A Ship Loaded With Paintings And Calligraphy In The Moonlight

The article, of which contents unfold vertically the history of the authentication and collection of the Chinese painting and calligraphy and horizontally the era in which Mi Fu lived, studies Mi Fu's collection of painting and calligraphy, his authenticating practice, his fake pieces, his influence and other relevant issues by synthesizing the available literatures.On Mi Fu's collection of painting and calligraphy, the author firstly studies the factors that affected his collections. These factors have both subjective and objective aspects. The objective side is that of the prevailing favor for antiques at the time and the wide circulation of paintings and calligraphy. The subjective side includes the official career, sociality, painting and calligraphy practices, aesthetics, personality, religious belief and the authenticating capability. The author secondly points out the possible origin and outlet of Mi Fu's art collections that research shows there were seven incoming channels for Mi Fu"s collections, i.e. through purchasing, exchanging, presenting, counterdrawing, exchanging fake for genuine, receiving briberies, borrowing but failing to return. The outgoing of his collections included: offering to the royal families, giving to friends and officials and nobles, cremated together with his body, inherited by his offspring and exchanged for other objects. A further study is on how Mi Fu appreciated, protected and mounted paintings and calligraphies.With respect to Mi Fu's authenticating practice, the author studies his experience, knowledge, methods and their historical origins while at the same time comparing other connoisseurs of his time, like Huang Bosi, Dong You, and Li Zhi, etc. Study shows that the methods Mi Fu used to authenticate painting and calligraphy were by examining the brush style, colors used and an overall layout, by using comparisons, by imprints and inscriptions, by past literatures, by tools and materials used and by. dressing habits, etc. The method of fake identification is also studied. An analysis on the merits and shortcomings of Mi Fu"s authentication methods is also given in the article.With respect to Mi Fu"s fake works, the article first summarizes a few publicly circulated works in history that either copied or counterdrawn by Mi Fu, then differentiates his fake pieces between intentionally made and unintentionally made ones. The unintentionally made ones are Mi Fu's either copied, practice writings or paintings in the process of learning that had been taken away by others and mountedin a way that look similar to the genuine ones. Study is made on the prevailing lake-making custom in painting and calligraphy during the period of the late Northern Song dynasty in the Chinese history. The article believes that Mi Fu was one of the fake works creators of the time and that Mi Fuvs practice in fake making enflamed the custom at the time just like adding fuel to the fire.In the article, the author summarizes the influence of Mi Fu"s authentication and collection in Chinese painting and calligraphy to the later generations from four aspects. Firstly, the record style in a diary format created by Mi Fu jn his works History of Calligraphy and History of Painting led to the formation and popularization of that style in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties in the Chinese history, especially in the Ming and Qing dynasties; Secondly, "the non-Li theory " proposed by Mi Fu had a psychologically predominant impact on the connoisseurs and collectors of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties; thirdly, Mi Fu's admiration of both Dong Yuan and the paintings in the southern China style had pushed Dong Yuan to the position of "incomparable in style " great master, which resulted in the emergence of the "theories of northern and southern styles " advocated by Dong Qichang, Mo Shilong, Chen Jiru and others, which further affected later collectors" selection of choice, i.e. preferring southern-styled paintings to northern ones, preferring paintings by literary scholars to professional painters.