At the Winter Olympic Games, Chinese ice dance group Wang Shiyue / Liu Xinyu appeared in a Chinese-style competition uniform painted with "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", smudging the long artistic conception of classical landscapes on the ice surface, refreshing the best ranking of Chinese ice dance. Previously, at the 2022 Spring Festival Gala, the dance poetry drama "Only This Green" derived from "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" also surprised four seats with its lush Chinese aesthetics.
How attractive is "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" really? Why does the dust of history cause frequent tributes from future generations? After experiencing secret collections, smuggling, scattering folk, and entering the Forbidden City again, why is the life of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" confusing? The surging question invited art historian Zhao Hua to talk about the mystery behind "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains".
Genuine or fake?
@ Changing a name is still quite difficult: why do some people say that "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" is a fake painting from the Ming and Qing dynasties? What is the story of its birth?
Zhao Hua: Any ancient calligraphy and painting has aesthetics, inheritance and other defects and flaws, then any ancient calligraphy and painting will be falsified, if someone asks questions and judges the forgery, then there is no authentic handwriting in the world. There should be sufficient evidence to question the old broad consensus, and the overthrow of the old broad consensus should be based on the new broad consensus. To judge the authenticity of an ancient calligraphy and painting, the first thing is to grasp the main contradiction and look at the part that cannot be forged, that is, the superb artistic standard and the unique exclusivity of the artistic style. Secondly, it is necessary to understand what level the general imitators are, what are the top imitators and imitations, what is the level, what are the characteristics, how big the gap is, and where the bottleneck is; if there is a comprehensive understanding of the above problems, it can be found that the average person's level of the counterfeiter is greatly overestimated.
Song Wang Ximeng's "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", collected by the Palace Museum in Beijing
Take "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" as an example, comb through the high-level painters on the entire green landscape and see who can reach the level of "Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains". Can Qiu Ying achieve it? No. If Qiu Ying can't, then other first-class painters of the Ming and Qing dynasties will find it difficult to reach the level of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains".
Then look at the supporting evidence and logic. The "Shouguo GongShu Seal" is a rare seal, which was only interpreted 5 years ago to find a reference to Fan Zhongyan's "Daofu Praise". The Qing Dynasty did not even interpret the interpretation, what was the motivation for doing such an unpopular "masterless seal"? "□□ Dian Bao" is also a rare seal, which has been mistaken by everyone as "Ji Xi Dian Bao" before, will Liang Qingbiao make a seal that he does not know, and stamp it with an heirloom that is not sold?
"□□ Dianbao" local special processing of high-definition images
Looking at the materials used, "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" 50 cm wide, 12 meters long whole silk, silk density of 1 cm more than 50 silk, Song Dynasty folk, Yuan, Ming and Qing top calligraphers and painters can not use such a good silk, where to find such a material. The painter may have various flaws, but the counterfeiter is not omnipotent, and the falsification must talk about evidence and logic.
If you want to explore the story of the birth of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", only the 77 words of Cai Jing's inscription can be examined, and it can be divided into twenty or thirty keywords to explain and extend them in detail and comprehensively one by one. The entire era background is examined by the year of the work, and the work is examined by the entire era. I think that we can understand it from the perspective of painting science, painting academy, prodigy, library and other systems, and we can examine all aspects of social life at that time in combination with Wang Ximeng's age and identity. At present, there is no new literature, and we can only enrich these 77 words through the environment. I recommend reading Mr. Yu Hui's book "A Hundred Questions and a Thousand Miles", which also provides good ideas in his works.
"A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" at the end of the volume Cai Jingbaowen
@ A pencil cut off himself: It is said that the author of the Qianli Jiangshan Map originally only had the word "Xi Meng", how did it become "Wang Xi Meng"?
Zhao Hua: "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" on this page is indeed only Cai Jing's inscription mentions the word "Xi Meng", the earliest mention of "Wang Xi Meng" three words from Liang Qing's title of the signature, because this signature is written by Liang Qing title, so in recent years there have been various speculations.
The circulation of real ancient calligraphy and painting hand scrolls, due to continuous wear and tear, the most easily destroyed is the outer signature. In the process of re-mounting ancient calligraphy and paintings, most of them will be re-inscribed according to the previous framed and damaged outer signature. The more important records of several large-scale exchanges are as follows:
1. Thoroughly, "Qi Dongye Language" Volume VI "Shaoxing Imperial Palace Calligraphy and Painting Style" Article: The famous paintings of the Fashu that Emperor Gaozong visited, "all those who have been inscribed by their predecessors are removed" and "If there is a Title of Xuanhe Imperial Book, it is not used to remove it in parallel".
2. Wang Shidian's "Secretarial Supervision Chronicle" records that on March 21, 1316, in the third year of Yanyou (1316), Emperor Renzong decreed at His Highness Jiaxi: "If the calligraphy and paintings in the secretarial prison are not signed and pasted, Zhao Ziangdu was taught to write"; the calligraphy and paintings of the Yuannei Province, such as the "Preface to the Heavenly Calendar BenLanting Pavilion" in the Palace Museum, have Song Lian inscriptions on the back, or for the purpose of transfer, saying that the outer signature was inscribed by Zhao Mengfu, but the calligraphy and paintings of the Yuannei Province that have been preserved to this day, the Zhao Mengfu inscription has disappeared.
Liang Qing's title "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" was signed
The practice of the ancients may feel very "irregular" in today's view, today's food and medicine can be marked with two-dimensional codes, and accidents are easy to trace back. Ancient calligraphy and paintings have survived to this day, and most of the circulating records are incomplete and not "standardized". Dealing with historical issues, it is not possible to judge a piece of a widely agreed heirloom as a counterfeit because the ancients "did not standardize" and did not play a two-dimensional code. We can only use the norms and conventions of the ancients to examine the ancients, questioning the broad consensus should have sufficient evidence, and overturning the old broad consensus should be based on the new broad consensus.
Generally speaking, there is no impulse to tamper with the original author of the original name without interest or motivation, especially the so-called "Wang Ximeng" who was "changed" or "arbitrarily named" was not well-known during the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, and could not produce major benefits, and the "Map of a Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" was handed down by the Liang family and had no intention of profit. If there is no sufficient evidence, we should think that Liang Qingbiao was replaced by an external signature in accordance with the general procedure at that time. The original signature will generally have information such as the author's life, important collectors, and important inscriptions, and the information in the Song song poems that prompts Wang Ximeng to die early in his twenties may also come from the external signature before Liang Qingbiao's replacement. This is the most plausible explanation under current evidence and logical conditions.
What is the exquisite appraisal of ancient calligraphy and painting?
@Qingfeng Yang: What interdisciplinary knowledge is needed to do the identification of ancient calligraphy and paintings? For example, do you need knowledge of chemistry?
Zhao Hua: The object of ancient calligraphy and painting appraisal is art, but the appraisal itself is not art, but science. Traditional appraisal includes the appraisal of artistic styles, seals, inscriptions, mounting, materials, historical knowledge and other content.
In terms of interdisciplinarity, the first is scientific thought, and the scientific ideas in all natural science disciplines are interconnected and can be used as references. High-quality identification should be scientific and have five characteristics:
First, the appraisal should have a correct view of authenticity and falsity, with reference to the previous question and answer; second, the phenomenon and characteristics must be able to accurately describe and define; third, the description and conclusion should be reproducible, reproducibility is objectivity, the main (I) see is red, the guest (others) can also see red, this is objectivity; fourth, the appraisal conclusion should be falsifiable, avoid subjective appraisal method, avoid adjective appraisal method; fifth, appraisal should maintain independence, appraisal conclusions should be predictive, and any appraisal cannot have complete evidence But the correct appraisal must be proved here by future evidence, which is foresight.
Artistic feelings exist objectively in some people, and if this part of the people happens to not have the technology of objective description, then science leaves another channel for feelings, that is, foresight. For example, the chemistry discipline you mentioned, chemistry itself has a branch of "identification", that is, "analytical chemistry", which will also use the above ideas. Chemical analysis, the specific application of physical analysis, detection technology is not a problem, how to sample, how to explain "how to sample" is the first major problem, ancient paintings and calligraphy by the physics, chemical "pollution" is particularly serious, the accident is very strong, it is difficult to establish physical, chemical exclusivity characteristics, as well as physical, chemical characteristics staging and chronology, only sampling technology and sample pretreatment technology to get a breakthrough is possible for ancient calligraphy and painting identification, I am a chemistry major, so I am personally pessimistic. In some specific disciplines, I am more optimistic about computer image processing, computer-aided measurement, statistics and other disciplines, the current traditional identification to scientific identification in the process of transformation, image processing and statistical analysis is still a weak link, promising.
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