Preface

 

 

Wang Mian (1287-1359), Blossoming Plum                         

 

Preface

 

This Anthology is intened to help Western readers understand the cultural contexts in which the Chinese themselves have understood their painting. It offers an extensive coverage of the literature produced through the fourteenth century and includes new translations as well as revised versions of previously published material.

 

This volume is the outcome of a translation project initiated by James Cahill of the University of California at Berleley under the sponsorship of the American Council of Learned Societies. In the early 1970s the editors were chosen and it was funded by a project grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. We would like to express our gratitude to Professor Cahill, who has continued to offer advice and support at various stages.

 

Since the anthology is designed to be accessible to the nonspecialist, texts have been presented under topic headings and annotation has been kept to a minimum. For the reader's convenience, brief biographies of painters, critics, and calligraphers have been included in an appendix, which contains references both to Chinese biographical sources and to short English biographies of the men in question. For those who wish to follow certain traslations in Chinese, references have been provided to a well-known conpendium ofChinese texts on painting, Yu Chien-hua's Chung-kuo hua-lun lei-pien. The Chinese sources for less accessible texts as well as various bibliographic aids are listed in the annotated bibliography, which is intended as a guide for the more advanced student. Chinese versions of certain important texts can be found in William Acker's Some T'ang and Pre-T'ang Texts on Chinese Painting, Alexander Soper's Kuo Jo-hsu's Experiences in Painting, and Susan Bush's The Chinese Literati on Painting. The experienced sinologist will of course wish to compare texts and look into commentaries and punctuated versions in Chinese and Japanese. 

 

The editors would like to thank the authors and publishers who have granted permission for the use of experts of published translarions: E. J. Brill for material from some T'ang and Pre-T'ang Texts on Chinese Painting (Vol. 1); Professor James Cahill for his translation of the "Six Laws" of Hsieh Ho; Professor Herbert Franke for an excerpt from Wang I's Hsieh-hsiang pi-chueh; the Harvard University Press for excerpts from The Chinese Literati on Painting; Professor Robert Maeda and Garland Publishers for excerpts from Two Sung Texts on Chinese Painting and the Landscape style of 11th and 12th Centuries; Professor Kiyohiko Munakata and Artibus Asiae Publishers for material from Ching Hao;s Pi-fa-chi: A Note on the Art of the Brush; Professor Alexander Soper and the American Council of Learned Societies for material in Kuo Jo-hsu's Experiences in Painting; Professor Soper also for excerpts from Chu Ching-hsuan's T'ang-ch'ao ming-hua lu and Li Ch'ih's Hua-p'in; Professor Michael Sullivan' and the University of California Press for the Fu Tsai excerpt in Chinese Landscape Painting: The Sui and T'ang Dynasties; Professor Ssu-yu Teng and E. J. Brill for an excerpt from Family Instructions for the Yen Clan. We would also like to thank Professor Tseng Yu-ho Ecke and Dr. Arthur Mu-sen Kao for material translated in their Ph.D. dissertations, available in University Microfilms International editions. These translations have been slightly modified in the interests of the meaning, accuracy, and style.

 

In addition, the editors have made use of unpublished translations, most of which were commissioned in the early stages of the translation project. We are extreamly grateful to these contributors: Professor Richard Barnhart, Professor John Hay, Dr. Sarah Handler, Professor Ellen Laing, Nancy Price, and Dr. Roderick Whitfield, who translated certain texts excerpted in chapter 3-5; Professor Chu-tsing Li and his students-Karen Brock, Dr. Arthur Mu-sen Kao, and William Lew-who compiled material for chapter 6. An unpublished translation of the Li-tai ming-hua chi biographies by Professor Hsio-yen Shih was a major source for the excerpts in chapter 1 and 2. Specific credit is given to each translator in the introductions to the chapters.

ⓒ 1985 by the Harvard-Yenching Institute All right reserved