lu 江邨消夏錄, 3 juan (1693; reprint, Taipei: Hanhua wenhua shiye gufen, 1971), 1.30b-31b; Li E 厲鶚 (1692-1752), Nan Song yuan hua lu 南宋院畫錄, 8 juan (1721; reprint, 4 vols., [Yangzhou:] Qiantang Dingshi Zhushutang, 1884), 3:6.11b-12b; An Qi 安岐 (b. 1683), Moyuan huiguan lu 墨緣彙觀錄, ed. Wang Yunwu 王雲 五, 4 juan (1742; reprint, 3 vols., Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1937), 3:4.243. 20 Wu Sheng 吳升, comp., Da guan lu 大觀錄, 20 juan (1712; reprint, 4 vols., Taipei: Guoli zhongyang tushuguan, 1970), 3:14.23a. 21 Wilson in Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, 73. 22 The Yale University Art Gallery painting is reproduced in its entirety in Suzuki Kei 鈴木敬, Chugoku kaiga soga zuroku 中國繪畫總合圖錄 (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1982) 1: pl. A 28-002. The National Palace Museum painting, formerly in the Wang Shih-chieh Collection, is known as Ten Thousand Miles along the Yangzi River (Changjiang wanli 長江萬 ) and was mounted in two scrolls; for a reproduction of the first, see Suzuki, “Hsia Kuei and the Pictorial Style of the Southern Sung Court Academy,” 417-43, fig. 27. 23 One source suggests that the calligrapher was Emperor Ningzong; Gu Fu 顧復, Pingsheng zhuang guan 生壯觀, 10 juan (1692; reprint, [Shanghai:] Shanghai guji chubanshe, [1995]), 8.405. 24 Gao, Jiang cun xiao xia lu, 1:31b; Wu, Da guan lu, 3:14.23b. 25 Wu, Da guan lu, 3:14.23a. 26 Wilson in Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, 72, 75-76. 27 Hui-shu Lee, “The Emperor’s Lady Ghostwriters in Song-Dynasty China,” Artibus Asiae 64, no.1 (2004), 93-94. 28 Chiang Chao-shen, “The Identity of Yang Mei-tzu and the Paintings of Ma Yüan,” Part 1, National Palace Museum Bulletin 2, no. 2 (1967): 4; he cites Li E, Yutai shu shi 玉臺 , and idem., Nan Song yuan hua lu. 29 Lee, “The Emperor’s Lady Ghostwriters,” 71-72, 89-95. 30 The Nelson-Atkins scroll, because fragmentary, only includes the last four captions, but all twelve are given in several different sources, which are unfortunately not entirely consistent. Bian, Shigu tang shuhua kao, 61:14.64a; Gu, Pingsheng zhuang guan, 8.404; Gao, Jiang cun xiao xia lu, 1.31a, Wu, Da guan lu, 3:14.23a; and Li, Nan Song yuan hua lu, 3:6.12a. Our relatively literal translations attempt to preserve the sense of the coupling of poetic motifs. 31 Alfreda Murck translates chui yan 炊煙 as “blowing mist” in Poetry and Painting in Song China: The Subtle Art of Dissent (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 282. It could also mean “cooking smoke.” 32 To take the example of Empress Yang’s eleventh caption, the phrases “fisherman’s flute” and Critical Matrix Fall 2009 Collaboration 1 26 14 15 27 28 Traces of Collaboration Lara Blanchard and Kara Kenney “pure solitude” both appear in Tang dynasty poetry; Morohashi Tetsuji 諸橋轍次, Dai Kan-Wa jiten 大漢和辭典, Shuteiban ed., 13 vols. (Tokyo: Taishukan Shoten, 1984) 7:205, s. v. yu di 漁 笛; 7:56, s. v. qingyou 清幽. 33 For discussions of literati and Buddhist interpretations of the theme, see Murck, Poetry and Painting in Song China, 61-125, 252-58. Howard Rogers notes the popularity of the theme at the Northern Song court in Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, 42. Murck notes that Song Di’s painting had been well regarded by Emperor Huizong and seems to have been so successful as to inspire a number of similar sets of views with poetic titles, in “Eight Views of the Hsiao and Hsiang Rivers by Wang Hung,” in Images of the Mind: Selections from the Edward L. Elliott Family and John B. Elliott Collections of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting at The Art Museum, Princeton University, ed. Wen C. Fong (Princeton: The Art Museum, 1984), 217-18. The theme may also have been appreciated at the Southern Song court: a set of Eight Views paintings by the Academy painter Wang Hong 王洪 (fl. ca. 1130-1161), now in The Art Museum, Princeton University, bears gourd-shaped seals reading “imperially inscribed” (yushu 御 ); Ortiz associates these with Emperor Gaozong in Dreaming the Southern Song Landscape, 94, and Murck associates them with Emperor Xiaozong 孝 (r. 1162-1189), while cautioning that “the subject of the Eight Views was not an appropriate poetic theme for the Painting Academy,” in Poetry and Painting in Song China, 227. 34 Murck, “Eight Views of the Hsiao and Hsiang Rivers,” 216. Richard M. Barnhart argues that two paintings of the Song period might be reattributed as Song Di’s compositions on the Eight Views theme: these are Small Wintry Forest, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, and Temple in Autumn Hills, traditionally attributed to Xu Daoning 許 寧 (ca. 1000-after 1066), in the Fujii Yurinkan collection, Kyoto. Richard M. Barnhart, “Shining Rivers: Eight Views of the Hsiao and Hsiang in Sung Painting,” in Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Chinese Art History (Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1991), 1:60-70; cf. Murck, Poetry and Painting in Song China, 46, 65. 35 Shen Gua, Mengqi bitan jiaozheng 夢溪筆談校證, ed. Hu Daojing 胡 靜 (reprint, Shanghai: Gudian wenxue chubanshe, 1957), 1:17.549; cf. Murck, Poetry and Painting in Song China, 66, 71. Our relatively literal translations of the titles deviate from their more common renderings in an attempt to demonstrate their formal similarity to Empress Yang’s titles for Twelve Views of Landscape. 36 Murck notes that markets were not a standard poetic image in Poetry and Painting in Song China, 85. This makes it somewhat unlikely that Empress Yang took a different poem as a source. 37 Murck has translated both sets of poems in ibid., 281-86. 38 John Hay, “Surface and the Chinese Painter: The Discovery of Surface,” Archives of Asian Art 38 (1985): 117. 39 Trans. Murck, Poetry and Painting in Song China, 281. 40 Wen C. Fong, Beyond Representation: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy 8th-14th Century (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 319. 41 Trans. Murck, Poetry and Painting in Song China, 284. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid., 283. 44 Morohashi, Dai Kan-Wa jiten 5: 877, s. v. wan bo 晚泊. 45 Trans. Murck, Poetry and Painting in Song China, 282. 46 These paintings include the aforementioned handscroll by Wang Hong in The Art Museum, Princeton University; a painting by Yan Ciyu 閻次于 (fl. ca. 1164) in the Freer Gallery of Art; a painting by the Chan monk Yujian 玉澗 (fl. 1250) in the Idemitsu Art Museum; an album leaf attributed to Xia Gui himself in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and a painting by Dong Bangda 董邦 (1699-1769) in the N. P. Wong Family Collection, thought to be a copy after Ma Yuan. For illustrations, see Barnhart, Shining Rivers, figs. 2-6. 47 Murck, Poetry and Painting in Song China, 215. 48 Barnhart, “Shining Rivers,” 48-49, 54-55. 49 Ortiz acknowledges the connections of Xia Gui’s Twelve Views of Landscape to the Eight Views theme in Dreaming the Southern Song Landscape, 94-96. 50 For information about Song Di’s paintings, see Rogers in Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, 42. Barnhart suggests that the Twelve Views show the progression of the hours of the day, from morning to night, in Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting, by Richard M. Barnhart et al. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press; Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1997), 133. 51 Not all agree with this view. In Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, 76, Wilson asserts that the painting may be linked only in the most general way with Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers. Barnhart explicitly rejects the idea that Twelve Views of Landscape is a rendition of the Eight Views theme in “Shining Rivers,” 56. 52 Barnhart, “Shining Rivers,” 48, 53-54, 75-95. 53 Ogawa Hiromitsu, “The Continuity of Spatial Composition in Sung and Yuan Landscape Painting,” in Arts of the Sung and Yüan, ed. Maxwell K. Hearn and Judith G. Smith (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996), 342. Li Tang’s Kôtô-in Landscapes are in the collection of Daitokuji, Kyoto; Xia Gui’s Sailboat in the Rain belongs to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and his Streams and Mountains, Pure and Remote, is in the National Palace Museum. 54 Trans. Lee, “The Domain of Empress Yang,” 1:194. 55 Ibid., 1:194-95. 56 Hui-shu Lee, “Art and Imperial Images at the Late Southern Sung Court” (paper presented at Arts of the Sung and Yüan: An International Symposium, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 12 May 1996). 57 Lee, “The Domain of Empress Yang,” 1:196. 58 Ibid., 1:196. 59 Ortiz suggests that in this case, “painting and poetic inscription provide one another with their raison d’être,” in Dreaming the Southern Song Landscape, 96. 60 Wilson in Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, 72, 75-76. 61 Priscilla Ching Chung and H. Chiba, “Hsieh Huang-hou,” in Sung Biographies, 1:411-12. This source gives her name as Xie Qingdao 謝清 . 62 Lee, “The Domain of Empress Yang,” 1:132. 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