The Organizations Of The So-called "Southern Sung Painting Academy" And Its Imaginations After 1279

The general view held by most Chinese art critics think the "Southern Sung Painting Academy" was a replica of the Northern Sung Hsuan-ho Painting Academy. This essay proposes to research the organizations on the so-called "Southern Sung Painting Academy" and try to point out how the Yuan, Ming and Ch'ing art critics imagined it after the Southern Sung Dynasty was collapsed in 1279.The Northern Sung Painting Academy was one of the four bureaus of the Han-lin Academy under the supervision of the Palace Domestic Service (Nei-ssu Sheng), together with the bureaus of Calligraphy, Astronomy, and Medicine in the Han-lin Academy. However, while Southern Sung Dynasty renaissance in Hang-chou, the three other bureaus were reconstructed in the Han-lin Academy, only Painting Academy was eliminated and disappeared. No evidence could be proved the existence of Painting Academy in this Dynasty. When did it establish was not founded. Where its geographic location was not recorded in early historical documents. The three kinds of so-called "address" were not exactly academic vestige. Moreover, we can't figure out what's the upper institution that dominated and managed this "Painting Academy".In Northern Sung Dynasty, the Han-lin Painting Academic was supervised by two palace eunuchs (kou-tang 勾当). Under two kou-tangs were classified by four ranking titles: Tai-chao, l-hsueh, Chih-hou, Hsueh-sheng and other carpenters. But in Southern Sung, it seems that no legitimate entrance examination and recruiting agency. The staff just only conferred Tai-chao and Chih-hou, both of which are not formal official title. All evidences mentioned above indicate that the so-called "Southern Sung Painting Academy" was not an actually entity institution. Since it was...