Page 36 - Beyond Compare Christie's Hong Kong RU WARE .pdf

BEYOND COMPARE: A Thousand Years of the Literati Aesthetic

familiar with Bada’s oeuvre. His preliminary estimate, made Shanren, Wang includes the following short entry, entitled ‘Bada
before the transcription of the full inscriptions, states that the Shanren’s Preface to the Orchid Pavilion’:
work dates from Bada Shanren’s seventies. This correlates directly th
No. 12. Simao year (1699), 8 month. Former collection of Zhang
with the 1699 date he later encountered on the accompanying
Daqian. Current location unknown. Recorded in Masterpieces
inscription, when Bada was 74 years of age. This is testimony to
of Chinese Painting from Ta Feng Tang, vol. 3. Landscapes and
Zhang Heng’s careful and protracted study. In the biography of
Calligraphy, six leaves (authentic).
Zhang Heng co-authored by his three children, they give the
following account of their father: (From Bada Shanren Quanji, vol. 5. pp. 1205.)
Our father undertook this Herculean labour of In his 1990 Yale U.P. publication Master of the Lotus Garden:
documentation outside of his working hours… Every evening The Life and Art of Bada Shanren, Wang repeats his assertion
after finishing work and dinner he would immerse himself in that the location of Landscapes and Calligraphy is unknown
a pile of books, deep into the night. Yet every evening there (p.270, appendix C, ‘dated works’ no. 119). Once again, the only
would be visitors, and our father would have to set his work reference Wang gives is Zhang Daqian’s catalogue of 1955. Wang
aside…. Every evening he would wait for his guests to leave, was the preeminent scholar and collector of Bada Shanren
whereupon he would resume his work, carrying on late into outside of China. Yet he never knew the location of Landscapes
the night. and Calligraphy. He never had the opportunity to view it in
person, and continually referred to it through Zhang Daqian’s
This Herculean project was the compilation of Notes on the 1955 publication. Thus, we can be certain that Landscapes and
Authentication of Painting and Calligraphy from the Muyan Studio. Calligraphy was not in the collection of Wang’s friend John M.
Zhang Heng’s Notes exemplifies assiduous scholarship, diligently
Crawford Jr.
produced in the little spare time he had available. His work has
rightly been the subject of serious, in-depth study by subsequent There are some who claim that Landscapes and Calligraphy was in
generations, who have lauded his mindset, erudition, self- Wang Fangyu’s own collection. However, there is no discernible
possession and insight. basis for this. Were Wang to have this work within his family
collection, it is not conceivable that he would have still omitted
Following its first publication in Masterpieces of Chinese Painting to mention this in his own 1990 publication. Moreover, the
from Ta Feng Tang, the location of Landscapes and Calligraphy on work is not included among the thirty pieces recorded in the
the Orchid Pavilion became a protracted mystery. In 1982, the 2003 publication of Wang and his wife’s collection: In Pursuit of
th
Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe published the 17 edition of Heavenly Harmony: Paintings and Calligraphy by Bada Shanren from
Yiyuan Duoying, focused on Bada Shanren. This referenced the the Estate of Wang Fangyu and Sum Wai.
twelve leaves of paired painting and calligraphy. However, Bada’s
preceding six leaves reproducing the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Following its publication in 1955 in Zhang Daqian’s Masterpieces
were omitted. In Zhang Heng’s Notes, the two are necessarily of Chinese Painting from Ta Feng Tang, Landscapes and Calligraphy
separated as part of his systematic treatment of painting and seemed to have disappeared without trace. For more than sixty
calligraphy as distinct artforms. Yiyuan Duoying presents no years its location was unknown to the international community
discernable justification for its bisection of the album. of collectors. The consignment of twelve leaves of paired painting
and verse from Landscapes and Calligraphy, offered this autumn
There is a recurrent error in the recorded provenance of Poems
in Christie’s Hong Kong, is hugely beneficial for the scholarly
and Paintings on the Orchid Pavilion Preface. In Bada Shanren Quanji,
record of this work. This album travelled with Zhang Daqian
vol. 4, the eighteen leaves of the work are captioned as “in the
through his itinerant life. As these travels included Zhang’s brief
collection of John M. Crawford Jr.”. In Bada Shanren Shichao’s
residency in Hong Kong, the reappearance of this album in
catalogue of Bada’s poems inscribed on paintings, the work is
Christies is something of a homecoming.
again recorded as in Crawford’s collection. There is also an index
of extant paintings by Bada Sharen at the end of volume four Lamentably, the album leaves of Landscapes and Calligraphy
of Bada Shanren Quanji. While this index clearly records private have been remounted as six vertical scrolls. Each scroll displays
and public collections, both within China and internationally, the paired calligraphy above the corresponding painting in
Landscapes and Calligraphy is inexplicably omitted. How can a Japanese style mount. In its present format, Bada Shanren’s
we determine if the work was part of Crawford’s collection? preceding six-leaf rendition of Preface to the Orchid Pavilion is
The assertions of the aforementioned studies are certainly lost. Yet this remounting in no way detracts from the painting
questionable. Preeminent scholar of Bada Shanren Wang Fangyu and calligraphy’s compelling and thought-provoking beauty.
(1913-1997) repeatedly stated that the location of the work, and The collection history of Landscapes and Calligraphy has been
the identity of its owner, were unknown. Wang was a Chinese a mystery for over sixty years. As with many of Bada Shanren’s
immigrant to America, and a close associate of Crawford. The great accomplishments, these sixty years will likely remain one of
two men were born in the same year. In The Calligraphy of Bada art history’s enduring enigmas.

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