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XUANDE
¶‘PROPAGATING VIRTUE’·
COMPLETE IN THE ARTS OF
BOTH PEACE AND WAR
Zhu Zhanji, who ruled China as the Xuande Emperor from As a respected poet and an innovative painter, the Xuande
1426 to 1435, came nearest of all Ming (‘brilliant’ or ‘shining’) Emperor was a natural sponsor of the arts. He continued the
emperors to the early Ming (1368-1644) imperial idea of a building of the imperial city, acted as patron of the imperial
ruler that is summed up in the phrase wen wu shuang quan, workshops and commissioned the creation of treasures in
‘complete in the arts of both peace and war’– an ideal not all elds of the arts. He encouraged improvements in the
dissimilar to that of the Western Renaissance (gs 9 and manufacturing of ceramics at the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen
1
10). He was ruler, reformer, warrior, horseman, poet, painter, and re-established court painting along the lines of the famous
calligrapher, Buddhist, and father, all at once. Song dynasty (960-1279) painting academy.
As a ruler, the Xuande Emperor had inherited from his father, As a Buddhist, the Xuande Emperor followed in the footsteps
the Hongxi Emperor (r. 1425), a grasp of the administrative of his grandfather, who was a fervent believer and a staunch
challenges of the nation. The latter had repeatedly acted as supporter of Buddhist causes and – like his forebear –
regent and competently governed, while his father, the Yongle supported the building of temples and monasteries, the
Emperor (r. 1403-1424), was on extended tours of the country casting of Buddhist images and the copying of Buddhist
or on the battleeld. As a reformer, the Xuande Emperor scriptures. From 1407 onwards, from the age of eight, he had
lowered taxes in 1430 on all imperial lands and stemmed the been instructed by the learned and inuential Buddhist monk,
corruption of tax collectors. He opposed the death penalty Daoyan (Yao Guangxiao, 1335-1418), who had supported the
whenever possible and he ordered re-trials that helped to Yongle Emperor’s usurpation of the throne. He called the
release thousands of prisoners. Compared with the reigns of Tibetan cleric Shakya Yeshe (1354-1435) back to the capital,
the paranoid rst Ming ruler, who had conquered the empire, who after a rst visit to the capital in the Yongle period, had
the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368-1398), and the brilliant usurper returned to Tibet with lavish imperial gifts, bestowed him with
of the throne, the Yongle Emperor, both of whom had tens of important titles. According to the biography of Palden Tashi
thousands killed and their extended families exterminated, the (1377 – after 1452), another Tibetan cleric who played an
court experienced a period of relative ease during the Xuande important role in the religious life of the capital, the Xuande
era. Emperor received several tantric initiations directly from this
cleric and shared many conversations with him about the
Zhu Zhanji’s military skills had endeared him to his
grandfather, the Yongle Emperor, who had taken him into Buddhist doctrine and faith.
battle against the Mongol tribes as a fteen-year old. They It was in a time of peace, a time that historians call a Golden
spent weeks together on horseback and in tents, where the Age, that the Xuande Emperor entrusted the monk Huijin
grandfather would teach his young grandson military strategy (1355-1436) with the production of four major Mahayana
and tell him about his conquests. The Xuande Emperor is Sutras in golden script – a project that remained the largest
recorded as being a gifted archer on horseback and to have and most important golden script Sutra compilation of the
led many hunting parties with his o¬cers. As a warrior, he Ming dynasty.
led troops numerous times to defend the empire’s northern
borders, ghting at the front and personally taking part in 1 Craig Clunas writes in ‘Wen: The Arts of Peace’ that “The ideal of the early Ming
battle. emperors lay in the phrase ‘wen wu shuang quan’, ‘complete in the arts of both peace
and of war’”, Ming: Fifty Years That Changed China, The British Museum, London, 2014,
catalogue p. 158.
76 SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比
