Cambios organizacionales

In addition to elevating the commercial site to the status of a “historic/famous site”, print artists also pictorially redefined the conventional “famous/scenic sites” by connecting it with commercial space. A collage style of representation was deployed in re-defining the old scenic sites. Stone Lake of Gusu (figure 1.5), for example, portrays the beautiful scenic spots around Stone Lake with topographical features of mountain, river, bridge, pavilion and temple in the middle and upper planes, while the prosperous market scene at Chang Gate is portrayed in the lower plane at the foreground.

Stone Lake is situated in the southeast of Suzhou and is a tributary of Lake Tai. It was famous for its natural beauty and more importantly its cultural association with famous personalities from the past.54 The Stone Lake area includes a series of scenic spots and historic

buildings. Famous scenic spots include the long nine-arched Xingchun Bridge 行春橋, Mount

Shangfang (previously Mount Lengqie楞伽山, a ridge running along the western flank of Stone

Lake), and the Lengqie Pagoda 楞伽塔 atop Mount Shangfang. Prominent historic buildings

feature the Mountain Villa at Stone Lake (Shihu shanzhuang石湖山庄) built by the renowned

scholar-official Fan Chengda 范成大 (1126-1193) of the Song dynasty (960-1279), where he

composed much of his greatest poetry, as well as the Thatched Hut at Stone Lake (Shihu caotang

54 _{J. D. Schmidt, Stone Lake: The Poetry of Fan Chengda (1126–1193) (Cambridge: Cambridge University}

石湖草堂, 1522), where Wen Zhengming and his literati friends frequented and held literary gatherings.

Figure 1.5, Genyan shi, Stone Lake of Gusu, 18th century, woodblock print, 71x53cm, Japan. After Feng Jicai ed, Zhongguo muban nianhua jicheng: Riben cangpin juan (Beijing:

Stone Lake had become a place of resort since at least the Southern Song period and

frequently appeared in literary and pictorial representations since the mid-Ming. 55 _The

conventional image of Stone Lake is a diagonal composition portraying a wide sheet of water framed by bridges (the Xinchun Bridge and the Yue Bridge) to the horizon at bottom and wooded hills (Mount Shangfang) in the background on the right. The scenery is of tranquil nature. Figures, boats and simple houses are reduced to the minimum. Many great artists of the Ming including Wen Zhengming, Tang Yin, Shen Zhou, Lu Zhi, Zhang Hong, and Yuan Shangtong painted Stone Lake.56 Lu Zhi’s (1496-1576) View of Stone Lake (dated 1558, ink and color on paper, 29.7x 95.1 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston),57 for example, follows the pattern with a diagonal composition. Directed by the movement of the sailboats, the viewer starts the journey from the upper right to the foreground, where cottages under willow trees and the Yue Bridge can be seen. Unrolling the scroll further, the lake broadens, and the Xingchun Bridge appears in parallel with the Yue Bridge in distance, reaching across the remaining of the length of the scroll. Boats and figures, either walking or occupying the boats alone and in pairs, are leisurely enjoying the scenery. The application of ink and color is sparse. Light colors and neat lines add to the tranquil mood of the

55 _{On literary representation of Stone Lake see for example, Wang Chong, Eight Poems on Stone Lake,}

dated 1527, fan mounted as an album leaf, framed; ink on paper, 19.1 × 53.3 cm. The eight poems celebrate the beauty of Stone Lake. The poems were originally written to accompany Lu Zhi’s painting of Stone Lake. The work can be viewed online from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

(http://metmuseum.org/exhibitions/view?exhibitionId=%7B432572F9-1955-42FA-95D5- 0E66F6FC9127%7D&oid=633300).

56 _{Wen Zhengming, Stone Lake; Tang Yin, Xingchun Bridge (Palace Museum of Beijing); Shen Zhou,}

Scenic Sites of Wu (Nelson-Atkins Museum); Zhang Hong, Stone Lake, leaf from Twelve Views of Sutai (Shanghai Museum); Yuan Shangtong, Stone Lake, leaf from Twelve Views of Sutai.

57 _{An introduction of Lu Zhi and his View of Stone Lake is in Kojiro Tomita and A. Kaiming Chiu, “Shih}

Hu (Stone Lake): A Chinese Scroll Painting by Lu Chih (1496-1576),” Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts,Vol. 49, No. 276 (1951), pp. 34-39.

scenery, making it an ideal retreat away from the mundane world and a perfect spot for the literati to live a reclusive life while pursuing cultural and moral cultivation.

Pictorial language dramatically changed in printed images of Tiger Hill in the 18th century.

Stone Lake of Gusu at first appearance maintains the classic motif- with the depiction of bridges across the lake, which is dotted with sailboats, buildings at shore and mountains in the background- in the upper plane. However a close examination shows the shift in the point of view that resulted in the shift in composition in which the two bridges are placed at the same side on the right and Mount Shanghai is reduced at the top, so the lake occupies the whole middle plane. The villa complex replaces the simple cottage houses under willow trees. Common tourists are in place of the scholars at leisure. The tranquil scenery is further broken with the incorporation of the business

commercial district, marked as “Chang Gate scene 閶 門 景” in the foreground. This new

composition had a double function- “commercializing” the historical/ scenic site Stone Lake as well as “culturalizing” the commercial site Chang Gate. Commerce and culture are combined to convey the message that merchants and mercantile activities played a role that was as important as that of the cultural elites in making Suzhou’s prosperity. In addition to inserting bustling commercial scenes into the conventional rendering of old scenic spots, print artists also introduced new sites while appropriating traditional subjects and motifs.