Arcadian Beauty
Regina Krahl
In the Song dynasty (960-1279), probably more than in any other period of China’s history, culture and education were considered the most important prerequisites of the elite and valued higher than office and rank. Advancement in society was certainly desired and sought, but at the same time spurned, and the state’s most outspoken critics were often celebrated as sages. Even if the post of a high official in the service of the Emperor was considered the ultimate achievement, a modest and humble existence far away from it all, in harmony with nature, was at the same time one of society’s fundamental ideals.
The cow herd with his water buffalo, the fisherman in his boat, the brush wood gatherer under gnarled pine trees are idyllic scenes endlessly repeated in paintings and evoked in poetry and prose. In the First Prose Poem on the Red Cliff Su Dongpo (Su Shi, 1037-1101), for example, writes, referring to himself and his friends (in the translation of A.C. Graham, in Cyril Birch, ed., Anthology of Chinese Literature, New York, 1965, p. 382):
Fishermen and woodcutters on the river’s isles, with fish and shrimps and deer for mates, riding a boat as shallow as a leaf, pouring each other drinks from bottlegourds; mayflies visiting between heaven and earth, infinitesimal grains in the vast sea, mourning the passing of our instant of life, envying the long river which never ends! Let me cling to a flying immortal and roam far off, and live for ever with the full moon in my arms! But knowing that this art is not easily learned, I commit the fading echoes to the sad wind.”
Yet not only the recluse, who lived indeed as a farmer in forced exile, as Su Dongpo did at the time he wrote these lines, expressed such thoughts. We hear similar eulogies of the secluded realm uncorrupted by civilization from the scholar-official, who held a high government post at the Song court, like Fan Chengda (1126-1193), who in many poems revelled in the joys of the country-dweller, for example in Late Spring (in the rhymed translation of Gerald Bullett, ibid., p. 387):
Few come this way, and if a stranger should,
See how the birds dart off, into the wood!
Shadows of dove-grey dusk the hills obscure,
And gathering reach my fagot-builded door.
In a boat light as a leaf, still visible,
My lad-of-all-work plies his single scull.
Alone, I weave my fence, of lithe bamboo,
And ducks go primly homewards, two by two.
If the bureaucrat may still have been able to live this dream at least at some point in his life, this was certainly impossible for the Emperor; and yet, the same ideals prevailed even at the imperial palace. The handscroll Awakening under a Thatched Awning, attributed to Emperor Gaozong (1107-1187, r. 1127-1162), the first emperor of the Southern Song in Hangzhou, for example, depicts a calm morning on a deserted lake, where a lonely fisherman is seen stretching his limbs after a night spent on his narrow, reed-covered boat, moored at a deserted rocky outcrop with nothing but shrubs and a willow tree nearby and a distant skyline of hills seen across the misty lake (Qianxi nian Songdai wenwu dazhan/China at the Inception of the Second Millennium: Art and Culture of the Sung Dynasty, 960-1279, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2000, pl. IV-8).
Such blissful, picturesque scenes of life in tune with nature have a strong and universal attraction, and similar ideas flourished in the West since antiquity. The pastoral verses of the Roman poet Virgil (70-19 BC), the Eclogues, inspired by earlier (3rd century BC) bucolic poems by the Greek poet Theocritus, depict idyllic paradisiacal tableaux of Arcadia (or Arcady), a remote and secluded highland region of ancient Greece, in the centre of the Peloponnese. He postulated the basic harmony of man with nature there, as summed up by E.V. Rieu (ed., Virgil. The Pastoral Poems, Harmandsworth, Middlesex, 1967 [1949], p. 14):
'It was in his Arcady, the pastoral world of his memories and of his fancy, that Virgil found the window which gave him this vision of the truth, and sensed the spirit that pulsates in everything that is, and makes a harmony of man, tree, beast, and rock. Nature is fundamentally at one with man, though towns and politics and war make him a refugee from her and from the truth. It is the shepherd and his sheep that are her nurslings and her confidants. It is they who comprehend, when the ‘woods … make music and the pine-trees speak’
In the Renaissance, Virgil’s notion of Arcadia was adapted and romanticised by Jacopo Sannazaro (1458-1530) in a pastoral romance of that title, which suddenly made this utopia so popular, that visions of an unspoiled idyllic landscape where herdsmen live the simple life close to nature, in unison with each other and their surroundings, sprang up everywhere, in poetry, prose, theatre and painting. Unlike in China, however, they remained pastoral phantasies and had few repercussions directly into everyday life.
In China, this glorification of simplicity, austerity and naturalness went further; it encompassed the arts as well as the crafts. In the visual arts, it found expression in various different ways, for example, in paintings in the intimate format of album leaves and fans depicting contemplative scenes, such as tranquil landscapes and close-up studies of birds or animals; and eventually in an extreme minimalism of form, as in the ascetic renderings of persimmons in different shades of black ink by the monk Muqi (c.1200-1270), or the seemingly spontaneous, rapid brush strokes of the one-time academy painter Liang Kai (c.1140-c.1210) in his rendering of the poet Li Taibo.
In the Song, the celebration of artlessness was more than a flight of fancy or a matter of taste, it was a reflection of an overarching world view. It therefore pervaded many aspects of everyday life and also filtered down to works of art. A ceramic pot, a tray of lacquered wood, a stone pebble, so obviously non-precious and humble, could become revered artefacts. Ceramics in particular were in use in a huge spectrum of society, from monks to drink their tea from, right up to imperial banquets. They could be basic mass-produced wares, but they equally lent themselves to extreme sophistication. Naturally, the hands of master artisans were crucially important in this elevation; yet, there always remained a pinch of unpredictability that was particularly cherished: the rare, fortuitous outcome of a firing, for example, that seemed more like a gift of nature than a man-made success. Song ceramics are among the few works of art, where differences between good but ordinary works and outstanding masterpieces can be very subtle and require connoisseurship to be fully grasped. This relative evaluation of desirability of two basically comparable pieces is as active today as it was in the Song, if not even more so (in the case of black Jian ware tea bowls of Fujian, for example, the price of an exceptional specimen today can be 100,000 times that of a basic piece).
As many Song vessels are deceptively plain, discernment of quality requires close study and some degree of knowledge, as quality can manifest itself in all aspects of a ceramic vessel, details of proportion, subtle notions of tactility, nuances of colour, random patterns of splashes or accidental webs of crazing, and so on. Master potters of guan, Jun or Longquan ware, for example, aimed to achieve results that amaze us like a stone that is coloured or veined in a unique, dazzling manner. Others, like those working in the Cizhou kilns, tried to appeal to our appreciation of a more rustic beauty, and sometimes of calligraphic brushwork.
The same simplicity of form can be detected in carvings of jade and other stones. Small carvings were often turned into fondling pieces, as smooth as pebbles worn down over millennia, and large boulders were only minimally shaped, both aiming to evoke a work created by nature.
The outstanding craftsmanship of the finest works of art paired with the severe minimalism that characterizes their designs gives Song artefacts a timeless, ‘contemporary’ feel that has an immediate appeal to any connoisseur of classic beauty. These works of art are anything but simple in their conception or their execution, but they try to reflect nature in a romanticised, an idealized – Arcadian – form.
Lot 3101. A cinnabar lacquer barbed dish, Song Dynasty (960-1279); 17 cm, 6 5/8 in. Estimate 200,000 — 300,000 HKD (25,480 - 38,220 USD). Photo: Sotheby's.
with shallow rounded sides rising from a recessed base to a barbed rim crispy divided into seven bracket foliations, the cavetto with defined ridges radiating from a central recessed barbed cartouche, applied overall save for the base with a rich crimson-red lacquer, the base lacquered black.
Note: Plain lacquer wares of the Song dynasty are amongst the most beautiful and delicate pieces known in this media. The present dish is striking for its deep red colour and simple yet elegant organic form. It is not only most pleasing to the eye but is also surprisingly light and thin when held in one's hand. This dish is the work of a highly skilled craftsman who has created a masterpiece that represents the refined taste of the Song elite literati.
A very similar eight-lobed red lacquer dish, from the Sedgwick collection, was sold in our London rooms, 15th October 1968, lot 56. Compare also a slightly smaller six-lobed dish of this type with a black lacquer base illustrated in Lee Yu-kuan, Oriental Lacquer Art, Tokyo, 1972, p. 118, pl. 52, where it is noted that the two characters on the base represent the alias of a man who apparently withdrew from society to study and meditate. A rare black eight-lobed lacquer dish, from a noble Japanese family collection formed prior to World War II, is offered in this sale, lot 3108; and a seven-lobed red lacquer dish (or perhaps a stand), from the Dubosc collection, was included in the Eskenazi exhibition Chinese Lacquer from the Jean-Pierre Dubosc Collection and Others, London, 1992, cat. no. 8.
Lot 3102. A rare brown lacquer alms bowl, Song dynasty (960-1279); 16 cm, 6 1/4 in. Estimate 300,000 — 400,000 HKD (38,220 - 50,960 USD). Photo: Sotheby's.
exquisitely modelled with a compressed globuar body rising from a rounded base to an incurved rim, attractively covered overall with brown lacquer.
Note: Fashioned to sit perfectly in two cupped hands, this bowl is unusual for its uniformly rounded form which features no foot or base and was probably placed on a stand. Bowls of this form, which formed one of the four essential possessions of Buddhist monks and were used to solicit food from the laity, are best known from the images of Bhaisajyaguru, the Medicine Buddha, who is often depicted holding a related alms bowl in his left hand.
See a larger black lacquer alms bowl with a flat base and a cover, attributed to the Five Dynasties to the early Northern Song period, excavated in 1978 from Futian gongshe, Jianli, Hubei province and now preserved in the Jingzhou Museum, Jingzhou, illustrated in Zhongguo meishu quanji feilei. Zhongguo qiqi quanji [Compendium of Chinese lacquer], vol. 4. Sanguo – Yuan, Fuzhou, 1998, pl. 67. This form experienced a renaissance during the Qianlong period (r. 1736-1795) and was reinterpreted in a wide variety of media; for example see a Qianlong mark and period cloisonné enamel alms bowl decorated with the Eight Buddhist Emblems, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Compendium of Collections in the Palace Museum, Enamels, vol. 2, Cloisonné in the Qing Dynasty, Beijing, 2011, pl. 261; and a spinach-green jade alms bowl decorated overall with writhing dragons, from the Thompson-Schwab collection, sold in our London rooms, 9th November 2016, lot 26.
Lot 3103. An extremely rare heirloom Longquan celadon bowl, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279); 11.3 cm, 4 3/8 in. Estimate 1,800,000 — 2,200,000 HKD (229,320 - 280,280 USD). Photo: Sotheby's.
superbly potted with generously rounded sides rising from a narrow, slightly tapered foot to a softly grooved band below the crisp and gently flared rim, covered overall save for the unglazed footring with a lustrous translucent glaze of soft blue-green tone.
Provenance: Mathias Komor, New York, 1952.
The Georges de Batz Collection, no. 75 (label).
Christie's New York, 30th November 1983, lot 331.
The Rodriguez collection (label).
Christie's New York, 20th September 2005, lot 279.
Sotheby's New York, 23rd March 2011, lot 506.
Exhibited: Chinese Ceramics and European Drawings from the Georges de Batz Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1953, no. 75.
Note: With its elegant form and unctuous glaze, the present bowl is a fine example of the high-Song taste for pure colour and understated refinement. Towards the end of the 12th century, the traditional lime glaze was replaced by a lime-alkali glaze, creating a higher viscosity and softer gloss. Multiple layers of glaze were often applied to capture a jade-like effect; a technique that was probably adopted from the Guan wares of the period. The glaze of the present bowl is a thick lustrous bluish green, often referred to as the kinuta glaze by the Japanese who were especially fond of these wares which were considered masterpieces of the Longquan potter.
A slightly smaller bowl of this type, excavated in 1974 at Quzhou, Zhejiang province, from the tomb of Shi Shengzu and his wife, dated to the 10th year of Xianchun (corresponding to 1274), is published in Dated Ceramics of the Song, Liao and Jin Periods, Beijing, 2004, pl. 6-19; and another, recovered from the Sinan ship wreck off the coast of Korea, was included in the Special Exhibition of Cultural Relics Found off the Sinan Coast, National Museum of Korea, Seoul, 1977, cat. no. 8. Further examples, all of slightly smaller size, include one from the collection of Sir Percival David and now in the British Museum, London, published in Illustrated Catalogue of Celadon Wares in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, 1997, Revised Ed., pl. 252; one, previously from the Lord Cunliffe collection, included in the exhibition Heaven and Earth Seen Within. Song Ceramics from the Robert Barron Collection, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, 2000, cat. no. 59; another was exhibited in Song Dynasty Ceramics: The Ronald W. Longsdorf Collection, J.J. Lally & Co., New York, 2013, cat. no. 10; and a fourth bowl, from the Thomas Barlow Walker collection, was sold twice in our New York rooms, 26th September 1972, lot 682, and 23rd/24th May 1974, lot 321. See also another bowl, but with a broader groove, published in the Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum. Chinese Ceramics, Tokyo, 1988, pl. 461.
The form of this bowl, with its gently grooved rim and short foot, may have been inspired by black Jian wares which were popular vessels in tea ceremonies; for example see a brown-splashed bowl in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the Museum's exhibition The Far-Reaching Fragrance of Tea. The Art and Culture of Tea in Asia, Taipei, 2015, cat. no. I-14.
Lot 3104. An extremely rare iron figure of an ox, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279); wood stand inscribed by Ruan Heng (1783-1859) and a calligraphic scroll by Tomioka Tessai (1837-1924) dated to 1921; ox 17.1 cm, 6 3/4 in.; scroll 215 cm, 84 5/8 in. Estimate 1,000,000 — 1,500,000 HKD (127,400 - 191,100 USD). Photo: Sotheby's.
cast in the form of a calf sturdily standing foursquare, portrayed with the head slightly raised and a pronounced snout marked with a gently upturned mouth, all below a pair of curved horns issuing from the forehead, the attractively pitted patina of the beast contrasting with the rounded contours of the well-proportioned muscular body, the wood stand with a shaped outline and resting on four short hemispherical feet, the flat surface of the stand with three cavities to house three of the ox’s legs and a protruding rounded fitting to support the shorter front right leg with the broken hoof, the curved sides inscribed by Ruan Heng and succinctly expressing the Ruan family’s high esteem of the rare figure and the state of its missing front hoof; the handscroll dated to 1921 with a painterly sketch in ink of the iron figure, followed by a long colophon titled Record of the Ancient Iron Ox expressing the calligrapher's adoration of the figure since seeing it for the first time in the late 1860s, signed by Tomioka Tessai "at the age of 86" (suggesting that the scroll can be dated to 1921).
Provenance: Collection of Ruan Heng (1783-1859).
Kyukyodo, Kyoto (letter dated to 1916).
Collection of Tomioka Tessai (1837-1924).
Note: The present iron calf, sturdily cast with a slightly raised head and an upturned mouth, epitomises the simple elegance of the aesthetics of the Song dynasty. The patinated surface, not dissimilar to that of a scholar’s rock, highlights its age and enhances its charm. The calf was rediscovered in the Qing dynasty and was kept and cherished by the literati Ruan family. The inscription by Ruan Heng on the old fitted wood stand dates the calf to the Southern Song. It further states that the calf, although discovered in a tomb with a broken leg, was nonetheless treasured by the Ruan family. The calf later found its way to the artist Tomioka Tessai in Kyoto, who expressed his fondness in a long colophon following a painterly sketch of the amiable calf.
Only a small number of ancient iron animal figures can be found in either public or private collections, probably due to the material’s susceptibility to rust. The present object can be compared to an iron ox of similar size and also with a muscular body and simple outlines, acquired in 1911 by Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919) in Hunan province. That animal appears to be an adult ox with a proportionally smaller head. It has an oxidised surface and can be dated to the Song dynasty or later. It is preserved in the Freer Gallery of Art (accession no. F1911.590a-b), together with a parcel-gilt iron reclining dog from the Tang dynasty gifted by John Gellatly (accession no. LTS1985.1.342).
In ancient China, buffaloes or oxen played an important role in agriculture and transportation. Pottery figures of buffaloes or oxen first appeared no later than the Han dynasty, but those made of metal are relatively rare. See a larger bronze figure of a standing ox (29.5 cm) excavated from the Tang tomb of Shi Siming (703-761), modelled with short straight horns and appearing to be an adult ox, published by Beijing Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics, ‘Beijing Fengtai Tang Shi Siming mu[Tang Tomb of Shi Siming at Fengrai in Beijing]’, Chinese Cultural Relics, 1991, no. 9, p. 32 and fig. 14. Compare also a bronze ox, adopting a slightly more dynamic posture and dated to Song dynasty or earlier, gifted by Ernest Erickson Foundation to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, included in Ancient Chinese Art: The Ernest Erickson Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1987, cat. no. 59.
The present figure was in the collection of Ruan Heng (1783-1859, zi Meishu, sobriquet Zhongjia, origin from Yizheng, Jiangsu province, between Nanjing and Yangzhou), who was the younger paternal cousin of the prominent literatary figure Ruan Yuan (1764-1849). His extensive literary works in various genres were published in Chuncaotang congshu[Collectanea from the Springtime Cottage], Zhuhucaotang shichao [Verse collection from the Pearl Lake Cottage], Zhuhucaotang biji [Notes from the Pearl Lake Cottage] and Yingzhou bitan [Notes from the Boat to the Fairy Isles]. He also edited an enormous 200-volume work on the study of Mencius, Qijing Mengzi kaowen bing buyi, as well as several anthologies of contemporary regional poets. Zhuhucaotang (Pearl Lake Cottage), a study and library located on the Ruan family estate (now within Yangzhou city) was probably of special importance to Ruan Heng, who owned a related seal and named his collection of works after the cottage. For more information on the cottage, see Yangzhou fu zhi [Gazeteer of Yangzhou Prefecture], vol. 31, p. 44.
The calf later entered the collection of a renowned Japanese scholar and painter from Kyoto, Tomioka Tessai (1837-1924), who named the present piece ‘Iron Ox’. Tessai’s love of the object is evident in his handscroll which comprises of a painting of the piece and an essay entitled Record of the Ancient Iron Ox. According to the essay, Tessai first saw the present piece “fifty years earlier” in the late 1860s in Kyoto, and he often reminisced about the encounter afterwards. He mentioned various owners before him, who greatly admired its rare elegance and treasured it despite its rustic appearance. The essay ends with one of his seals and his signature “Old Man Tessai, Hyakuren, at the age of 86,” suggesting that the handscroll can be dated to 1921.
Tomioka Tessai (originally named Hyakuren, zi Muken and sobriquet Yuken, later known as Tetsugai or Tetsu Dojin) was born and raised in Kyoto, where he also spent most of his adult life. Tessai received a literary education focusing on Kokugaku (national study), Buddhism, Confucianism, especially the school of Wang Yangming. In the 1860s, during the Meiji Restoration, he supported the transition from the shoganate to imperial rule. After the Restoration in 1868, in order to learn about local customs, geography and history, he travelled extensively throughout Japan and served as chief priest at various Shinto shrines. Tessai studied painting since the age of 19, but only became a painter after his return to Kyoto in 1881, at the age of 44. Regarded as the last great Japanese Nanga ‘Southern-style’ painter, Tessai demonstrated in his works a distinct individual style which hints at the Southern Song literary tradition, the influence of Ming and Qing scholarly paintings, as well as inspiration from nature. His paintings and calligraphy, treasured in Japan, are held in many museums, including the Tessai Museum in Takarazuka.
Lot 3104. An exceptional and extremely rare heirloom Guan lobed brush washer, Southern Song dynasty 1127-1279); 14 cm, 5 1/2 in. Estimate on request. Photo: Sotheby's.