a: A Portrait of the Person
The Emperor Huizong (1082-1135) wrote out many of his edicts in his own hand, in the distinctive “Slender Gold” style he had invented.68 Though his subjects rarely, if ever,
saw the Emperor himself, his calligraphy acted as a portrait that could “make the imperial presence felt at a distance,” as Ebrey puts it.69 It was the belief that calligraphy revealed
Confucian thought stressed the importance of the arts in the self-cultivation (xiushen) on which social harmony depended. This meant that even what we might understand as the private practice of the arts was seen as inherently social. In Li Zehou’s view, Confucian culture was built upon the earlier rites and music tradition which had stressed that proper forms (li) shaped the inner character.70 The Confucian tradition absorbed that valuing of
external form, with the result that in calligraphy the inner character was seen to be expressed by outer forms, just as the inner character was shaped by those outer forms.71
Characterology—the explicit belief that the inner person and their outer bearing are one —follows from this. “Looking at his writing alone will be enough to get to know the person,” wrote Sikong Tu (837-908) in the late Tang.72 Whether or not this was true is not
the issue—Su Shi had his doubts. But the idea that this was so determined the place of calligraphy and the perception of its value. James Cahill has made the argument that the idea of the literati artist-amateur is a “social myth,” comparable to the invention of chivalry and romantic love in medieval Europe, and constituting a great cultural achievement. Characterology provides another example of such a social myth acting as an organizing principle for the larger culture.73
This concept of characterology needs to be distinguished from the Western idea of expressionism in art, which could appear similar. Expressionism names both a movement and a larger and much more diffuse tendency. In the early twentieth century German Expressionism was typified by the distortion of represented forms as a sign of the artists’ charged emotional states. It radiated out over decades in the form of a large and diffuse cultural influence, appearing in the paintings of Jackson Pollock or Mark Rothko as a “symphonic massiveness of affect”, as Jeff Wall puts it.74 The expressionist impulse
springs from Romanticism’s belief that human feelings are at odds with industrial society; represented forms take distorted forms as signs of the distortion caused to human feeling. The Northern Song had quite a different understanding about the relation between the emotions and social forms. In an essay on the Doctrine of the Mean, Su Shi explained
that ritual forms accorded with human feelings.“The li [rites] had their origins in the emotions; then, in accord with what the people took comfort in, codes of conduct were written down describing rank and role. Whatever the emotions take comfort in and also preserves role distinctions is part of the li.”75 The Neo-Confucian thinker, Shao Yong
(1011-1077), meanwhile, explicitly ruled out any central role for emotions. “To observe things in terms of those things [i.e. to ‘embody’ things]: this is to follow Nature. But to observe things in terms of the Self: this is to follow one’s feelings. Nature is impartial and enlightened; feelings are partial and blind.”76
The expressionist impulse and characterology can also be distinguished in the question of intensity of feeling and the duration of feeling. Expressionism values something close to what appears to be an outburst, feeling that is intense but not enduring. By contrast, what is believed to be visible in calligraphy is something lasting and perhaps more fundamental: the inward person, their whole moral and ethical nature. Calligraphy is also understood as capable of expressing mood—and so the styles of Mi Fu’s letters vary— but this is secondary to the perception of the person’s character and their ethical worth.77
This is what allows Yu Shinan (558-638) early in the Tang to say that “Wonders emerge not from the brushtip, but from the mind.”78 Both heart and mind are expressed, in much
the same way that Mencius emphasizes xin, uniting what Western thought divides. Karyn Lai points out that, “Mencius did not distinguish deliberative morality from emotion (in the way we might find, say, in Plato’s philosophy); hence the term xin is best translated as heart-mind.”79 Here again, Western expressionism functions quite differently—its focus
is on feeling experienced either as having no connection to morality or being in contradiction to it. Its goal could thus be said to construct an art of the heart alone.
b: Characterology in the Northern Song
The kernel of the Chinese emphasis on character must have started to coalesce at least as early as the Han period, when the great Han historian Sima Qian (145-90 BCE) wrote, for example, “When I read the writings of Confucius, I can envision the kind of man he
was.”80 It is unlikely that any calligraphy in Confucius’ hand had in fact survived, but
Sima Qian may have believed he had seen the Sage’s script. Such early statements as Liu Xizai’s (53 BCE-18 CE), “Writing is a portrayal of the mind,” likely referred to the content of writings, later to their literary style, and only gradually broadened out to include the visual form.81 This had likely occurred by the Wei-Jin period (265-420) when
calligraphy had clearly emerged as an art. By the Tang dynasty, the characterological view was solidly in place, as is clear from an anecdote about the calligrapher, Liu Gongquan (778-865). The story goes that Liu was asked by the Emperor about proper technique. His famous reply was that, “The use of the brush lies in the heart. If the heart is upright, then your brush will be upright.”82
This idea was an article of faith for the Northern Song and in Su Shi’s circle. Su’s mentor, Ouyang Xiu (1007-1072), wrote of the Tang statesman and calligrapher Yan Zhenqing (709-785), “This man’s loyalty and righteousness emanated from his heaven-sent nature. Thus his brush strokes are firm, strong, and individual, and do not follow in earlier footsteps. Outstanding, unusual, and imposing, they resemble his personality.”83
Similarly, Zhu Changwen (1041-1100), who was recommended for office by Su Shi in the Yuanyou period (1086-1094), said of Yan’s work that, “[it] resembles a loyal minister or a noble-minded person, standing upright at the royal court and refusing to compromise on matters of principle. Yang Xiong said that calligraphy was a portrait of the mind. It proves to be true in Lord Yan’s case.”84 By the Northern Song, this seeing of character
directly displayed in the visual form was firmly fixed, so much so that Cong Wenjun argues that, “in commentaries on calligraphy during the Song dynasty, the term xin hua
(portrayal of the mind) appeared quite often, and was even sometimes used as a synonym for ‘calligraphy.’”85
Seeing the character of the writer in the calligraphy seems of a piece with the historical Chinese tendency to not treat ideas abstractly, as is the tendency in the West, but to consider them instead through concrete situations and persons. Confucius is understood
as concerned not with articulating ideal ethical standards to which sages might aspire, but instead, with behaviours which could be lived out by ordinary persons.86 The Analects
seem to be a series of anecdotes rather than a system of ethics, just as Pre-Han philosophy is often presented in the form of face-to-face debates between the historical persons promulgating the doctrines. Much more than is the case in the West, the actual person of the thinker has come to be taken as the embodiment of the ideas. We can think of examples such as Confucius, Zhuangzi, or much more recently and horrifically, Chairman Mao and “Chairman Mao Thought”—all of whom can be taken as “paradigmatic individuals” as Antonio Cua puts it.87 Karyn Lai describes this situation as
the ”conceptual blurring between a paradigmatic entity and its normative standard (the ideal mode of its existence).”88 In the calligraphic tradition, this same blurring is apparent
even today in the figure of Wang Xizhi, whose “portrait” is reproduced in numerous odd contexts. The figure of the person comes to stand for the work; from a Western perspective, the work and person are confused. Rightly or wrongly, this leads to a thorough enmeshment of the writing with the historical person of the calligrapher; the admiration for Yan Zhenqing in the Northern Song provides one more example of this.
c: Doubts about Characterology
While characterology was an article of faith in calligraphic practice, the circle of scholars gathered around Ouyang Xiu, which included Su Shi, had begun to shift the cultural understanding. Doubts were raised about how certain the revealing of character actually was. In 992, the Song imperial house published the Model Calligraphy from the Chunhua Pavilion, fully half of which was made up of works by Wang Xizhi (307?-365?) and his son, Wang Xianzhi (344-388). Only a few decades later, Ouyang felt it necessary to criticize what he saw as the “slavish” writing that was dominant at court, which he believed had routinized Wang’s style and drained it of its vivacity.89 All his guwen
(ancient style prose) circle would have been aware of Han Yu’s Song of the Stone Drums
in which the Tang dynasty guwen proponent wrote that "[Wang] Xizhi’s vulgar calligraphy took advantage of its seductive beauty.”90 A generation later, Huang Tingjian
was complaining of the same narrowness and slavishness: “I cannot bring myself to act like the examination candidates, who use compass and square to imitate the Wangs.”91
The danger for the idea of characterology is obvious. If it was possible to learn to imitate the Wang style, then it was possible to cloak one’s true character in an ingratiating style, a style to which one had been drawn solely by the desire for advancement.92 And this of
course meant that character was being shaped by self-serving goals, which was the opposite of what the ancient style prose movement demanded. The proliferation of ingratiating or even dull writing threatened the vitality of the whole tradition, but this was not simply an aesthetic loss: the Confucian program of self-refinement leading to social harmony was threatened. (If this seems exaggerated from a Western perspective, the importance of the role of the writing system is startling clear in Xu Shen’s (ca.58-ca.147) declaration during the Han dynasty that, “writing is the starting point of the sovereign’s governance.”93)
The fear that calligraphy was becoming deceptive must account for why Yan Zhenqing’s writing was so highly valued in Ouyang’s circle. Blunt and forceful, it was anything but ingratiating. Li Yu, the last emperor of the Southern Tang period (937-975) found it offensive, “like an uncouth farmer facing forward with arms folded and legs spread apart.”94 Zhu Changwen’s praise for Yan shares something with Li Yu’s criticism: “it is
not that Yan Zhenqing was unable to be seductive, but that a sense of shame kept him from it.”95 Yan also had the virtue of not being included in the Chunhua Pavilion. In
being excluded from the styles promoted by the court, the value of his calligraphy was made clear. It could be taken up by anyone resistant to the ingratiating court styles—and by extension, by anyone critical of imperial policy. “The mean-minded men of the world may write their characters skillfully, but in the end the spirit and feeling of their calligraphy has a fawning and obsequious manner,” said Su Shi.96
It seems likely that this fraught context led Su Shi to a looser and more provisional understanding of the relationship between calligraphy and character. In two colophons on
calligraphy, Su refers to a famous story related in the Liezi, (which he misattributes to Han Fei (c.280-233 BCE); Han Fei is also called “Hanzi” by Su.) An axe was stolen from a man. The man observed the boy next door carefully, and saw in his behaviour the unmistakeable signs that the boy must have been the thief. Later the axe was found in the man’s own garden, where he himself had left it. Studying the boy again, the man now saw in the boy’s behaviour clear signs that he would never have stooped so low as to steal. Su ends one colophon by saying, “I do not know if one’s perception [of character] follows upon how one thinks about the calligrapher, as in the case of Hanzi’s axe thief, or whether the manner is really there in the calligraphy.”97 In a second colophon, he
explicitly writes that, “If from examining a person’s calligraphy one can tell what kind of man he is, then the character of superior men and mean-minded men must both be reflected in their calligraphy. This would appear to be incorrect.” And yet he admits that when looking at Yan Zhenqing’s writing, “It is as if I see him—so awe-inspiring…Why? The principle is not different from Han Fei’s argument about the man who stole the axe. And yet, each person’s calligraphy conveys, quite apart from its skill or clumsiness, a certain drift.”98 The tie between the writing and the inward character is loosened. The
sense now is that through the hand, a certain flavour of the person is visible, a drift—but it is no longer the explicit and unmistakeable unveiling of one’s true character.
Su himself was deeply influenced by Ouyang’s collection of calligraphy, which was exceptional in being so much more inclusive than any before it. Far more extensive than the Chunhua Pavilion, Ouyang’s Collection of Antiquities—which Ronald Egan calls “the beginnings of epigraphy in China”99—included more than a thousand examples. For
about four hundred, Ouyang had written colophons on their provenance or contents. The
Collection was notable for including rubbings for a wide variety of reasons: their value for historiographic reasons, admiration for the person of the calligrapher, an interest in the style of the writing or its type of script, an antiquarian fascination with the obscure, or simply because the calligraphy was ancient. Egan points out that Ouyang had an unusual openness to unorthodox styles, and particularly to what the Han Chinese saw as the semi-
barbaric kingdoms of the fourth to the sixth centuries.100 Ouyang even included
inscriptions whose contents or authors he saw as dubious or even reprehensible—an inscription by Yin Zhongrong for example, from the reign of the notorious Empress Wu, who had usurped the Tang throne.101 He included Buddhist inscriptions, among them a
stele from the Shengui period of the later Wei (386-534), in spite of his distaste for the religion. “The prose may be crude and shallow, and speak mostly of Buddhist doctrine, but the calligraphy, and that alone, is frequently skillful and marvelous.”102 By collecting
so widely, Ouyang allowed a degree of dissonance between the style of the writing and its content, and between the calligraphy and its writer. Perhaps it was this that not only allowed Su Shi to doubt that character was directly revealed, but also opened social space for the striking individuality of Su Shi’s, Huang Tingjian’s, and Mi Fu’s calligraphy. It was not simply that a wider range of models for writing was offered by Ouyang, though that alone must have helped reinvigorate Northern Song calligraphy.103 It seems to have
allowed a relaxing of the Confucian rectitude that once had been required—since Buddhists, Daoist, and even “barbarians” were now seen as part of the ancient past to be taken up and transmitted.