Dimensions of Originality: Essays on Seventeenth-Century Chinese Art Th eory and Criticism

Chapter 9: What Originality Looks Like

chapter 9 What Originality Looks Like: Wu Bin’s On the Way to Shanyin Having discussed how seventeenth-century gentry and commoners alike could access new and dominant cultural ideals (Chapter 3), and demonstrated how the conceptual originality was important in word (Chapters 6 and 7) and image (Chapter 8) to Dong Qichang 董其昌 (1555–1636), a member of the gentry elite, attention can now turn to an investigation of how a commoner could interpret the value. In this chapter, a single work by the late Ming artist Wu Bin is examined in depth to demonstrate how the ideals of originality could be manifested by non-elites. The painting Wu Bin 吳彬 (ca. 1543–ca. 1626)1 is distinguished for his landscapes recalling compositional modes of tenth-century masters. These feature centrally placed massifs, such as his well known hanging scroll, Landscape: Pine Lodge amidst Tall Mountains, undated, (Asian Art Museum, San Francisco ), and strange luohan images, such as his undated Five-hundred Luohans (Cleveland Museum of Art). As much as these works speak directly to the discourse of originality, a more complex landscape painting exists that even more powerfully proclaims Wu’s theoretical ideals in image and word: On the Way to Shanyin (Shanyin daoshang tu 山陰道上圖), dated to 1608, in the Shanghai Museum (Fig. 9-1). The lack of critical attention this painting has received is inversely proportional to its importance in Chinese cultural production. 222 | dimensions of originality Painted in ink and color on unsized pizhi paper, On the Way to Shanyin is in the handscroll format, a format read from right to left, with as much of its lengthy 862.2 centimeters open at one time as the surface of a tabletop will allow. The consequent physical and visual movement back and forth through the composition as the scroll is pulled open and closed provides its own sense of travel and discovery for the viewer, while the complexity of form and detail partially answer why the scroll bears the title it does, as Shanyin daoshang is a phrase that can mean “a sightseeing route with so many scenic wonders that one is constantly kept busy.”2 On the Way to Shanyin is important not only because of its high artistic merit, but also because it bears the artist’s long inscription of powerful theoretical content. What Wu Bin says in word and image tells much about him and his values, and secures this artist’s place within the larger discourse of originality of the time. The painting was titled by the artist at the beginning of the scroll, and bears collectors’ seals of its patron Mi Wanzhong 米萬鍾 (fl. 1595–1628), the Qianlong 乾隆 Emperor (r. 1735–1795), and an unidentified Mr. Zhao 趙氏. Surprisingly, no colophon by Mi Wanzhong survives on the painting or attached to the scroll, and none is elsewhere recorded. Predictably, the Qianlong Emperor did write a colophon, which is located at the beginning of the painting and dated to 1784. His appreciation of the scroll is certified not only by his almost de rigueur seals and inscription, but also by the fact that one of his court artists, Hu Gui 胡桂 (active second half of the eighteenth century) depicted an excerpt of it for him in 1785.3 The earliest record of the painting exists in the Qianlong Emperor’s catalogue of paintings and calligraphy published in 1793, the Shiqu baoji xubian 石渠寶笈續編.4 Although it has been recorded in a number of other important research tools,5 the painting has never before been studied in depth. It was reproduced for the first time recently in an encyclopedic catalogue of paintings in Chinese collections, which, because of the immense scale of the project, of necessity illustrates the works in black and white miniature.6 Since then, a few short details have also been published elsewhere,7 but without discussion. As already noted, the patron of this scroll was Mi Wanzhong, a high official with important ties to the leading group of literary theorists centered on Yuan Hongdao 袁宏道 (1568–1610) and his brothers. These men chapter 9: what originality looks like | 223 championed ideals of originality and authenticity (zhen 真) in their writings and other forms of self-expression, ideals that were critical to the development and maintenance of the period’s discourse of originality. In addition to his role in the bureaucracy, Mi was recognized as a painter, poet, seal carver, and rock collector. Moreover, he was regarded...