Geo-Narratives of a Filial Son: The Paintings and Travel Diaries of Huang Xiangjian (1609–1673) by Elizabeth Kindall (review)

The upheaval of dynastic transition in China customarily entails disaster and tragedy on a grand scale. In this big picture, the smaller stories are often lost. Elizabeth Kindall looks at one story that encompasses the dramatic fall of a dynasty, as well as eternal issues of filiality and social status, bringing together literary history and the intricacies of landscape painting. At the same time, analysis of the political and social chaos of the Ming–Qing transition broadens discussion from loyalty between father and son to the relationship between subject and state.

Kindall has a remarkable tale to tell of the devotion of Huang Xiangjian 黃向堅 (1609–1673) to his father Huang Kongzhao 黃孔昭 (1589–1678), who, having been appointed as district magistrate in the town of Dayao 大姚, Yunnan, in 1643, was cut adrift by the overthrow of the Ming dynasty the following year. The elder Huang carried on his post for another three years before resigning and moving to the town of Baiyanjing 白鹽井, where he studied Buddhism and taught the Yijing 易經. Tormented by the enforced separation from his parents, Huang Xiangjian set out from Suzhou in January 1652 on an extraordinarily grueling five-month journey through what was effectively still a war zone, overcoming natural obstacles and fiercely hostile weather conditions. By the time he was reunited with his parents, Huang’s beard was white, his face sun-blackened, and his eyes swollen (p. 360). After six months in Yunnan, he set off with his parents on the return journey to eastern China, moving through snow “as high as a horse’s belly” (p. 369), mud “over a foot deep” (p. 370), and watercourses that “submerged our knees and covered our stomachs” (p. 374). Arrival back in Suzhou only brought the further shock of discovering the family home in ruins and their possessions confiscated.

In the coming years, Huang Xiangjian produced two travelogues, A Record of the Journey in Search of My Parents (Xunqin jicheng 尋親紀程) and Diary of the Return from Yunnan (Dianhuan riji 滇還日記), both of which appear in fully annotated translations in Kindall’s book. Huang also produced more than twenty paintings illustrating his experiences passing through the provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou. Providing context for her exhaustive discussion of these works, Kindall calls on a panoply of supporting evidence from contemporary cultural icons, such as Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529), Dong Qichang 董其昌 (1555–1636), and Zhang Dai 張岱 (1597–ca. 1689).

At the core of Kindall’s work is her own notion of “geo-narrative,” which she defines as a “structured topographic experience” of an identifiable landscape (p. 2). Kindall shows how Huang Xiangjian applied the techniques and knowledge that he had acquired from his Suzhou upbringing to the paintings of his Southwest travels. The production of and motivation for his paintings and writings reflect the desire of the Huang family to commemorate his herculean effort.

Kindall starts with an outline of the background of Suzhou painting styles, surveying a range of examples of both honorific paintings—works produced for eminent officials or other distinguished individuals—and famous-sites paintings that were produced for local gentry, educated local elite, and visitors, both tourists and pilgrims. She also briefly touches on a couple of examples of Huang’s early painting style in which she detects some of his later stylistic points, such as his use of strong diagonals and textured brushwork. She shows convincingly how late Ming Suzhou artists used particular topographical and visual experiences to create journeys and geo-narratives through identifiable landscapes.

In chapter 2’s examination of Huang’s paintings of the two epic journeys, Kindall cites the precedent of Wang Lü 王履 (ca. 1332–1391), who produced a visual and literary account of his trip to Mount Hua 華 in the early Ming period. She also examines in detail Huang’s adoption of the Suzhou-school style of painting to portray the scenery...