Essay
Viewing the Moon from the Mountain Studio (Shan zhai shangyue tu 山齋賞月圖), in the Seattle Art Museum collection depicts a snowy night. I associate this painting with Du Xiaoshan’s 杜小山 (?-1227) poem Winter Night (Han ye 寒夜). Du Xiaoshan’s given name was Du Lei 杜耒, zi Ziye子野, and his hao was Xiaoshan. He lived during the Northern Song (960–1126) and was known as a poet. The Song era Prime Minister Wang Anshi 王安石 (1021–1086) had briefly studied with him in his youth. Translator’s note: Du has only a brief mention in the official histories. Song shi 宋史 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1977), 447.13836; the most detailed and well-documented account is in the Quan Song shi 全宋詩 (Beijing: Beijing Daxue chuban she, 1998), 54.2823.33627.
On a winter’s night a guest arrives for tea as if it were wine.
The flame of the stove has just begun to glow red.
As usual we sit in front of the same window facing the moon,
But with the plum blossoms having just opened it is not the same.Du Lei, “Han ye,” in Song shi jishi 宋詩紀事, ed. Li E厲鶚, in SKQS, 65.26. Translator’s note: also see Song shi jishi (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chuban she, 1983), 65.1640; Quan Song shi, 54.2823.33627. For a critique of this poem see Fang Yue 方岳, Shen xue outan深雪偶談, in Xuehai liebian 學海類編 (Shanghai: Han fen lou, 1920), 55.7. 6.
寒夜客來茶當酒，竹爐湯沸火初紅。尋常一樣窗前月，才有梅花便不同。
In my opinion, the artist based his painting on this poem, illustrating the mountain peaks and roof tops covered with snow while a full moon hangs high in the sky. Host and guest are clothed in warm robes and hats. Behind them on the table a candle burns bright. This is clearly “a winter night” (han ye 寒夜). The recently arrived guest’s mule is being tended by a servant boy at the gate. As for the phrase “tea as if it were wine” (cha dang jiu 茶當酒), two servant boys near the stove prepare the tea. The two scholars sit together by the window; one has his head turned to look at the moon and distant snow-covered mountain just as a lone branch of plum blossoms (mei hua 梅花) appears in his view.
This essay attempts to date this anonymous painting through detailed analyses of the subject matter, style, and motifs. Through comparisons with other known works by well known artists, it is evident that the work is not only datable to the early fifteenth century, but also of great quality that rivals works by known masters.
Southern Song landscape painting was often filled with garden scenes and pavilions, or one could say that as a bona fide theme, depictions of garden scenes and pavilions arose in the Southern Song. The reason for such a practice to arise is related to the socio-economic context.
In the Southern Song, just after the North and the South had negotiated peace, the lifestyle (of the South) was already comfortable. The scholar class had begun to construct gardens and pavilions as a way of enjoying life outside of the ways of war. It was a period of calm between social classes. These scholars took Qiantang (in modern Zhejiang) as their place of leisure.Feng Qi馮琦and Chen Banzhan陳邦瞻eds., Song shi jishi ben mo 宋史紀事本末, in SKQS, 20.43.
With their move to the south already in the distant past, they found the lakes and mountains movingly beautiful. For wealthy families gardens and pavilions were a source of pleasure and happiness.
In his writings, Zhou Mi 周宻 (1232–1298) records Shangxin leshi賞心樂事, written by Zhang Zi’s 張鎡 (1153– ca. 1221) of Southern Song:
“In the eighth month, we search for laurel around mountains and lakes. Now we enjoy autumn flowers in the hall. On the day of sacrifice, offering rice cakes, we are filled with the many wonders of sweet osmanthus of the mountain peaks and wild chrysanthemums by sunlit streams. Woven together around the pavilion is a tapestry of a thousand leaves of sweet osmanthus. We gaze at the tide of the Zhe River; then many spirits gather in the tower to gaze at the moon.”Zhou Mi周密, Wu lin jiu shi 武林舊事, in SKQS, 10.4, 9.
八月湖山尋桂，現樂堂秋花。社日餻會，衆妙峯山木犀，霞川野菊。綺互亭千葉朩犀。浙江觀潮，羣仙繪幅樓觀月。
In response to this mode of lifestyle, a type of landscape painting came into being that could be called “pavilion and garden” (louge yuanlin 樓閣園林) style. In the National Palace Museum, Taipei, there are quite a few well-known paintings that have come down to us in the mode of pavilions and gardens (zhi yuan you tai xie 治園囿臺榭). For example, the painting titled Night Moon, Watching the Tides (Ye yue guan chao 夜月觀潮), attributed to Li Song 李嵩 (1190–1230), which even though it might not be in direct response to Zhang Zi’s line—“many spirits gather in the tower to gaze at the moon”—it is a painting which clearly reflects the general tenor of the times, as does the famous Southern Song painter Ma Yuan’s 馬遠 (fl. 1190–1224) Banquet by Lantern Light (Hua deng shi yan 華燈侍宴), which depicts the plum orchard in the imperial park. Ma Lin’s 馬麟 (dates unknown, fl. ca. 13th century) Waiting for Guests by Lamplight (Bingzhu ye you 秉燭夜遊) depicts a pavilion where the host awaits his guests while viewing the moon. Aside from these, there is the anonymous Song dynasty painting Watch Tower in a Wintery Forest (Han lin lou guan 寒林樓觀), a painting by Liu Songnian 劉松年 (ca. 1190–ca. 1230) titled Landscape of the Four Seasons (Sijing shanshui 四景山水), Zhao Bosu’s 趙伯驌 (1124–1182) Opening the Eaves to the Breeze (Feng yan zhan juan 風檐展卷), all of which have forests situated in the background, splendid constructed buildings, and inside high-minded scholars at noble banquets.
Paintings of garden and pavilion scenes viewed from a distance, such as Yan Ciping’s 閻次平A Mighty Hut along the Cliff and Pines (Song deng jing lu 松磴精廬), are too numerous to discuss individually.
The Pavilion Landscape (Louge shan shui tu 樓閣山水圖), a pair of scrolls by the Yuan painter Sun Junze 孫君澤 (dates unknown, active 14th century), in the Japanese museum Seikado Bunko, greatly exaggerates the natural features with gardens and pavilions to make the composition more dramatic. In contrast, Yuan paintings of garden themes, such as Zhu Derun朱德潤’s (1294–1365) Pavilion Among the Graceful Fields (Xiu ye xuan tu 秀野軒圖), are a rarity.
Southern Song painting styles were deeply rooted in the Zhejiang region, and Ming painters from Zhejiang who inherited this tradition continued it, contributing numerous paintings on the pavilion-and-garden theme. Based on extant paintings, these works were larger in size than Southern Song paintings. In fact, Ming professional painters excelled at large-scale paintings, so it is not surprising that they painted mountains, rivers, trees and rocks, but when buildings and human figures all appear so neatly, these painters demonstrate a skill that the literati painter could not match. The Seattle scroll is such a pavilion and garden landscape painting.
In the foreground of the Seattle painting, in front of a large residential complex, two juniper trees rise to the height of two-thirds of the composition, slender in shape and very tall. If we look past these two towering trees, there is a large door and wall. Behind the door is a long veranda with a landscape screen in the center. In the background, mountain peaks arise with a full moon beyond. The foreground scenery is painted in meticulous detail while the background scenery is less defined. This contrast between near and far evidently comes from the Southern Song style of composition, but it is Ming court painters of the Zhe School who used it to greatest effect.
By examining the techniques used to produce the various motifs in the painting, we should be able to determine when this painting was made. Note the appearance of the two tall trees that cross each other, forming an “X” shape, with their downward sloping branches creating an inverted “Y.” The outline of the tree trunk is composed with a blunt brush in long strokes. To show the aged cracks of the bark, straight texture strokes are used. The flexibility of the tree trunk is achieved by the contrast of light and dark, whereby dark lines were clustered to give the effect of shadows. The leaves, composed of clusters of dots, slant to the lower right. The cluster of pine trees that are strewn about the distant mountainscape have branches that are rendered in short horizontal strokes, which is a simplified method for rendering trees.
Since this is a wintry scene, the mountain rocks appear snow covered. The painter, aside from his rendering of the outlines of the rocks, uses minimal texture strokes—only the crevasses of the mountains show the large “axe-cut” strokes. From a stylistic standpoint, the Seattle scroll's brush and ink quality follows the tradition of Ma Yuan and Xia Gui夏珪 (active 1180–1230), the style adopted by Ming Zhe school court painters.
Judging the brush and ink quality for court painters of Zhe school landscape painting, as time went on their use of the brush became more and more unrestrained and wild; their use of ink more free-flowing. In the application of the brush for the mountain rocks and juniper trees, even though there are areas of forceful brushwork, overall it is still restrained.
In terms of the painting technique of this snowy mountain scene, we can compare it with those used in a number of other paintings. The following paintings all are similar to the Seattle painting; they all depict mountains in winter with few texture strokes and twisting contours:
• Dai Jin’s 戴進 (1388–1462) Returning in the Snow (Xue gui tu 雪歸圖) (fig. 1) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
• Walking through the Snow Seeking Plum Blossoms (Ta xue xun mei tu 踏雪尋梅圖), a painting without signature but with the seal “Jingan” 靜庵 (“quiet retreat”) formerly in Wang Jiqian’s 王季遷 C.C, Wang (1906–2002) collection.
• Zhou Wenjing’s 周文靖 (active during the Xuande 宣德 reign period, 1426–1435) Calling on Dai on a Snowy Evening (Xue ye fang Dai) 雪夜訪戴, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, collection.
Then if we were to compare the Seattle scroll with later paintings of Zhu Duan’s 朱端 (ca. 15th –16th century) Searching for Plum Blossoms (Xun mei tu 尋梅圖), in the National Palace Museum collection (fig. 2) and the Tokyo Museum painting titled Fishing Alone along the Cold River (Han jiang du diao 寒江獨釣), the brushwork in those later paintings are more exaggerated and angular. Even though the Seattle painting has numerous large “axe-cut” strokes, it still preserves the Southern Song style of alternating between being unrestrained and restrained. This is very different from Wang E’s 王諤 (ca. 1488–1505) Crossing a Bridge to Visit a Friend (Xi qiao fang you 溪橋訪友) (fig. 3), where as soon as he makes a stroke, he lets it go wild and unconstrained.
The two juniper trees in the Seattle scroll, with their slender trunks standing tall, project a sense of graceful movement that is seen fairly early in Zhe school style painting. Regarding the figures, the host and guest sit near the window, but due to the frigid night, they are both wearing hoods and heavy robes while sitting on chairs covered in leopard skin pads for warmth. Of the two, the figure facing the viewer—with his august facial features, sharp eyes, prominent nose, and wide mouth surrounded by a mustache and beard—is most likely to be the host. The original coloration of his face, hood, and robes has faded. Both of the two figures’ clothing is depicted with simple, crisp lines.
The two servant boys of the house are on the veranda; the servant who accompanied the guest is hunkered down in the gateway while the blank-faced mule stands by. Scenes with mules and servant boys are common in Ming dynasty Zhe school paintings, such as two fifteenth-century works at the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Entertaining Guests in a Mountain Dwelling (Shan ju liu ke tu 山居留客圖) (fig. 4) and Mountain Dwelling (Shan ju tu 山居圖), which were formerly attributed to Xia Gui.
The painting of the figures (host, guest, servants, and mule) in the Seattle painting is perhaps not filled with great vitality but nonetheless preserves some feeling in a technique that features brevity and simplicity which is typical of Ming sensibilities. The clothing style, in particular the hoods covering the heads of the host and guest, are also common features of figures in winter scenes. As for similarities in expression and clothing appearance, we could take as examples the aforementioned Ming early fifteenth- century painting Calling on Dai on a Snowy Evening雪夜訪戴 by Zhou Wenjing, which depicts Wang Huizhi 王徽之 (?-388) framed in the window of a boat. These comparative features also help to date the Seattle painting.
Now let’s return to the objects and buildings in the Seattle scroll. In the scene of preparing tea in the veranda, there is a bronze stove. On top of the stove is a double broiler basin filled with water. In this sits a lidded, baluster-shaped pot. On the pot we see an opening but no handles are visible. Is this for making tea or wine? According to the content of the inscribed poem (see previous translation), this should be tea. In Song and Yuan depictions of making tea, this procedure is not seen. However, in Ming dynasty paintings we begin to see this method. These objects are likely used for the purpose of preparing tea.
The painting Enjoying the Moon over Kong Mountain (Shangyue kong shan 賞月空山), by Zhang Lu 張路 (ca. 1490–1563) or his associates, also has a similar stove with a double boiler basin and lidded jar, but in this case it is placed at the back of a boat. Correspondingly, in this painting the master sits in the bow of the boat raising a cup, inviting the moon. In addition, a wine pot sits on a small table (fig. 5). It would seem fitting for this to be a wine pot on the stove, but is it not also possible that this is tea that is being prepared to relieve the effect of alcohol? In addition, in Tang Yin’s 唐寅 (1470–1523) well-known Tao Gu Presenting a Verse (Tao Gu zeng ci tu 陶穀贈詞圖) (fig. 6) an identical stove with a double-boiler basin and a pot are depicted in the lower left corner.
Looking at the Seattle painting, it is revealing to see it from the point of view of Ming period objects and customs—for example, the red lacquered table and the utensils on it. Characteristic of the Ming dynasty, this table is decorated with a cusped apron and a marble surface. We see a candle holder with a burning red candle, next to which is a Xuande-style (1389–1435) censer that is only half in view. This censer is sitting on a red lacquer-ware stand, the portrayal of which is very accurate. It is identifiable as a Xuande-style censer, and accordingly, can serve as a Terminus post quem, providing convincing evidence that the Seattle painting cannot predate the Xuande reign of the Ming dynasty.
Relevant to the dating of the Seattle painting is its strong affinity with Calling on Dai on a Snowy Evening 雪夜訪戴 by Zhou Wenjing, which I mentioned earlier. The Seattle painting's Ming-era table, porcelain candle stand, and the flaming candle all correspond to objects in Zhou Wenjing’s work. These affinities, including the painting style, all support an early Ming date in the first half of the fifteenth century
As for the architectural features of the Seattle scroll, this is undoubtedly a depiction of a wealthy person’s residence with double doors. More importantly, the architectural details also point to a Ming date for the painting. The main beam of the gate roof has a roof tile on each end, although the tiles do not seem to be accurately foreshortened. Yet the position of multiple tiles on the ridge also corresponds to real architecture. Furthermore, the geometric drawings on the lintel above the doors feature patterns of angled, tiled and blocked shapes, the same patterns as seen on Ming architecture.For images of Ming architecture, see Wang Xiaoqing 王效青 ed., Zhongguo chuantong jianzhu shuyu cidian 中國傳統建築術語詞典 (Taipei: Jianzhu qingbao jikan zazhi she, 2003), 241. The pavilion features a double-tiered banister, pulled curtains, and wooden striped windows, which is the same style as the windows in the painting Returning Home (Gui qu lai xi tujuan 歸去來兮圖卷), by Ma Shi 馬軾 (15th century) in the Liaoning Provincial Museum collection (fig. 7). Here again the fact that all the building structures and objects in the Seattle work are Ming in style argues for a Ming date, more specifically early fifteenth century.
The colophon attributed to the famous Yuan dynasty artist Xuechuang 雪窗 (?-1352), located in the upper right of this landscape painting, is different from the inscription on the orchid painting by Xuechuang (fig. 8) in the Seattle Art Museum collection. Clearly the Xuechuang colophon on this Ming dynasty Zhe school landscape is a forgery added later.
On the silk mounting to the right of the painting is a title slip which reads: “Song dynasty Li Xigu’s (1066–1150) Viewing the Moon from the Mountain Studio. From the collection of the Lotus Leaf Study. Inscription by Xiaoyu 宋李晞古山齋賞月圖 神品 蓮葉齋研齋珍秘。小偶題。.” Ji Fen 計芬 (1783–1846) zi “Xiaoyu小隅”, given name of Wei 煒, hao Danshi 儋石, was from Jiaxing in Zhejiang province. He is known for his fascination with ancient objects and evaluation of them. Whether landscapes, figures, or Buddhist iconography, he was able distinguish himself in painting these elements. He was particularly known for the beauty of his bird and flower paintings. There are over three hundred ink stones in collections [associated with Ji Fen], with the lotus leaf stones being the most valued. In 1836 Yang Xie 楊澥 (1781–1850), hao Longshi 龍石, at the age of 56, carved a relief seal for Ji Fen (Xiaoyu, 54 years old), which reads Studio where the Fish Play beneath the Lotus Leaves (Yu xi lianye zhi shi) 魚戲蓮葉之室. The side inscription reads:
“This year Danshi has taken pleasure in tending to his goldfish, whether in the evening, in the dew of dawn, or in the wind, his interest was roused. Owing to this he has taken a new hao of ‘slave of fish.’ It is a hobby done around his study which kept him locked up in his Lotus Leaf Study and so he took another hao: Master of the Lotus Leaf Study. Now I have used a beautiful piece of Qingtian stone to make this seal, and have adopted the words ‘Fish play beneath the lotus leafs’ from the ancients to make this seal on the Qixi festival in 1836. Recorded by Yang Xie.”Kobayashi Toan 小林斗盦 ed., Chūgoku tenkoku sōkan 中國篆刻叢刊 (Tokyo: Nigensha, 1984), 21.14-15.
儋石近年好養金魚，夕露辰風，於此寄興，因自署魚奴新號。癖於研，藏蓮葉研，又號蓮葉研主人。今以青田佳石屬篆，余取古人魚戲蓮葉語為作印，丙申七夕，枯楊生澥記。
From this it is clear that “Xiaoyu,” or Ji Fen, had once owned this painting between 1836-46. Another later collector, Wang Yun 王雲 (later 19th century) from Suzhou in Jiangsu, zi Shixiang石薌 and Shixiang石香, had a studio named “Lian ye yan zhai 蓮葉研齋” (Lotus leaf studio). The title slip clearly has “Xiaoyu” on it, so it could not be Wang Yun.
In conclusion, there is strong evidence that this painting dates to the early fifteenth century. The quality of the figure alone demonstrates the skillful hand of a master, despite the spurious inscription by Xuechuang. Perhaps more importantly, the painting demonstrates the transition from the Southern Song painting tradition to the Zhe school tradition by later, better known, Ming masters.
© 2013 by the Seattle Art Museum
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essay
Viewing the Moon from the Mountain Studio (Shan zhai shangyue tu 山齋賞月圖), in the Seattle Art Museum collection depicts a snowy night. I associate this painting with Du Xiaoshan’s 杜小山 (?-1227) poem Winter Night (Han ye 寒夜).
