Engraved calligraphy in China: recension and reception

Since the Later Han dynasty (25-220) ink-written calligraphy has been seen as an expression of the writer's personality.(1) As a be derived of this equation of personality and turn of expression traditional Chinese criticism has focused upon the biography of the artist and the aesthetic appreciation of the artist's hand. These conventional interests endure in the scholarship upon Chinese calligraphy in the West, perhaps because a great deal of of it deals with ink-written calligraphy in public and private collections.(2) Understandably, museums and collectors have an interest in the idea of the unique autograph that can be explained in metes of the artist's biography or appreciated for its qualities of gesticulation and touch. In order to comprehend the history of Chinese calligraphy in its fullest intent however, the role of stone-engraved calligraphy cannot be ignored. Engraved calligraphy has been produc since at least the fourth hundred B.C., in tremendous quantities. Stone stele inscribed with epitaphs, didactic true copys or temple dedications, were displayed for public notice. Beginning in the tithe century, famous works of calligraphy in palace and private collections were copied and engraved in stone. The ink rubbings taken from the engravings were appreciated not for satisfied but for their ability to transmit calligraphers' styles. With the passage of time, original ink-written works and advantageous early copies grew increasingly rare, in the way that that the thousands of ink rubbings taken from stone engravings became the principal vehicle of transmission of the elderly masters' styles. Today, most of the canonical works of calligraphy from the first end the tenth centuries have approach down to us only in the form of ink rubbings.

Not solitary did engravings play a vital character in the perpetuation of calligraphic phraseologys they also deserve our attention for another reason: they allow us to take a different line of inquiry about calligraphy. a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of early engraved calligraphy is anonymous, for a like reason that we cannot see the artist in his work, while what shows the work of a known artist is not the original trace of his hand, in the way that that we cannot marvel at his way with the brush. one time these traditional concerns are negated, we are independent to pursue new questions. What has been the physical life of the work of art? What has been its critical life? Works of engraved calligraphy can reveal in what manner the lives of art percepts are shaped by artists, patrons, connoisseurs, and scholars [i]or[/i] part of to the other the historical processes of recension and reception. In many cases, works of calligraphy were physically altered from one side copying, engraving, revising, and reengraving, while the manner in which they were critically received many times changed radically over time, flat for original engravings that remained untouched. Neither the textual integrity nor the aesthetic significance of works of engraved calligraphy was ultimately "set in stone."

Recension in the Model-Letter Tradition

The sum of two units principal schools of engraved calligraphy are the model-letter tradition (tiepai), which arose in the tithe century, and the stele tradition (beipai), which has existed since at least the fourth hundred B.C. The model-letters tradition give in charges to the practice of engraving brief examples of personal handwriting, usually alphabetic characters into stone slabs. Some particularly celebrated alphabetic characters were engraved singly, while others were gathered into multivolume compendia of many artists' work. Ink rubbings were taken from the stones and given as official tokens of merit (in the case of imperial compendia) or as gifts for investigation or collection (in the case of privately sponsored compendia). The alphabetic characters collected in these compendia were all written by dint of people who occupied the highest horizontals of society: the great majority are by means of men who were government officials or members of the imperial family. While a not many are by women or Buddhist monk from elite families, there are none by the agency of professional calligraphers or eunuchs. The expensive engraving projects were invariably sponsored by means of officials or the throne. As a originate ink rubbings from the model-letter compendia were mustered as prime models for personal calligraphic mode of expression and as high-status art external realitys for appreciation.

To illustrate the proces of recension in the model-letter tradition, I would like to examine a single page from a Song-dynasty (960-1279) ink rubbing of the Daguan tie [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. This page is in a partial edition of contortion 6, now mounted as an album, in the collection of Nanjing University.(3) The Daguan tie (Model-letter of the Daguan era [1107-11]) is dated to the third year of the Daguan period (1109) As with greatest in quantity of the imperial model-letters compendia, it was not at any time officially named, but is referr to by the agency of the title of the period in which it was complet Emperor Huizong (r 1100-25) ordered the copying and engraving of a selection of alphabetic characters from the calligraphy collection in the imperial archives, with the titles identifying the calligraphers to be written without by his Grand Councillor, Cai Jing (1046-1126) The stones were plant up in a building upon the palace grounds called the Taiqinglou (Hall of chief Clarity), from which this compendium is also known as the Taiqinglou tie.