By the beginning of the fourteenth century, self-inscription by the artist was already a requisite part of literati painting. That said, the intention of the artist as revealed in his inscription was not necessarily the defining interpretation of the painted image. Quite the contrary, as painting became increasingly a social medium among the literati, the audience played an even greater role in the meaning-making process.63 Large numbers of inscriptions
were often assembled after the completion of the painted image, and multiple interpretations, often driven by social relationships, were offered by the inscribers. Furthermore, it was often the owner, not the artist, of an artwork who was most keen on exploring the social potential of
Historiography in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” in Historians of China and Japan, ed. Beasley and Pulleyblank (London: Oxford University Press, 1961); Fredrick W. Mote, “Confucian Eremitism in the Yüan Period,” in Confucianism and Chinese Civilization, ed. Arthur F. Wright (New York: Anthenum, 1965).
62 The ten identifiable authors are Li Mingfeng (late 13th-early 14th century), Wang Xiaoweng
(1272-1336), Han Xing (1266-1341), Chen Fang (d. 1367), Zongyan (1309-1351), Qian Liangyou (1278-1344), Song Wu (1260-after 1340), Liu Hong (fl. fourteenth century), Gong Su (1266–1331), and Bai Ting
(1248–1328). Among them, Li Mingfeng, Wang Xiaoweng, Liu Hong and Bai Ting had held Yuan government positions. See Wang Deyi, Yuanren zhuanji ziliao suoyin (Taipei: Xinwe feng chuban gongsi, 1979-1982), 550; 178-179; 1781; 263.
63 Although this dissertation focuses on the activities of southern literati, it must be acknowledged that
the enthusiasm for painting inscription as a means of artistic expression as well as social exchange was never a phenomenon limited to the southern literati. Before the Mongol conquest, the northern half of China was under the rule of the Jurchen Jin dynasty (1115-1234), whose ruling class were ardent admirers of the Northern Song literati culture. Among other aspects of Northern Song literati culture, literati painting and painting inscription were practiced in the north by the educated elite of both Chinese and foreign descent. After the reunification, the Mongol rulers, in a relative short period of time, also developed an appreciation for the arts of China, and adapted painting inscription as a means of conveying political messages. For a discussion on the Yuan court’s use of painting and painting
inscription as political propaganda, see Ankeney Weitz, “Art and Politics at the Mongol Court of China: Tugh Temür's Collection of Chinese Painting.” Artibus Asiae 64, no. 2 (2004): 243-280.
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painting and painting inscriptions. The following discussion analyzes Zhao Mengfu’s
(1254-1322) Water Village and its inscriptions as a case in point to demonstrate the involvement of the literati audience in the meaning-making process and the social complexity of an art object in the early fourteenth century.64
Zhao Mengfu is arguably the most influential figure in the development of literati painting and calligraphy of the Yuan period.65 Furthermore, as a descendent of the Song royal family
and an advisor for five of the Yuan emperors, Zhao Mengfu’s social writing was in high demand. As Dai Biaoyuan (1244-1310) flatteringly related in the preface to Zhao’s anthology, Songxuezhai wenji 松雪齋文集, “[people from] four directions and ten-thousand miles away came for his priceless writings. Their horses and carriages blocked his door and overwhelmed the city gates. With even just a slip of paper and a few words, they came away overjoyed.”66 In
Songxuezhai wenji, there are fifty-three entries of poetic painting inscriptions, not including the nine huazan, official portrait encomia, composed mostly under imperial command.67 The casual,
64 The painting is in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing; the painting and its inscriptions are
reproduced in Gugong bowuyuan canghuaji (Beijing: Renmin meishu chubanshe, 1978-1989), vol. 4, 22-27, appendix 6-11.
65 Modern scholarship on Zhao Mengfu’s painting and calligraphy is indeed too extensive to recount in
present discussion. For some of the studies particularly concerning Zhao’s influence on Yuan literati painting and calligraphy, see Chu-tsing Li, “The Freer Sheep and Goat and Chao Meng-fu’s Horse Paintings,” Artibus Asiae 30 (1954): 279-346; The Autumn Colors on the Ch’iao and Hua Mountains: A
Landscape by Chao Meng-fu (Ascona, Switzerland: Artibus Asiae, 1965), and also “The Role of Wu-hsing in Early Yuan Artistic Development Under Mongol Rule,” in John Langlois ed., China Under Mongol Rule (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 331-369. See also Richard Vinograd, “Family Properties: Personal Context and Cultural Pattern in Wang Meng’s Pien Mountains of 1366,” Ars Orientalis 13 (1982): 1-29; Shih Shou-chien, “The Mind Landscape of Hsieh Yu-yu by Chao Meng-fu,” in Wen Fong ed., Images of the Mind (Princeton: The Museum, in association with Princeton University Press, 1984), 237-254; Chen Pao-chen 陳葆楨 and Chu Hung-lam 朱惠良. “The Impact of Chao Meng-fu in Late Yuan and Ming,” in Frederick W. Mote et al., Calligraphy and the East Asian Book, Gest Library Journal 2 (1988), 111-132. Shane McCausland, “Private Lives, Public Faces: Relics of Calligraphy by Zhao Mengfu, Guan Daosheng and Their Children,” Oriental Art 46, no. 5 (2000), 38-47.
66 Dai Biaoyuan, “Preface to Songxuezhai wenji,” in Zhao, Songxuezhai, 1.
67 The preface of Songxuezhai wenji is dated 1298. See Zhao Mengfu, Songxuezhai wenji (Shanghai :
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prose-format inscriptions, which probably outnumber his poetic inscriptions by many times, are not included in the anthology.68 As an advocator for archaism in the arts, Zhao Mengfu at times
expressed his artistic ideas in his painting inscriptions.69 These snippets of critical ideas,
however, are relatively rare among his writings. A review of his painting inscriptions from Songxuezhai wenji reveals that most of them were composed for social occasions and rarely concerns the artistic value of the works at hand: they address the literati audience, not painting specialists; therefore, they focus on the subject matter often with an emphasis on its literary associations, not artistic traditions or aesthetic ideas.70 At times they can even be quite insipid
and clichéd, such as this poetic inscription titled The Red Cliff:71
Master Zhou (Zhou Yu, 175-210) defeated Duke Cao (Cao Cao, 155-220) at the Red Cliff;
On the river of ten-thousand miles, the two heroes battled. The Odes [on the Red Cliff] of Su Shi are even more
marvelous and glorious;
Always remind me of the bearings of the Banished
周郎赤壁走曹公，
萬里江流鬬兩雄。 蘇子賦成竒偉甚，
長敎人想謫仙風。