Page 445 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

worthy of serious enjoyment, but it certainly
can be considered as a warning and admonition
to the world. (Translation by Wai-kam Ho in
Cahill 1978, p. 191.)

"A warning and admonition to the world" might
suggest that Zhou was warning viewers against
wrongdoing, which (according to Buddhist teach-
ing) would cause their rebirth into such lives of
misery as he had depicted. But of three colophons
added to the Cleveland section of the scroll during
the second half of the sixteenth century, one con-
strued the beggars metaphorically as unworthy
office-seekers ("beggars" for position and wealth),
another interpreted them as a protest against gov-
ernmental harshness and misrule, and the third
saw merit in both interpretations. Certainly these
colophons place the work unmistakably within
China's very sparse tradition of social protest.
The first colophon, by Huang Jishui (1509-
1574), a literatus and collector and, interestingly,
author of the Pinshi Zhuan (biographical sketches
of poverty-stricken scholars), is dated to 1564: Zhang Fengyi (1527-1613), a scholar, poet,
and playwright from Suzhou, wrote the second Thus this work by [Zhou Chen] has the same
This album depicts the appearances of all the colophon:
different kinds of beggars whom [Zhou Chen] intent as [Zheng Xia's] "Destitute People": it
observed in the streets of the city, capturing This album presents us with the many aspects was meant as an aid to government and is not a
perfectly the special aspect of each. Looking at of misery—hunger and cold, homeless destitu- shallow thing —one can't dismiss it as a 'play
with ink'." (Translation by James Cahill.)
the pictures, one can't help sighing deeply. tion, infirmity and emaciation, deformity and
Nowadays people come around on dark nights sickness. Anyone who can look at this and not Zheng Xia (io4i-ni9)was an official-artist who
[covertly], begging and wailing in their desires be wounded to the heart by compassion is not a in the famine of 1073-1074 depicted scenes of
for riches and high position — if only we could humane person. The [bingzi] year of the the starvation and used them as an admonition to the
[Zhengde] era... was only a few years after
bring back Mr. [Zhou] to portray them! emperor, following good Confucian practice.
seditious [Liu Jin] spread his poison; this was
Third colophon by Wen Jia (1501-1583),
The summoned scholar Woyun brought out the height of [Jiang Bin's] and [Wang, or Qian?] Wen Zhengming, dated to 1577: son of
this album to show me, and I wrote this King's exercising of their brutality. I imagine
impromptu inscription at the end. (Translation also that the officials and nobles were seldom This painting by [Zhou Chen] depicts the
by James Cahill.) able to nurture and succor the common people. appearance of hungry and chilly beggars, in

444 CIRCA 1492