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Among the star-like poets and painters of the Qianlong Dynasty, Zhang Zongcang (1686-1756) did not receive special attention from researchers. However, if the number of works of Zhang Zongcang and the proportion of His works inscribed by Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty are included in the "Shiqu Baodi", and the time he served in the palace, it will be found that this court painter was unusually loved by the Qianlong Emperor, which can be described as "a special encounter, a long time".
Examining the records of Zhang Zongcang's life in the history of painting, it will certainly be mentioned that he was favored by the emperor during emperor Gaozong's first southern tour in the sixteenth year of Qianlong (1751), and not only entered the palace service, but also rewarded the official title of head of the household department, and finally returned as an old man. Although some bibliographies misremember his time in the court as 19 years, in fact, only 4 years elapsed from the dedication of the painting to the return, compared with other court painters, Zhang Zongcang's stay in the palace was quite short. However, he created 172 paintings for the Qianlong Emperor, not including works cooperated with other court painters, and There are 116 works by Zhang Zongcang, who are recorded in the Shiqu Baodi alone, most of which have the imperial inscriptions of the Qianlong Emperor. The following author intends to reconstruct the outline of Zhang Zongcang's life based on the existing paintings, bibliographies, poetry collections and archives of the National Palace in Taipei.
▌ May the Emperor of the Dynasty be followed by the King: The Sixteen Views of Sutai that Turned Fate
As far as the turning point of his life is concerned, the "Sixteen Scenic Albums of Sutai", which Qianlong dedicated to Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty in the sixteenth year, should be Zhang Zongcang's most important work. Unfortunately, as far as we know, there is no such set of albums in surviving works. However, the National Palace Museum in Taipei also has a set of 16-axis works, that is, "Zhang Zongcang Paints Gusu Sixteen Views and Sixteen Axes" recorded in the continuation of "Shiqu Baodi". The 16 scrolls are neatly written in the lower right corner of the book with the numbers "one" to "sixteen", depicting 16 famous scenic spots in the area from Suzhou to Taihu Lake. Although the annual period has not been signed, after examining the imperial poetry collection, it can be known that it was composed in February of the sixteenth year of Qianlong, that is, the poem written by Zhang Zongcang's "Sixteen Scenic Albums of Sutai" during the southern tour.
Since more than one bibliography mentions that Zhang Zongcang entered the "album" during the Qianlong Emperor's southern tour, these 16 scrolls should be works written by Zhang Zongcang after he entered the palace and changed the original album form to a vertical scroll. This practice of reproducing paintings into copies of the same or different sizes was not uncommon in the courts of the Qianlong Dynasty. The first piece of this set of scrolls is "Wan Wat Chaotian", which depicts the view of the Beacon Peak of Tianping Mountain in Suzhou, where the columnar rocks stand and can be associated with the wat board held by the courtiers, because of the name.
Qing Zhang Zongcang", "Ten Thousand Wat Chaotian", 116.4×46 cm, National Palace Museum, Taipei
Zhang Zongcang adopts the style of Huang Gongwang as the keynote, depicting lush mountains, and at the peak, he mixes a square folding brushwork that is closer to Ni Zhan's folding belt, in addition to emphasizing the towering columnar mountain rocks, perhaps also hoping to summon the viewer's imagination of the longer Jinghao and Guan Tong mountains. The scene of "Ten Thousand Wat Chaotian" as the first of a series of suzhou scenic spots dedicated to the emperor can be said to be very appropriate, which seems to imply that the local subjects are joyfully welcoming the holy car of the southern tour. Through the last two sentences of Emperor Gaozong's inscription poem, "Chán (chán) 巉萬笏朝天阊, as if the king of wanfang jade and salty came to the king", it can be seen that the title of this landscape painting also praises the grand situation of the rise of the four seas under his rule and the coming of all nations.
These sixteen axes also show Zhang Zongcang's ability to depict landscapes in various styles. For example, the eighth axis, "Jijing of Shihu Lake", is a landscape work of Zhao Meng's style with green color.
Qing Zhang Zongcang, "Jijing of Shihu Lake", 116.9 ×46.4 cm, National Palace Museum, Taipei
The green mountain stones are not much wrinkled points, only along the outline of the mountain stones marked with reminder ink spots, the lake and the continuous distant mountains, is the understanding of Zhao Meng's style at that time. Zhang Zongcang adorned the mountains with high towers and built bridges on the lake, blending the ancient style with the scenery of the stone lake at that time. The thirteenth axis, the Qionglong Immortal Temple, depicts the Shangzhen View of The Qionglong Mountain, the "First Peak of Wuzhong".
Qing Zhang Zongcang, "The Immortal Temple of the Vault", 116.8 × 46.3 cm, Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei
The work uses the Style of Huang Gongwang to depict a low and open prospect, and then uses wang Meng's style to depict the intricate and rising mountain rocks, during which a winding ridge road leads to the Taoist palace in the mountains.
Qing Zhang Zongcang, "Lingyan Jicui", 116.9 ×46.2 cm, National Palace Museum, Taipei
The ninth axis, "Lingyan Jicui", has a long interlaced cloak, rows of moss dots, and blocks that blur its boundaries, clearly showing Zhang Zongcang inheriting Wang Yuanqi's interpretation of Huang Gongwang's style. The zigzag-shaped mountain path in the painting leads the viewer to tour the Lingyan Mountains until the Lingyan Mountain Temple, the Pure Land Sect dojo on it. The dense mountain rocks and the diffuse clouds are each in pieces, chimeric with each other, and cleverly match the direction of the mountain path to create a very dynamic composition. Zhang Zongcang lives at the foot of Lingyan Mountain, so this work is like depicting his own residence, which is naturally more careful, and should also use a proud composition that he has accumulated decades of skill.
The National Palace museum in Taipei also has a 184.8 cm in length and 150.8 cm in width, which is 5 times larger in size than the 116.9 cm in length and 46.2 cm in width, and should be a huge work specially ordered to be painted in line with the decorative needs of a large temple.
Qing Zhang Zongcang, "Map of Lingyan Mountain", 184.8 × 150.8 cm, National Palace Museum, Taipei
However, although the right half of the "Lingyan Mountain Map" seems to be much richer than the "Lingyan Jicui", the two should be completed according to the same composition. Especially if the left half protrudes from the cloud sea pavilion and other parts, it is easier to feel the similarity between the two figures. The "Lingyan Mountain Map" is also titled with the poems of Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty in the "Lingyan Jicui", but it was written by the poet Wang Youdun, and several mountain dwelling poems of Gaozong and Shen Deqian were also copied, because the foot of Lingyan Mountain is also the place where Emperor Gaozong's favorite lyricist and poet friend Shen Deqian resigned.
The court of the Qing Dynasty originally had regulations on submitting and storing manuscripts, but Zhang Zongcang originally had the habit of keeping manuscripts. According to Xu Jian's "Yu Dong Trivia", Zhang Zongcang once said: "The back of the peaks, the twists and turns of the paths, the dense forests, and the gathering or dispersion of villages all have certain reasons, should not be hasty, and should be deeply exquisite." Therefore, when the ancients painted, there must be a blueprint, which can avoid the disease of the dragon's veins and the path is not passable. Afterwards, he sent the manuscript to Xu Jian, "Large and small frames, all from the jingguan Dong juhuang wang ni wu zhu everyone's authentic works, born out of the great appreciator's collector." The similar composition of "Lingyan Mountain Map" and "Lingyan Jicui" can be seen as a good example of Zhang Zongcang using the same painting to adjust the changes according to needs. This is a necessary means of balancing efficiency and quality for painters with heavy workloads.
▌ Almost No Tranquility: Painting tasks in the court
Zhang Zongcang mentioned the situation of working in the court in the inscription "Imitation of Wang Mengshan Landscape Map" (tianjin art museum collection) made for his family: "When in the inner court, morning and twilight return, there is almost no tranquility. The actual work of the court painters and Zhang Zongcang's original imagination did not know how big a gap there was. In addition to works in general forms such as scrolls, scrolls, and volumes, according to archival records, he also used paintings to decorate the walls, open windows, tables, screens, bed frames, etc. of many palaces. In addition to his own independent paintings, he also had to paint with other court painters of different styles, and the figures, pavilions, flowers, birds and animals were depicted by others, and the parts of the landscape were left to him. In addition to self-expressive works, it is also necessary to remake some old works in the palace, such as "Thirty-Six Views of the Summer Resort".
The images of the 36 views of the summer resort existed as early as the Kangxi Dynasty, such as Shen Wei and Dai Tianrui, as well as several versions of woodcuts and copper plates. Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty also composed poems one by one, and added 36 scenes. In order to carefully preserve these inscription poems, which were copied from his grandfather the Kangxi Emperor, Emperor Gaozong at least asked Zhang Zongcang and Qian Weicheng to draw a set of "Thirty-Six Views of the Summer Resort" album. Both were largely fine-tuned according to the Kangxi version, mainly replacing the mountain stone with their own style.
Qing Zhang Zongcang, "Thirty-Six Views of the Summer Resort, Water and Clouds", 31.5×30.2 cm, National Palace Museum, Taipei
Taking Zhang Zongcang's last opening "Water Flow and Clouds" as an example, the mountains, clouds, trees, and water surfaces of the original map are each extended in a left and right strip, and various motifs are stacked layer by layer; Zhang Zongcang tightens the scope of clouds and fog, so that the clouds seem to slowly spread from the right side of the accumulation to the left, the mountain is more exposed, and then the thick and light ink color boundaries are divided far and near, enhancing the spatial depth of the picture, and the original slopes next to the building and the foreground are reduced, so that the visual elements in the painting are more condensed and concentrated. However, the original building style and location are still quite faithfully copied. It can be speculated that the original instructions issued by Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty were not to let the painters create new images of the "Thirty-Six Views of the Summer Resort", but to require them to integrate into their own style, but also to retain the original images in order to have a closer connection with the Kangxi Dynasty's "Thirty-Six Views of the Summer Resort".
In addition to the above-mentioned tasks, which may be more "unexpected", most of the surviving paintings are the works of Zhang Zongcang himself, and the quality is very satisfactory to Emperor Gaozong of qing, and almost all of them leave inscriptions on the paintings.
Qing Zhang Zongcang, Painting Landscapes, 138.1×64.3 cm, National Palace Museum, Taipei
The "Painting Landscape" hidden in the National Palace museum in Taipei is one of the best, and Emperor Gaozong inscribed the inscription 13 times before and after, and inscribed the word "God" in the blank space of the fist stone, and the seal of "Ancient Rare Heavenly Son" was engraved on it. In addition to the large and small block inscriptions of Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty, there are also many injuries on the paper. Referring to the first sentence of the inscription poem "Yue Sex Mountain House Sticky Mural" in 1775, it can be seen that this painting was originally pasted in the Biyun Temple Trial Spring Pleasant Mountain House, and later framed into an axis, so the painting heart will be mottled. The Trial Spring Delight Mountain House is a tea house loved by Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty. Although Zhang Zongcang did not sign the annual budget for this work, under the item of "Living Records and RuyiGuan", Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty issued a decree on March 26, 1888 in Qianlong: "The Biyun Temple Test Spring Yue Sex Mountain House uses a painting strip, and Zhang Zongcang paints." "The drawings mentioned in the archives should be made for this purpose. Although Zhang Zongcang's landscape is used to test the spring pleasant mountain house, it should not be a scene writing work with this theme. The earliest inscription of Emperor Gaozong on the painting was written in the 20th year of Qianlong: "Benquan Hundred Roads under the Rock, on the upper structure of the Feilang Valley Mouth." Set up a mountain cloud called the sea, should be suspected that the waterfall hanging as a sail. The content of this poem is mainly to describe the picture, and it seems to leave a special impression on the waterfalls and clouds in the painting. The latter inscriptions are more likely to see Gaozong's love for this work, such as the Qianlong thirty-ninth year inscription "Test spring pleasure this wandering, painting The exhibition zong cang heart is open", admiring this painting makes Gaozong feel relaxed. Another example is the inscription of Qianlong in the forty-eighth year, "Mo Dao Mountain House has no long objects, Zong Cang's painting can be piped Ni Huang", which Gaozong believed could compete with the works of the great painters Huang Gongwang and Ni Zhan of the Yuan Dynasty. The painting of the Zhongshan Body Is indeed an ancestor of Huang Gongwang's style, and the part that reminds Emperor Gaozong of The Qing Dynasty of Ni Zhan may be the fist boulders written with the word "God", the foreground slope stones, and the thin bamboo branches in it.
The Gaozong inscription on "Painting Landscapes" also constantly mentions "Shen Yun", such as Ding Hainian's inscription poem: "The mountain house on the spring is quiet and idyllic, and the Zong Cang Shen Yun is sharp." Laughing at what the tatami once said, this painting should be sticky in this room. Another example is the Qianlong Fifty Years title" "Oily and charming Wei Ping Duan, that is made of ordinary pictures to see." Qianlong's fifty-two years of inscription is even more interesting: "When you look at the painting before you remember it, you know when the qi rhymes." It is impossible to know its meaning from the inscription on the painting, but in the poem notes of the "Imperial Poetry Collection", it is clearly written: "In the past, every time I looked at the paintings of Zong Cang, did I ask whether it was cheng?" If the qi rhyme has not arrived, the less swirling qi rhyme comes, then the painting will be complete. This is the most beautiful way to draw three ambiguities, and yongshi does not know this. "Emperor Gaozong would often personally observe Zhang Zongcang's painting process and talk about painting theory. In the poem annotation of Zhang Zongcang's "Supplementary Huiquan Tu", it is also mentioned: "In the past and Zongcang discussed the painting method, every name should be based on qi rhyme. Therefore, when titled Zhang Zongcang's works, he repeatedly said words such as "Shen Yun" and "Qi Yun". Xu Jian also watched Zhang Zongcang paint: "Paper will be declared, and pen will be heavy." When a piece of paper arrives, there is a look around the liuhe, looking at the imagery of the present and the past. At the beginning, the light pen was slightly outlined, the operation was dismal, and the cloth became the overall situation. Then the pen will fall on the paper, and it will go with all its strength, and the first will be low and the shoulders will be moved. The situation is established, and then finely stained, long and short brushes, dry and wet, thick and light, casually down, and finally no slack pen. Will be done, then stroke the counselor, if there is a last resort. The scene that Gaozong saw when Zhang Zongcang painted may be like Xu Jian's description, like a wonderful performance, and the final stage of "Fu Zhi Zhi" summons the charm of the landscape and water like a finishing touch.
▌ Laughter begins to be cherished
Zhang Zongcang was the 17th grandson of the Song Dynasty master Zhang Zai (1020-1077), born in Huangcun, Wuxian County in the 25th year of Kangxi (1686), under the tutelage of the Orthodox landscape painter Huang Ding (1650-1730), and the Tianjin Art Museum's "Huangding Statue" has the inscription "Zungu Fuzi Lord Jade Photograph". Qianlong Nine Years Jia Ziqing and Zhang Zongcang Supplementary Scenery "can be clearly proved. Zhang Zongcang should have had a painting name when he was in his 20s. During the Kangxi Dynasty, when Song Zhi, the envoy of Hunan Province, asked Huang Ding to paint a huge "Ten Thousand Miles map of the Yangtze River", Zhang Zongcang joined in this matter as a high foot, and also copied Song Zhi's collection of Wu Zhen's "Map of the Yanjiang River of The King of Jinqing". After that, he had developed in Hanshang (Yangzhou), and should be friendly with the Ma brothers of the Xiaolinglong Mountain Pavilion, and had imitated the Huang Gongwang "Xiashan Map" collected by ma several times. During the reign of Zhang Zongcangyongzheng, he served as a subordinate of the Waihe Department under the Governor of Hedao, and in the eleventh year of Qianlong, he was transferred to the chief of the Lihe River, during which time he took the Huai'an area as the main residence, but also traveled to and from Suzhou, and traveled to Henan, Hubei and other places.
Until the crucial sixteenth year of Qianlong, Zhang Zongcang was serving as the master of The Lihe River, and the reason why he was able to "present" paintings to Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty was the arrangement of Gao Bin (1693-1755), the governor of the river at that time. Gao Bin was a man of the Interior Ministry who covered the yellow flag and served as a political envoy since the Yongzheng Dynasty, holding important positions such as river channels, weaving, and salt administration, and was a close confidant of the emperor. It is difficult for ordinary subjects to see Tianyan, and the so-called "dedication of paintings" is by no means a dedication that can be achieved as long as the painter is willing, and the actual situation should be as Zhang Zongcang's friend Xu Jian (1712-1798) said: "On the southern tour of the holy car, Gao Gongbin, the governor of the river, used his paintings to enter, that is, summoned to give poetry titles." Through Gao Bin's introduction, the painting could be praised by Emperor Gaozong, and Zhang Zongcang also had the rare opportunity to be seen by the emperor, and was ordered to paint the "Huishan Bamboo Furnace Mountain House Map".
The Qianlong Emperor must have left an excellent impression on Zhang Zongcang, who was 66 years old at the time. After the end of the southern tour, Gao Bin sent Zhang Zongcang to the Forbidden City, and Zhang was allowed to walk in the Ruyi Pavilion and became a court painter. On May 4, the "Chronicle" of the Sixteenth Chronicle of the Qianlong Ministry of Internal Affairs recorded: "Bai Shixiu, a member of the Yuanwai lang, and The General Dekui sent the university scholar General He Gaobin to paint a piece of Zhang Zongcang folded piece and drew a picture to hold it, and handed it over to the eunuch Hu Shijie to play. He was allowed to walk in the Ruyi Pavilion, and his paintings remained. ”
There were many craftsmen of various types in the court, and there were also differences in rank and salary. What rank does Zhang Zongcang belong to? According to the record of June 2 in the "Chronicle": "The painters Zhang Zongcang and Xu Yang paid monthly money and grain at public expense, and rewarded them with the same as Yu Province and Ding Guanpeng, starting in June." Thanks. "Check the records of the salaries of the painters before and after, Yu Province (1692-1767) and Ding Guanpeng (?) ~1771) At that time, he received silver eleven taels per month, and belonged to the highest rank of "painters" in the court. Zhang Zongcang, who had just entered the palace, was placed as a painter of the highest rank, which shows that Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty attached great importance to his painting skills.
The record of the Qianlong Emperor's order for Zhang Zongcang's painting in the "Living Record" began on June 7, 166, when Zhang Zongcang was commissioned to cooperate with Wang Youxue, Yu Sheng, and other court painters to "make a wall for the bedspread in the east second room of the throne of tongyuan". The final record is that on April 28, the 19th year of Qianlong, the emperor issued six fans and asked him to divide the paintings according to poetry with Xu Yang and Fang Chun. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth year of Qianlong, although there were no more than 30 articles in the "Living Record" that asked him to paint, the work actually undertaken must be far more than this, and there were more than 100 works of his subjects in the first, continued and third editions of the "Shiqu Baodi" alone.
Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty was obviously very satisfied with Zhang Zongcang's performance, and not only wrote poems for his paintings, but also gave him a dove staff, a house, a blessing word for the New Year, and a mink coat in winter. In the summer of the eighteenth year of Qianlong, he was ordered to walk in the Qi Xiang Palace and repeatedly gave him food. On September 15 of the same year, he decreed that he would be rewarded with an additional title of chief of the household department, which was really pampered. However, in the following year, Zhang Zongcang returned from illness. What disease did the 68-year-old Zhang Zongcang suffer from? There are claims of lung disease, and there are also cases of elbow disease. In any case, he returned to his hometown after mid-September of the nineteenth year of Qianlong and died at the age of 70.
After Zhang Zongcang returned from illness, Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty cherished his paintings even more, and even the works that were originally attached to the wall were also framed, and the works before he entered the palace later entered the Qing Palace collection. After his death, Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty received and inscribed the "Imitation of Huang Gongwang Landscape" painted by him before entering the palace. "Imitation of Ni Zhan's Brushwork" is also another work before entering the palace.
Qing Zhang Zongcang", Imitation of Ni Zhan's Brushwork, 1746, 57×35.3 cm, National Palace Museum, Taipei
The work changes Ni Zhan's classic "two banks of one river" style composition, from the foreground to a mountain range that winds to the left. Although Ni Zhan's folding belt is continued to be dry, but the layers of rubbing and dyeing, occasionally sketching the outline with a wet pen, and then reminding the critical points with heavy ink, it is no longer the original simple pen and ink of Ni Zhan's work. As described by Zhang Zongcang in the "Continuation of the Painting Sign": "With the pen calm, the mountain stone method is mostly accumulated with dry pens, and the trees are also rubbed with light ink, and the spirit is quite impressive." Although this painting has become its own face, it has successfully made people think of Ni Zhan as soon as they see this painting. Zhang Zongcang painted the inscription: "If You Yunlin sees it, I don't know if he will approve it?" "Obviously, this is a proud work.
Many of Zhang Zongcang's works before entering the palace are similar to "Imitation of Ni Zhan's Brushwork", which is based on the theme of imitating the Song and Yuan dynasties. This is the practice of inheriting the orthodox patriarchs of the Song and Yuan Dynasties. Zhang Zongcang once taught Xu Jian: "Today's painters, who have no confidence in their hearts, smear at will, do not follow the ancient law, use them selfishly, and make up their own minds, is for the magic way, not my authenticity, and must not make a single offense under my wrist." "It can be seen that he values and adheres to the ancient law."
After entering the palace, Zhang Zongcang's painting insights or feelings when painting could no longer be inscribed at will, just like other painters in the palace, almost only the courtiers could remain on the painting. Fortunately, the imperial poems have been preserved, giving us a glimpse of the traces of his interaction with Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty in the palace.
※ This article is based on the article "Shen Yun Fluttering Sharp Points- A Small Exploration of Zhang Zongcang's Works Collected by the National Palace In Taipei" edited and arranged by the National Palace Museum in Taipei/ Qiu Shihua, and the original article was published in the May 2013 issue of Collections
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