Bronze and Stone

The Cult of Antiquity in Song Dynasty China

Yunchiahn C. Sena

• Éditeur: University of Washington Press
• Année: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780295744582
• Sujet: Art
• Sous-sujet: Art asiatique

Despite China's long tradition of venerating the past as the ultimate source of cultural authority, the discourse of antiquity prior to the Song period (960–1279) demonstrated little concern for ancient objects. With a focus on physical artifacts of the past, Song intellectuals began a new discipline, "the study of bronze and stone" ( jinshixue ), that generated collections of items such as bronze vessels and bells, stone steles, and ink rubbings of inscriptions carved or cast on objects. This first comprehensive study in English of the Song antiquarian movement and how it refashioned the distant past uses textual and material evidence to examine this development, which has had long-lasting influence on Chinese intellectual history and on the preservation of material objects. In addition to collecting and comparing artifacts, Song antiquaries compiled extensive catalogs that included drawings, measurements, and meticulous descriptions. Their studies have contributed to the way history has been documented since the eleventh century and serve as a basis for archaeology of the modern period. Bronze and Stone contextualizes the Song antiquarian movement among previous Chinese engagements with antiquity, subsequent popular interest in ancient objects, and world antiquarianism.

1

OUYANG XIU’ S RECORDS OF COLLECTING ANTIQUITY

SONG ANTIQUARIANISM OCCUPIES A SPECIAL PLACE IN THE HEART of Chinese literati. Ever since the Song scholar-official Ouyang Xiu compiled his greatly emulated work Records of Collecting Antiquity in 1062, objects from the past have been omnipresent in traditional Chinese scholarly discourse on antiquity, prompting inquiry: What can one learn about antiquity from these objects? How does one reconstruct the past through these material fragments? How do objects from the past affirm or challenge historical narratives that have often been based strictly on textual sources? For those scholars who were conscientious in fulfilling their roles in this discourse, questions regarding ancient objects became relevant to their individual beliefs: How does one engage with ancient objects in order to advocate one’s own perception of antiquity in competition with those of others? How does one employ ancient objects in expressing one’s views on aesthetic and moral judgments, cosmological thinking, or even current events? The discourse that centered on ancient objects ultimately became a forum for intellectual debate and self-expression.

Many of these questions were first raised during the Song antiquarian movement. The types of ancient objects collected and scrutinized came to constitute the core of antiquarian materials and continued to attract the attention of Chinese literati of later times. Many Song catalogues featured prominently in the infatuation of later literati, even after most of the objects included had been destroyed during various man-made or natural calamities. Connoisseurial practices popular among Song antiquaries—such as antique collecting, cataloguing, and appraising—became essential curricula, along with painting, calligraphy, and poetry, in the repertoire of later literati activities. Well-known Song collectors, such as Ouyang, were greatly admired in later periods by followers who continued to observe the antiquarian tradition.

PROBLEMS WITH THE STUDY OF RECORDS OF COLLECTING ANTIQUITY

The unfailing interest in ancient objects among Chinese literati manifested itself in the act of collecting, as appropriately indicated in the name of Ouyang’s Records of Collecting Antiquity. His collection established a precedent for a new cultural practice that brought together objects that formally belonged to different groups. These objects were placed in a new category named jinshi, literally “metal and stone,” in reference to ancient ritual bronzes and commemorative steles, the two primary types of objects in Ouyang’s collection. The forming of this new category of intellectual pursuit led to the emergence of a new type of study known as jinshixue (the study of metal and stone). The discipline was built upon an intense interest in the ways in which these two types of objects connected to the past and how they embodied the concepts of antiquity (gu). Jinshi studies played a fundamental role in the development of larger and more inclusive antiquarian studies in Chinese intellectual history.¹

The forming of this new category of objects as collectables anticipated the great enthusiasm on the part of Chinese collectors and antiquaries since the Song. The collecting of jinshi materials, like that of other cultural artifacts, greatly influenced not just individual collectors but also society as a whole. It involved collectors of specific background, especially those who enjoyed cultural prestige and occupied high positions in the Chinese social and political hierarchy. Because of this, jinshi materials came to be associated with fundamental values in Chinese culture and society. The highly desirable status of the materials also granted them great monetary value. As precious commodities in the newly established antique market, jinshi materials were often bought and sold, and sometimes plundered or stolen. The stature of jinshi materials, as cultural symbols and highly priced commodities, was the result of a combination of subjective judgment on the part of the collectors and the social, political, and economic operation of society at large. In other words, the “collectability” of jinshi materials is a result of constant negotiation between individuals and various factors in the society.² It is important to begin this study with Ouyang and his collection, because he helped to define the criteria of Song antiquaries and his collection demonstrated the process of negotiating values and offered alternative strategies for collecting.

Accounts from Ouyang and descendants who inherited his collection indicate that the collection consisted of more than one thousand items. Questions regarding the constitution of the collection must have been raised. However, instead of addressing these questions directly, Ouyang gave a curious description of what he had assembled: “There are things from as early as King Mu of Zhou, down to the Qin, Han, Sui, Tang and the Five Dynasties, from as far as the Four Seas and the Nine States, from famous mountains and great lakes, from barren cliffs and desolate valleys, from wasted forests and ruined tombs, things by gods and demons, and of unspeakable strange origins. All are included in Records of Collecting Antiquity.”³

Beginning with King Mu of Western Zhou, a legendary ruler of the tenth century BCE, and ending with the Five Dynasties, which immediately preceded the Song, Ouyang recounted a chronological succession that spanned two millennia from China’s high antiquity to the most recent past. In addition, he pointed out the all-encompassing provenance of his collection by using “Four Seas” and “Nine States”—terms from the Book of Documents (Shangshu), the earliest Chinese writing on political history—referring to the entire world as conceived in ancient China. Although Ouyang’s statement suggests a wide range of temporal and geographical origins for the items in the collection, it does not provide any concrete information about their physical features. He was equally elusive regarding the manner by which he amassed a collection of such large quantity. In the preface Ouyang anticipated inquiries into this matter but responded to them without revealing much detail.

[As to assembling a collection,] well, being capable of it is not as good as being interested in it; being interested in it is not as good as being devoted to it. My temperament is stubborn and I am fascinated by antiquity. Whatever others in the world covet I have absolutely no desire for. Because of this, I am able to devote myself to what I like. Regarding the matter [of collecting antiquity], my intention is for sure earnest. Even though my ability is not adequate, I still managed to accomplish [the task].⁴

Questions regarding the ways in which the collection was assembled are essential in our attempt to understand Ouyang’s collection, because they investigate the ideological underpinnings and suggest what “antiquity” meant to the Song antiquary in the most concrete and materialistic sense. The questions help to illuminate the manners in which Song antiquaries such as Ouyang engaged antiquarian activities as a cultural practice. By the same token, similar questions regarding Song antiquarian practices in general will help us to understand the nature and scope of antiquarian materials studied during the Song, as well as how “antiquarian impulses” were expressed through material culture.⁵ With the understanding of the materialistic and practical aspects of Ouyang’s collection, we will explore Song antiquarian practices in general for a broader understanding.

Although Ouyang’s collection is almost entirely lost, it can still be examined through textual sources. What we know about the collection came mostly from Colophons from the Records of Collecting Antiquity (Jigu lu bawei), an anthology of Ouyang’s commentaries on items in his collection. Originally written by the collector himself, these commentaries were inscribed on the back of works as postscripts, later published under one title after Ouyang’s death.⁶ Four of these handwritten postscripts are still extant (figure 1.1).⁷ These commentaries often discussed the history and authorship of items in the collection and revealed Ouyang’s views on issues regarding antiquity and aesthetics.⁸ Some texts by other collectors, which dealt with similar types of objects—for example, Zhao Mingcheng’s Records of Metal and Stone (Jinshi lu)—contained information about items also mentioned in Ouyang’s colophons; other illustrated texts, such as the Illustrated Catalogue for Examining Antiquity (Kaogu tu) by Lü Dalin (1040–1093), preserved images of several ancient bronze vessels also included in Ouyang’s collection.⁹ Rendered in line drawing and reproduced in woodblock print, these images offered visual evidence for how they once were. In another example, surviving chapters of the Continuation of Annotations to the Han-Wei Stelae (Li xu) by Hong Kuo (1117–1184) preserved images of decorative motifs found on some Han stelae that Ouyang had discussed in his colophons.

Despite the numerous titles of antiquarian texts compiled during the Song period, the attempt to study Song antiquarian activities through textual sources is complicated by the problem that a large proportion of these writings did not survive. Bibliographic studies indicate that there were at least 117 Song titles devoted to antiquarian subjects, but merely 28 are still extant.¹⁰ With only a few exceptions, these surviving texts existed in later editions, several hundred years after their original publication.¹¹ The troubling situation was somewhat lessened with the progress made by Chinese scholars in the field of textual studies (banben xue) during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These scholars restored Song antiquarian texts by combing through post-Song literature in search of fragments of lost texts with the attempt to reconstruct the originals and by collating various existing editions to authenticate their content. Nineteenth-century antiquarian Miao Quansun (1844–1919) restored more than two-thirds of the Inventory of the Records of Collecting Antiquity (Jigu lu mu), a list of ancient objects in Ouyang’s collection, compiled by the collector’s son Ouyang Fei (1047–1113), by going through quotes and references that had survived in various texts produced before the thirteenth century.¹² The reconstructed inventory has provided crucial information for our understanding of Ouyang’s collection. In light of the limitation in the sources, it is important to employ all available texts about the collection in addition to Ouyang’s own texts, which include the inventory lists of the collection, essays or anecdotal accounts by others on the collection and collector, Ouyang’s correspondence pertaining to his collection and collecting efforts, other contemporaneous or later Song texts with information about Ouyang’s collection and Song collections in general, and other relevant Song antiquarian writings extant or restored in later periods.

1.1. Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072). Colophons from the Records of Collecting Antiquity. Ca. 1064. Ink on paper, 27.2 × 171.2 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.

OUYANG AND THE REVIVAL OF GUWEN (ARCHAIC WRITING)

Among his many accomplishments, Ouyang Xiu was recognized for his influence on Song historiography, political theories, literature, and the development of Neo-Confucian thought.¹³ Growing up in a family of modest means and being orphaned in early ...