Original title: How people in the Southern Song Dynasty framed calligraphy and paintings
There is a section "Shaoxing Royal Palace Calligraphy and Painting Styles" in Song Dynasty Zhou Mi's "Qidong Wild Words", which describes the mounting of famous calligraphy and painting works in the Southern Song Dynasty. specifications and requirements. As he said: "Framing and tailoring have their own scales, stamps and titles, and have established styles." So how did people in the Southern Song Dynasty frame calligraphy and paintings? What is the so-called "formed style"? How does the restoration principle of the Song Dynasty relate to today?
Evaluate and select materials as appropriate
The decoration of calligraphy and painting in the inner palace of the Southern Song Dynasty is first of all a process of evaluating the quality of ancient calligraphy and painting. Different levels of calligraphy and painting will use completely different decorative materials. For example, the "Excellent Authentic Dharma Calligraphy" includes the ink writings of the emperors and ministers of the Han, Three Kingdoms, Two Kings, Six Dynasties, Sui and Tang Dynasties, as well as the Dharma script signed by the emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty and written with the word "Miao", with the tapestry as the head and the green silk inscriptions. The brocade is used as the head of the sky, and the water is separated from the water by using large ginger-toothed Yunluan white silk, with Korean paper as the tail, "the first-class white jade milled dragon hairpin top shaft", sandalwood pole, and a mother-of-pearl box to hold it. The second-grade authentic works of the Jin and Tang dynasties and the stone-engraved famous calligraphy of the Jin and Tang dynasties are made of purple luan magpie brocade for the head, blue luan damask for the head, white luan damask for water protection, and the tail of the paper, and the second-grade white jade shaft. The grade of materials used is significantly reduced.
Even the Dharma books of the Tang Dynasty are divided into upper, middle and lower grades. Although the materials for the headband, Tiantou, water barrier, and tail are the same, including the red haze Yunluan brocade bag head, green silk silk headband, white Luan silk water barrier, and Korean paper tail, the shaft heads are different. The upper-grade Dharma books use a hairpin-topped jade shaft, while the middle- and lower-grade Dharma books use a flat-topped jade shaft. The same decoration is to indicate the age (Tang Dynasty) and classification (fashu), while the different axle heads are to distinguish between superior and inferior.
Different categories have their own decorations
For the Imperial Household of the Southern Song Dynasty, decorating calligraphy and painting was also a process of classification and collection. For example, it lists "copying authentic works of the Six Dynasties" as a separate category, using cyan pavilion brocade as the head, green silk as the sky head, white silk as the water barrier, Korean paper as the tail, and white jade as the shaft head. This kind of decoration is obviously different from the authentic works of the Jin and Tang Dynasties discussed above. Decoration is used to distinguish authentic works from copies.
If we look at the selection of materials, the horizontal scrolls of famous paintings from the Six Dynasties seem to be more valued than the hanging scrolls of famous paintings from the Six Dynasties. The former is made of tapestry pavilion brocade, while the latter uses Zaoluan damask as the two-color sky and earth; the former uses green silk wen brocade as the head of the sky, and the second one uses blue Luan damask, while the latter only uses green silk silk as the sky and earth. , without distinguishing between good and bad. In addition, the scroll head of the famous paintings of the Six Dynasties is a "high-quality white jade milled flower scroll", and the hanging scroll is a high-quality jade scroll. Although they are both famous paintings from the Six Dynasties, the layout of the horizontal scroll and the hanging scroll are obviously different.
The calligraphy and painting of this dynasty also occupies an important position in the collection of the Southern Song Dynasty, such as Su Shi, Wen Tong, Mi Fu, Fan Long, etc., all have detailed decoration rules, and require the Qian Gua seal, Xishi seal and Shaoxing seal. Of course, the calligraphy and paintings of the Song Dynasty were only mounted on silk, not brocade or tapestry. The heads of the scrolls were just ordinary white jade scrolls, or even agate scrolls or black rhinoceros scrolls. The materials used were incomparable with the ink left by the sages of the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties.
Minimum intervention and maximum preservation
"Minimum intervention" and "maximum information preservation" are the restoration principles of contemporary calligraphy and painting cultural relics. According to the "Guidelines for the Restoration of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Cultural Relics", "minimum intervention" means "in the process of restoration of calligraphy and painting cultural relics, the main goals should be to reduce intervention, alleviate diseases, and extend the preservation life, and the actions taken should be controlled to the minimum according to actual needs. Limit and should not over-repair.” In contrast, the principle of “maximum information preservation” emphasizes “preserving all elements that can reflect the value of calligraphy and painting cultural relics.”
The unmounting and cleaning of the painting heart have been key steps in the restoration of calligraphy and painting since ancient times.
"Shaoxing Imperial Calligraphy and Painting Style" has put forward specific requirements for the unmounting and washing of ancient calligraphy and painting, which is very close to the contemporary principle of "minimum intervention". For example, "Yu Fu Lin's calligraphy from the Six Dynasties, Xi, Xian, and Tang Dynasties, as well as miscellaneous poems and poems, etc." all "should be on ancient thick paper, and thin ones are not allowed to be peeled off." It is clearly pointed out that the core of the painting should not be damaged when peeling off the frame. Painting core is the soul of calligraphy and painting. In "History of Painting", Mi Fu even regarded the success or failure of mounting as the life of calligraphy and painting, "The life of painting and calligraphy is all about uncovering." If the painting is not mounted properly, the essence of the painting will be lost. As Mi Fu said, "The spirit of the characters, the richness of the flowers, and the bees and butterflies are only in rough shades. Once there are too many, they may be lost." People in the Southern Song Dynasty also believed: "If half of the paper is removed, the spirit of the calligraphy will be lost, just like the original copy." Zhang Yanyuan's "Records of Famous Paintings of the Past Dynasties" has already talked about the problem of cleaning the core of the painting. He said: "Old paintings must have dust accumulated over the years. , you must use acacia water to remove the stains and remove the dirt, so that the painting will be clear and the color will not fade. "Cleaning of calligraphy and painting is not only for beauty, but also a way of protecting calligraphy and painting.
The court of the Southern Song Dynasty followed the principle of "decoration should be based on ancient paintings and no re-washing is allowed", "for fear of losing the spirit of the characters and the richness of the flowers and trees", whether to wash them or not depends on the actual situation. People in the Southern Song Dynasty also followed the decoration principle of "not allowed to cut too much", which was very close to the contemporary principle of "maximum information retention". Cutting is an important step in the restoration of calligraphy and painting. The core of the painting should be placed flat on the cutting board, and the old frame should be cut off using a large ruler board to correct the core of the painting. Cutting large areas of blank space around the frame may destroy the artist's original intention of composition and cause difficulty in mounting the next time. Zhou Mi once scolded the officials of the Southern Song Dynasty, criticizing them for their "low moral character and short eyesight. All the inscriptions by their predecessors were removed. Therefore, most of the collections in the Imperial Palace today have no inscriptions, and their origins, teachings and receipts are unknown." , years, test and revision, nothing can be found." It can be seen that when people in the Song Dynasty were cutting out, there were also cases where historical information was cut out.
Restore, pass on, innovate and discard
If the "Shaoxing Imperial Painting and Calligraphy Style" represents the painting and calligraphy decoration guidelines of the Tang and Song Dynasties, the "Guidelines for the Restoration of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Cultural Relics" represents the contemporary style. This is an attempt to establish a unified guideline for the restoration of calligraphy and painting cultural relics. Between the two, there is continuity, innovation and sublation.
"Shaoxing Royal Palace Calligraphy and Painting Style" is not actually a national standard, and can only represent the decoration requirements of the Southern Song Dynasty court. Although the content covers many aspects such as materials, regulations, work procedures, collection systems, decoration forms, etc. for calligraphy and painting decoration, there is no strict logical relationship between them. It is more like Zhou Mi’s own talk about calligraphy and painting decoration. . Once this set of decoration requirements was separated from the collection mechanism of the Southern Song Dynasty, it would be difficult to achieve it. In addition, literati and officials since the Song and Ming dynasties mostly love calligraphy and painting, and they also have some understanding of the decoration of calligraphy and painting. The decoration of calligraphy and painting discussed in "Shaoxing Imperial Painting and Calligraphy Style" can be understood and appreciated by literati and officials, but they are more concerned about the decoration of calligraphy and painting. Taste it from the perspective of rules and regulations and anecdotes, rather than focusing on decoration skills. However, some of these principles have always been followed by later generations of calligraphy and painting restorers. For example, many of the principles in the "Decoration Chronicles" of the Ming Dynasty come from writings and actual decoration experiences in the Song and Yuan Dynasties.
Compared with "Shaoxing Imperial Painting and Calligraphy Style", "Guidelines for the Restoration of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Cultural Relics" is more modern. The restoration of calligraphy and painting cultural relics is not only a traditional skill, but also a problem of how to protect ancient calligraphy and painting artworks in the process of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. In terms of restoration principles alone, the "Guidelines for the Restoration of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Cultural Relics" is undoubtedly more comprehensive and innovative. The principles of "minimum intervention", "maximum information retention" and "reprocessability" advocated by it can also be seen in "Shaoxing Imperial Painting and Calligraphy Style". Taking the principle of "maximum information retention" as an example, the Southern Song Dynasty government adopted a dual principle for the inscriptions of predecessors. On the one hand, it required "not to cut too much"; on the other hand, when encountering inscriptions in Xuanhe imperial books, "parallel Remove it and don’t use it.” It can be seen that the Southern Song Dynasty's imperial palace did not entirely focus on the protection of cultural relics in the decoration of calligraphy and painting, but also followed certain political principles. When the Imperial Household of the Southern Song Dynasty encountered broken paintings and calligraphy, they did not try to protect the ancient paintings and calligraphy that were about to be destroyed. Instead, they ordered the study to copy them as they were, dye them in an antique color, seal them, and install them. Many of the ancient calligraphy and paintings from the Jin and Tang Dynasties that people see today are copies from the Song Dynasty. The modern restoration of cultural relics tries to preserve all historical information as much as possible, regardless of who wrote the inscriptions or whether it is broken, and a relatively strict set of professional standards has been formed.
The "Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection" says: "The future will look at the present just as the present looks at the past." The people of the Song Dynasty would not have thought that their mounting skills could be passed down for thousands of years, but today we are under the influence of the Song people. Under the shelter, inheritance and innovation are carried out, and a new era of restoration of calligraphy and painting cultural relics is ushered in. Wen Yupeng
(The author works at Hangzhou Museum)