Guiyang, December 25 (CNS) -- Insight into the spiritual life of literati in the Song Dynasty from the volume of "Letters of Han Qikai in the Northern Song Dynasty".
——Interview with Liu Heng, Research Librarian of Guizhou Provincial Museum
China News Service reporter Yuan Chao
The volume of Han Qikai's Letters of the Northern Song Dynasty is a volume of Han Qi's two authentic ink on paper (i.e., "Xinsu Post" and "Xunri Post") and 13 inscriptions of later generations, which is now stored in the Guizhou Provincial Museum and is a national first-class cultural relic. The whole volume is 30.9 centimeters in length and 867.5 centimeters in width, both of which were created in the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, and are the only hand-me-down law book of Han Qi, a famous minister of the Northern Song Dynasty.
Han Qi was known as the "First Prime Minister of the Northern Song Dynasty" and had an impact on the politics, literature, and calligraphy art of the Northern Song Dynasty. There are very few calligraphy works handed down by Han Qi, and only one or two inkblots have survived except for these two posts. In 2012, the volume of "Letters of Han Qikai of the Northern Song Dynasty" was included in the "Second Batch of Catalogue of Cultural Relics Prohibited from Leaving the Country (Calligraphy and Painting)" by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China. What is the story behind this national treasure? Recently, Liu Heng, a research librarian at the Guizhou Provincial Museum, was interviewed by the China News Service's "East and West Question" to interpret this.
The transcript of the interview is summarized below:
China News Service: What are the main contents of the two posts in the volume of "Han Qikai's Letters in the Northern Song Dynasty"?
Liu Heng: The first post is called "Xinsu Post", and the second post is called "Xunri Post". According to the convention of naming the poster, it is generally named by the two words in the first sentence of the book.
The first post "Xinsu Post" is a thank you letter written by Han Qi to Ouyang Xiu, the first sentence "Xinsu is not a good manner", which means "I haven't seen you for a few days". When Han Qi was an official in his hometown of Xiangzhou, he built a garden called Dayjin Hall for the people of Xiangzhou to enjoy. Han Qi asked Ouyang Xiu to make a note, so Ouyang Xiu wrote the famous "The Story of the Dayjin Hall", and Han Qi immediately wrote him a letter to express his gratitude, which was the "Letter of Su", so later generations called this letter "Thank You Post".
The "Letter Post" in the volume of "Han Qikai's Letters of the Northern Song Dynasty". Courtesy of Guizhou Provincial Museum
The second post "Ten Day Post", because the handwriting is blurred, can only see a dozen words, in front of the word "Ten Day" two words, so it is called "Ten Day Post". Judging from the handwriting, this post is exactly the same as the "Xinsu Post", which can be judged to be Han Qi's authentic handwriting. Due to the lack of clarity in some of the contents and the inscription, it is difficult to determine who this letter is addressed to. After some research and speculation, later generations believe that it may have been a letter written by Han Qi to Du Yan, another famous minister and calligrapher of the Northern Song Dynasty.
The "Ten Day Post" in the volume of "Han Qikai's Letters of the Northern Song Dynasty". Photo by Yuan Chao
China News Service: How did this handwritten handwriting come to the present day, and what are the stories behind it?
Liu Heng: Whether it is Han Qi or Ouyang Xiu, at that time and in later generations, they were "idol-level" literati. In the Northern Song Dynasty, there were many people who collected the letters of these celebrities. The circulation of Han Qi's handwritten handwriting can be understood from some of the inscriptions that followed.
After the shame of Jingkang in the Northern Song Dynasty, the old things in the capital were scattered everywhere. In the Yuan Dynasty, a Khitan general named Xiao (also surnamed Shi Mo) in Taizhou, Zhejiang, took the Han famous Confucianism as his teacher, collected thousands of books at home, and was also good at poetry and writing, and had a good relationship with the literati in Jiangnan at that time.
Xiao Jizu's ancestor was the founding general of the Yuan Dynasty, and during the war, Han Qi's two letters were passed on to the Xiao family and passed to Xiao Jizu. In the middle and late Yuan Dynasty, Xiao Jizu and Han Qi's ninth grandson Han Chengzhi became friends, and under the witness of many literati, Xiao Jizu gave Han Qi's two posts to Han Chengzhi, which became a good story at that time. Different people have made inscriptions on this matter from different angles, that is, the 10 paragraphs of Yuanren Epigraphy after the second post seen now.
Part of the inscription in the volume of "Han Qikai's Letters of the Northern Song Dynasty". Photo by Yuan Chao
Part of the inscription in the volume of "Han Qikai's Letters of the Northern Song Dynasty". Photo by Yuan Chao
During the Ming Dynasty, private collections in the Jiangnan region flourished, and it is assumed that the volume of the Northern Song Dynasty Han Qikai Letters should have been in the hands of private collectors in Jiangnan. In the Qing Dynasty, because Kangxi and Qianlong were both fond of collecting and calligraphy, a large number of private collectors in Jiangnan were concentrated in Beijing. During the Kangxi period, the famous collector Gao Shiqi discovered Han Qi's letter, spent a huge amount of money to buy this volume, and listed it as the top god in his collection.
Subsequently, the volume of "Han Qikai's Letters of the Northern Song Dynasty" entered the Qing Palace, and Han Qi's book can be seen in the "Sanxitang Fati" and "Shiqu Baoji" compiled by the royal collection of the Qianlong period, and was treasured as the best cultural relics.
In the early years of the Republic of China, when Pu Yi left the Forbidden City for the Northeast, he took a number of cultural relics with him, including Han Qi's letter. Later, these cultural relics were scattered among the people, and they were transferred to Guizhou several times and stored in the Guizhou Provincial Museum.
}: How to explore the spiritual life of the literati and writers of the Song Dynasty from the volume of the Letters of Han Qikai of the Northern Song Dynasty?
Liu Heng: The Northern Song Dynasty was an era of prosperity in culture and education, and the emperor ruled the world with literature and paid more attention to literati and ministers. Although the literati of the Northern Song Dynasty had different political views, they had good personal relations. For example, Han Qi and Wang Anshi have different views on the change, but they have a lot of contacts in private and praise each other's poetry and calligraphy.
With the study room as the core, at the exhibition of "Seeing the Heart of Heaven and Earth - The Image and Image of the Chinese Study", the exhibition hall presented a meandering booth layout. Photo by Sheng Jiapeng
The letter "Xinsu Post" was written to Ouyang Xiu, Han Qi and Ouyang Xiu have been friends for decades, from Han Qi's first career, to the two of them returning to their hometowns, and even to the end of their lives, they still maintain correspondence. There are as many as forty-five letters with Han Qi preserved in "The Complete Works of Ouyang Xiu".
At the same time, the officials and literati of the Song Dynasty paid great attention to the taste of life in addition to being officials. At that time, the material life was relatively abundant, and the literati's spiritual pursuit was also very high, and the collection of antiques rose. Literati officials often hold elegant gatherings, or play old things, or poems, wine, and singing, and it is even more common to give friends with texts and books.
Ouyang Xiu wrote an article for Han Qi's Dayjintang, and then Han Qi asked the great calligrapher Cai Xiang to put this document in stone and carve it into a Dayjintang tablet. Han Qi, Ouyang Xiu, and Cai Xiang were all models for scholars at that time, and the "Legend of Dayjintang" and the Dayjintang Tablet were passed down as good stories for a while, and they wrote poems for the literati.
The "Han Qi Daytime Jintang Picture" screen, which is exhibited in the Wenhua Hall of the Palace Museum in Beijing, attracts visitors. Photo by Yi Haifei
China News Service: What is the significance of the volume of Han Qikai's Letters of the Northern Song Dynasty for today's research on the style of calligraphy in the Song Dynasty?
Liu Heng: There are only a few ink books left in the Song Dynasty, most of which are the works of Su Shi, Mi Fu, Cai Xiang, and other calligraphers, and other than that are relatively rare. Han Qi's two posts just filled a gap in the official style of calligraphy in the Song Dynasty, and also confirmed that Yan style was a very popular style of calligraphy in the Song Dynasty society, especially in the literati society.
Although there are very few authentic handwritings of Han Qi that have been handed down, there are many records of his calligraphy in ancient books. The calligraphy master of the Northern Song Dynasty, Mi Fu, recorded in the "History of Books": "Han Zhong dedicated Gongqi to a good face book, and the people all learned the face book." This means that Han Qi likes Yan Zhenqing's words, and everyone also learns Xi Yan characters. Later, there were many records of Han Qi's calligraphy in the literature of the Ming and Qing dynasties, all of which said that his calligraphy was rigorous and calm, and he won Yan Zhenqing's samadhi. The hand-down of "Xinsu Post" and "Xunri Post" confirms the record of Han Qi's calligraphy in ancient books of the past dynasties.
Part of the inscription in the volume of "Han Qikai's Letters of the Northern Song Dynasty". Photo by Yuan Chao
Part of the inscription in the volume of "Han Qikai's Letters of the Northern Song Dynasty". Photo by Yuan Chao
Part of the inscription in the volume of "Han Qikai's Letters of the Northern Song Dynasty". Photo by Yuan Chao
In addition, the 13 inscriptions at the end of the volume of the Northern Song Dynasty Han Qikai Letters are also quite valuable, especially the 10 inscriptions of 9 people in the Yuan Dynasty. There are not many ink blots of literati calligraphy handed down in the Yuan Dynasty, and the inscriptions of these 9 people include line script, regular script, official script, and cursive script, which fills some gaps in the history of calligraphy in the Yuan Dynasty. At the same time, the nine people who wrote the inscription in the Yuan Dynasty had multiple identities, including high-ranking officials of the imperial court, civil scholars, Han people, and Semu people, who were intertwined and became poetry friends with each other, so that people today can see a cross-section of the literati exchanges in the Yuan Dynasty.
At the back of the volume, there are also inscriptions by Wang Hongxu and Gao Shiqi of the Qing Dynasty, who were close ministers of Kangxi, and the style presented in calligraphy is more than respectful and lacking in personality, from which we can also see the requirements and advocacy of official calligraphy in the Qing Dynasty. (ENDS)
Interviewee Profile:
Liu Heng, a research librarian, works in the Guizhou Provincial Museum, and concurrently serves as a graduate tutor of the School of Culture and Museums of Guizhou University for Nationalities, engaged in the research of local history and art history, as well as the collation and exhibition of related cultural relics. He has published the academic monograph "Huanghua Evening Fragrance - Volume Research", served as the executive editor-in-chief and published two albums, "Guizhou Provincial Museum Collection Series - Collection of Modern Guizhou Calligraphers and Painters" and "Collection of Treasures - Collection of Masterpieces from Guizhou Provincial Museum", published more than 20 related papers, and independently planned more than 10 special exhibitions.