Editor's note: This is an article published by the author Liu Jiuzhou in the October 2010 issue of Calligraphy magazine, starting from the "Pillar Inscription", discussing some common problems encountered in "identification" in 2010. These issues have not been addressed in previous identification theories and are still valuable for republication today. But the future and complete "forensics" is by no means limited to these contents.
The emergence of the controversy over the authenticity of the "Pillar Inscription" is a good phenomenon. In any field, when there is some kind of repeated debate, it is the moment when the field is facing development.
In 1962, Kuhn (1922~1996) said in his "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (there are three Chinese translations) that the development of theories and disciplines does not rise at a uniform speed, but develops in a step-by-step manner. Kuhn's formulation has now had a great influence on academic circles around the world. To put it simply, the "accepted paradigm" is the logical starting point of Kuhn's concept of disciplinary development, and before the "accepted paradigm" was produced, any science had gone through the initial stage, and different people made different descriptions and interpretations of the same phenomenon. It was not until the emergence of important scholars that formed some kind of "consensus" and "norm" through the collection of a large number of facts, and at this time, some differences in the initial period of the discipline disappeared. After that, scholars worked on a higher theoretical level to do some tinkering work – until there was an "anomaly", which was a new "academic crisis". At this time, scholars need to abandon the previous norm and start looking for new beliefs and methods to explain the problems that the previous "paradigm" cannot explain, and try to climb to a new level—this is the formation of a new "norm". This is how the disciplines continue to move forward in a step-by-step manner.
The emergence of the controversy over the "Pillar Inscription", as well as a series of similar related controversies in the previous years, can be regarded as a number of "abnormal cases", showing that the appraisal of Chinese calligraphy and painting is in an "academic crisis".
What are the difficulties in appraising calligraphy and paintings?
The calligraphy and painting of the ancients have been handed down to this day, and there are many mixed and plausible phenomena of authenticity and falsehood, so they need to be identified. Collectors throughout the ages have bought fakes, including emperors, famous ministers, great artists, great merchants, great literati, and scholars. In short, the ability to contact all aspects of calligraphy and painting, spare you the power of the world, the exhaustion of the organs, the exquisite knowledge, and the wonderful pen articles, when it comes to the appraisal of calligraphy and painting, they are all planted.
Why are so many capable people planting their heads on this? Because in ancient times, there was no photoplate-making technology, and there was no way to print images. There is only one authentic handiwork, and there is no other way to incarnate it as a reference except with the help of photoengraving technology. Once there is no reference, no matter who it is, it can only be black-eyed.
In the identification work, the probability of error is also high, because there are only two kinds of results, authentic or fake. In the 2010 World Cup, Paul the Octopus guessed the results of the game 8 times in a row and became a world star. It can be seen that there is a 50% probability of error every time, which is very error-prone, and if it can be good in a row, that is the expert. In ancient society, celebrities had many opportunities to read calligraphy and paintings, and the possibility of making mistakes was higher than that of ordinary people, which is why countless celebrities were stumped to see the identification of calligraphy and paintings in the literature.
You may say: The emperor has a lot of reference items, why did he also make mistakes? This brings us to the question discussed in this article: In addition to references, identification also requires academic research. The ancient emperors did not have such a high level of academic research results to serve them.
Sufficient references and a high level of academic knowledge are the two most important factors in the appraisal of paintings and calligraphy.
What is the difficulty and ease of appraising calligraphy and painting?
So, how to divide the difficulty of appraising calligraphy and painting?
From an academic point of view, the "Pillar Inscription", which created the highest price for Chinese art at auction, is the easiest object to identify. We look at this question from two perspectives: the richness of the reference materials and whether a high level of academic reasoning is required in the identification.
First of all, there are other authentic works of Huang Tingjian in the "Pillar Inscription" that can be compared, which is a primary problem in the identification, because the identification needs empirical evidence, and the empirical information already exists, which is easy. What is a high-level problem in academia? For example, the appraisal of "Diagram of the Brook Bank" is a high-level question, and in that appraisal 11 years ago, all the world's leading connoisseurs were involved, and their opinions were diametrically opposed. It shook the entire appraisal community, and the aftermath has not yet dissipated. The so-called controversy caused by the "Pillar Inscription" is far from reaching the level of controversy in the appraisal community, because no first-class connoisseur has ever questioned the "Pillar Inscription". What is a first-rate connoisseur? is a connoisseur who has discovered a work that can affect the authenticity of art history. The reason why Zhang Heng, Xie Zhiliu, and Xu Bangda became the most important connoisseurs was not whether they made mistakes, but because they made extraordinary contributions. Why is the identification of "Streambank Map" a high-level issue? The identification or denial of "Brookbank Map" is composed of indirect evidence organized by scholars "academic logic", and any discussion about this work is almost an abstract discussion and lacks direct evidence, which is completely different from the problem faced by "Pillar Inscription".
In the primary appraisal, it can also be divided into upper, middle and lower grades, and the "Pillar Inscription" is the least difficult. Because Huang Tingjian's authentic works, no more, no less, there are only dozens of them. This is the preferred quantity for scholars, and it does not require a lot of effort to collect information and does not need to face the dilemma of having too little information. According to Chen Yinke's logic, this kind of stock, similar to the study of medieval history, is the easiest to produce results. One is that there is very little information, for example, the appraisal of Huaisu calligraphy in the Tang Dynasty is more troublesome, because there are only one or two standard authentic works. There is also a contrary situation, that is, there are too many materials, such as Dong Qichang's calligraphy, there are about 3,000 pieces of his authentic handwriting, and no scholar has clearly seen one-third of them so far, which also brings a lot of trouble to the identification. If the artist's artistic level is not very high, which makes his art more "arbitrary", then even if there are many references, there will be trouble, such as a large number of scholars' calligraphy.
However, "Pillar Inscription" does not belong to the above types, "Pillar Inscription" is a reference material, no less, and easy to collect, coupled with Huang Tingjian's artistic level is particularly high, which leads to the identification of "Pillar Inscription" is not a problem.
Those who think that the works of famous artists are the most difficult to identify, and those who think that "Pillar Inscription" is a difficult identification problem, are actually very unfamiliar with identification.
By the way, the various types of primary appraisal have been analyzed above, but what are the difficult areas in advanced appraisal? If there is a lack of image data in the appraisal, or even a lack of written data, it is necessary to use research methods outside the art field to participate in the appraisal of artworks, this is the most difficult time. For example, in the field of painting, the paintings of the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties are very difficult, because there are too few authentic works for comparison, and there are almost no works of the same style. At this time, any little progress could rewrite the history of art.
But this is not the case with the "Pillar Inscription", and the identification of the "Pillar Inscription" is not difficult. Since most of the Pillar Inscriptions are very specific, this section of this article places the Pillar Inscriptions in the context of the difficulty of identification, so as not to mislead readers into thinking that we are discussing a global problem.
There are two kinds of mistakes in questioning the identification logic of the "Pillar Inscription".
Why are so many people questioning the "Pillar Inscription," which is not very difficult to identify? An analysis of these "doubts" shows that there are three major types of errors. Identification of logical errors, identification of ideological errors, identification of the use of incomplete concepts.
This section discusses identifying logical errors. At present, the logic of questioning in all aspects is the same, whether it is three questions or nine questions.
There are two types of identification logic errors. In the first case, the similarities and differences between the text and the authenticity of the work are confused, and in the second case, the subjective doubts of the individual are confused with the objective authenticity of the work.
Let's start with the first case.
The most questioning statements revolved around the differences between "Pillar Inscription" and "Valley Collection". In the face of these meticulous comparisons, what I would like to ask most is: Did Huang Tingjian's other dozens of authentic works rely on comparison with anthologies for identification? The answer is obviously no. I would also like to ask: If there is no record of the "Pillar Inscription" in the "Valley Collection", then the "Pillar Inscription" cannot be identified? The answer is still no. Because with the current academic level and the level of materials, it is completely possible to rely on Huang Tingjian's other authentic works as a reference and rely on artistic characteristics for identification. In other words, the comparative study of images in art history on the issue of Huang Tingjian's calligraphy has been developed enough, and its academic intensity surpasses other roads to the authenticity of Huang Tingjian's calligraphy.
If this is the case, there is no necessary connection between the similarities and differences of any text and the authenticity of the "Pillar Inscription", right? So, does literature research still have the significance of identification?
Relying on pure literature to study the authenticity of the "Pillar Inscription" is, logically, an inconceivable act. Because they did not withhold the documents that are absolutely related to the authenticity of the Pillar Inscriptions, what is the significance of literature research in the authenticity controversy?
Let's talk about the second case.
In this discussion of the "Pillar Inscription", Mr. Wang Naidong said that the lack of a pen for the character "Xuan" is a characteristic of Huang Tingjian's authentic handwriting, and why is there a trace of the character "Xuan" on the "Pillar Inscription" that is "a little" and then scraped off? It seems to have caught the feet of the forger. In fact, in the course of 900 years of circulation, who can guarantee that no one will first correct the original work and then change it back? Some people think that it is impossible to change the original work!
Let me illustrate this with an example from the 21st century. Wang Duo's genuine handwriting has been auctioned about 150 pieces in the last 10 years, each of which is very precious, there is a cursive vertical scroll of "Zun Ti Fu Ru", "Ken Zhong's old parents smiled" on the paragraph, in the first auction, the third line of the word "body to", between the top and bottom is cursive pen, and the catch is more anxious, leaving a cross stroke. When the piece reappeared, the cross-stroke was scratched off by a 21st-century collector. Since the original work is Ayamoto, the scratched marks cannot be concealed. If anyone finds a photograph from the first auction, they will ask, "Who dares to do something on the original?" and in fact, collectors in the 21st century are still working on the original.
The word "Xuan" in "Pillar Inscription", if a collector does not know that Huang Tingjian has the habit of missing a pen for the word "Xuan", and looks at the lack of a pen (that is, it is evasive, but it is too easy to see the lack of a pen), it is really sad, just add a little, it is very easy. Isn't it very easy for another collector to scrape off this point with a knife when he knows that the previous collector had no knowledge, and that the Buddha has dung on his head?
In my article "Art History as a Social Science Faces Methodological and Theoretical Challenges", I once said that a painting or calligraphy is either an authentic work or a fake, and if it is a fake, it means that the painting and calligraphy was not created by the artist himself, so every link should be fake. All the current doubts, including some other question-type articles published in this field before, are similar to the above situation, just raising questions, not examining this question at all, and hurriedly saying: fake. How can this be done? Every link of the whole volume has not been examined!
Due to the problem of the dictionary in the appraiser's mind, similar "questioning" in the past 10 years, whether it is the questioning of "Yan Shan Ming" or the questioning of "Ode to the Teacher", the thinking is exactly the same. Of course, "Ode to the Teacher" is still a more difficult topic, not as simple as Huang Tingjian and Mi Fu calligraphy identification.
A look at the source of these two errors reveals that the "skeptics" have confined themselves to the writings of the older generation of connoisseurs, and have misgrasped the seemingly most interesting method of "finding flaws" among them.
The 20th century connoisseurs, represented by Zhang Heng, Xie Zhiliu, and Xu Bangda, have all talked about the stories of discovering "flaws" in the appraisal more than once in their respective works, and thus determining the authenticity of the story. These dramatic "textual retrospectives" have influenced an entire generation. For the older generation of connoisseurs, when they write articles, they often write about the most interesting experiences, but in terms of the tens of thousands of paintings and calligraphy they have seen in their lifetime, the vast majority of them do not rely on any "flaws" to identify. And the new generation of learners, who do not have the experience of the older generation, use a few examples in the book as general principles, and this is problematic.
For a piece of calligraphy and painting, excluding the factors of later tampering, a definite flaw can certainly determine that the whole volume is wrong, but the key lies in whether the "flaw" you are talking about is an omission in the dictionary in your personal mind, or is there an "objective flaw" that really exists?
Every appraiser has his own appraisal dictionary, and perfecting this dictionary is a matter of his life. The more omissions this dictionary is, the more it will make the opposite judgment when encountering the authenticity. Because the information contained in the authentic work is rich and original, and the "personal dictionary" is simplified, idealized, and relatively omitted (because it comes from limited textbook knowledge), it is possible to find a lot of information on the original work that they cannot understand, so it becomes a "point of doubt". For example, if a person has only seen five standard authentic paintings, then the difference between the "Wang Yuanqi" he recognizes and the actual "Wang Yuanqi" can be imagined. The less he sees it, the more simple and intense the "Wang Yuanqi dictionary" in his mind becomes, and when he encounters the need for identification, there must be a difference between him and the five works in his memory - because the artist's work cannot be completely repeated, and this difference is often interpreted as a "fake". This phenomenon is the most common occurrence in the current identification, and people who dare to "tell a lie" are often thought to be "strict-eyed", but in fact, they do not see much, lack of specialized research, and omission of knowledge. It is often said in the appraisal: fakes cannot be tested, and authenticity is the most tested.
Mere skepticism without academic testing is not worth paying attention to, and the news media seems to be completely unaware of the problem. On various calligraphy websites, many netizens are also questioning, because the dictionary in their minds is even more omissionary. When they faced the "Pillar Inscription", they questioned not ten or eight questions, but 20 or 30. In fact, the answer is the same: there is an error in the dictionary in your mind. Next, you need to help them correct the wrong dictionaries one by one, and everyone doesn't want to believe that the dictionary they are based on is wrong, so there is always an argument that shouldn't happen in the end - because most netizens have strong instinctive logic, and the academic knowledge required to get involved in identification is relatively lacking. So, sometimes not responding is the biggest response.
The correct logic of identification is to check each link, lay out evidence on the authenticity of each link, and discuss the relationship between multiple links, which is the basic logic of identification. Looking for a little literature, or finding one or two "flaws", it is obvious that there are logical omissions in judging the authenticity of the whole volume.
It would be a mistake to question the appraisal of the Pillar Inscription
Authenticity and "logical perfection" are two different issues. It is acceptable for everyone to point this point out alone, but when it comes to the actual situation, it may be immediately forgotten.
The standard discourse of many "doubts" is: "How could the Yellow Valley make such a mistake"? This is typical, requiring "logical perfection" in identification.
This questioning line of thought is actually to require that the calligraphy and paintings that have been handed down to this day, each one is a genuine masterpiece, every link is very thorough, many works are in the same style, and it is easy to identify, collectors of any time period have records, each seal is neatly stacked, and so on, so that they can feel at ease. In short, it's better to be exactly the same as the textbook, is that possible? It's really reminiscent of a story on paper.
From a practical point of view, there is no ancient painting and calligraphy that can meet such a requirement. Everyone's style is changing, and the level is also changing, and this problem, speaking alone, is acceptable to anyone, but once it is used, it is easy to explain "the style change that has not been talked about in the textbook at present" as "it is impossible to write such characters in the Yellow Valley".
Any genuine work may contain elements of illogicality. This was not said in previous forensic books, because previous authors may have found it difficult to explain why the authenticity of the work could not pass the "logical test". In fact, the answer is very simple, the things left by history, the information is inherently incomplete, we really don't know why one day, why the Yellow Valley wrote like this, why did it miss two words, and so on, because any calligrapher may miss two words. Without a video recorder to record everything, how can we allow the ancient Dharma to withstand such an inquiry? How can incomplete information withstand the "logical test"? Only complete information can withstand the logical test.
Perhaps the fallacy method can be used to show how wrong this idea is. For example, there is no signature on the "Qingming Riverside Map", and there is no Song Dynasty seal, and at present, there is no other authentic work of Zhang Zeduan in the world, which can be used as a comparative product, such an important authentic work, there is not even a more similar copy (there are hundreds of copies of the same copy), and there is only one inscription separate from the original, which is the main direct evidence of the "Qingming Riverside Map". How can an inscription be used as the basis for the authenticity of the world's first masterpiece, and how can it be consistent with the identity of such a masterpiece? But it is very strange, everyone knows that this is undoubtedly the authenticity. In fact, not only is "The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival" so inconsistent with the idea of "questioning", any piece of calligraphy and painting before the Ming Dynasty can be dumbfounded by this "logical perfection" method. For example, why is there a signature of "Fan Kuan" on Fan Kuan's "Journey to the Mountains and Streams"? Why is there no signature of Li Gonglin on the "Five Horses"? "The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival", "The Journey to the Mountains and Streams", and "Five Horses" are probably the three most important works in ancient China.
What to do?
"Question" these three masterpieces, can't you?
If you don't even know how the most important works are recognized, how can you dare to question the new works?
In the process of questioning the Pillar Inscription, the identification concept itself is incomplete
The core concept of "style" in the past appraisal is not perfect in itself. The impact of conceptual inaccuracy is very great, for example, the ruler to measure the authenticity of the work is wrong, that is, the rules of quality standards are wrong, so many people are wrong together.
In the appraisal theory, Zhang Heng's theory of "style of the times and personal style" is still dominant, which is consistent with the theory of "style" in Western art history. In fact, this concept is more applicable to the identification of standard works, and to the various elaborations of masterpieces, masterpieces, and typical style works that appear in textbooks. For works that are not standard style, the concept of "style" will confuse the truth in the appraisal, because those who are not standard style works, have obvious differences from standard style, have no actual appraisal experience, and have not left the textbook, are easy to be misled by the concept of style in this link. This is another reason for the doubts that "Pillar Inscription" encountered this time.
At the time of Zhang Heng, it was necessary to establish the most basic textbook of Chinese art history, and to find and establish the most typical appearance of the vast majority of artists, so the concept of style was indeed sufficient at that time. Because it was not possible or in the conditions to find the entire work of most artists at that time, there was no need for better weapons, and thus a series of recognized books was formed. In Kuhn's words, it is the formation of the old "accepted paradigm".
Now we are facing a completely different situation, the basic appearance of the vast majority of artists has been clear, but all kinds of artworks are still being discovered, the original simple concept, has become relatively primitive, and needs to be updated and enriched.
In the language of science, with the rapid expansion of data, research methods need to be innovated. In Kuhn's words, "scholars need to abandon the previous norms and begin to look for new beliefs and methods to explain problems that the previous paradigm could not explain, and try to climb to a new level."
If you are only familiar with the old textbooks, and only the masterpieces and masterpieces, then it is natural to be familiar with the concept that led to this textbook - style. Relying only on the style to observe the "Pillar Inscription", there are naturally differences between them - doubts arise. Using old concepts to deal with new situations is obviously going to be problematic.
If we take the example of Lin Sanzhi's calligraphy, the situation is clear. So far, Lin Sanzhi has published more than 10 calligraphy anthologies, including about 200 typical works and representative works. If we are only familiar with these 200 works, and in the face of the nearly 10,000 ordinary authentic works scattered by Lin Sanzhi on the market, we only use the concept of "style" to identify them, and the interference factors of fakes actually exist, it is very likely that a large number of ordinary authentic works will be regarded as fakes. Why? Because we don't have the real concept of identifying the original, that is, the weapons we identify are too old and outdated.
At this time, we can observe another interesting phenomenon, some calligraphy and painting dealers who do not know Lin Sanzhi's cursive characters can easily identify the authenticity of Lin Sanzhi's works. Why? Because they've already summed up Lin Sanzhi's habits. Even in anomalous works, there are habits that are hard to abandon. The style of a general work may fluctuate, and in terms of style, it may be confused with a fake (because a fake tries to imitate the style), but the underlying habits of the artist are the same.
What about artists who are used to being more hidden? For example, Dong Qichang's calligraphy. What about artists whose habits have changed so much? For example, Wang Xizhi's calligraphy. Quite simply, we pay attention to their artistic standards. Their superb artistic standards are difficult for anyone to achieve in ancient and modern times, which is why they have become great artists.
Therefore, in addition to artistic habits, it is also necessary to pay attention to artistic standards. I've used the analogy of jumping 2.40 meters in a high jump competition, and even if the person is masked, you can identify who he is, because there are only a few people in the world who have this level. On the other hand, if you jump more than 1.80 meters, no matter how stylish and habitual you are, we will not be able to recognize it – because there are so many people who have this level.
Therefore, in addition to the artistic style, enhancing the mastery of the level of artwork and the habits of the artist is the core concept of Chinese painting and calligraphy appraisal. This concept goes beyond the simple concept of style, that is, it breaks through the old "paradigm" and the new complex concept, which is more suitable for the current new situation of high-speed information exchange and a large number of works being explored. This new complex concept is more suitable for collecting and researching the complete works of any artist, rather than just finding some masterpieces. If such a concept is accepted by future learners, they will not see the "Pillar Inscription" that is slightly different from the representative as a style, and it will be said to be a fake.
Of course, the judgment of the artistic level of the link requires rigorous training to be able to comprehend. Many skeptics think that the low artistic standard of the "Pillar Inscription" is related to the low ability to judge the level of calligraphy. At present, the vast majority of Chinese still believe that they have the ability to appreciate and judge calligraphy, but in fact this is obviously impossible. "Pillar Inscription" shows a clear Huang Tingjian's penmanship literacy, which is extremely difficult to achieve and is completely ignored by doubters. People who are really familiar with Huang Tingjian's calligraphy should know that this is a genuine work after reading the "Pillar Inscription", because the artistic level and habits are too obvious, and the artistic level of calligraphy mainly comes from the literacy of penmanship, but the connotation and judgment of penmanship, until today's highly developed information, is still a relatively hidden knowledge, only spread in a small range, even in the calligraphy world, it is far from being widely known. This time, the skeptics of "The Pillar Inscription" obviously do not know this knowledge, so they cannot see in the "Pillar Inscription" the difficult and difficult to replicate Huang Tingjian's special brushwork, as well as the direction of Huang Tingjian's efforts shown by this brushwork, which led to today's controversial situation. Among Huang Tingjian's dozens of works, the brushwork of "Pillar Inscription" is unadorned and clear, directly explaining Huang Tingjian's unique "rowing" brushwork, showing "new information about art history", if an ancient work contains clear "new information" of art history, it is often the absolute guarantee of authenticity, because it is equivalent to a high jumper making movements at a height of 2.40 meters, and there is no need to doubt that it is a nameless person.
Some people are always worried, whether someone will learn the characteristics of penmanship, if that is the case, penmanship is not penmanship, calligraphy is not calligraphy, because the closest case of ancient and modern penmanship, is Wu Ju to learn Mi Fu, Yu and learn Zhao Ziang, we can still see the clear penmanship differences from their works today.
There are also people who keep pointing out the "flaws" in the penmanship in the "Pillar Inscription", how to explain this "flaw". In fact, it is very simple, what are the characteristics of penmanship literacy? That is, if you do not understand the characteristics of penmanship, you can never write it, and it can be said that you can't write it anywhere, because to express special penmanship, you first need ideological guidance. Conversely, it is possible to have mastered the characteristics of penmanship that are not well expressed by chance, but most of the places can be expressed. For example, a master may accidentally jump less than 1.80m, but a mediocre player can never jump 2.40m. Brushwork is a concept in calligraphy that has the nature of "distinguishing between superior and inferior".
When we consider the style, artistic standards, and artistic habits, the conclusion of "Pillar Inscription" is very clear. "Artistic style" can be imitated, but it is difficult to imitate the artist's habits that come from the cross-synthesis of various factors and the artistic level that represents the identity of the artist.
Even if you take a step back and use the image comparison method, you can clearly see the consistency between this volume and other authentic works, and if you can't understand the basic comparison of images, it means that you have not been able to get out of the scope of the textbook, which is equivalent to learning mathematics, and only doing example problems.
How to look at Mr. Wang Naidong's doubts about "Pillar Inscription".
This section is a direct response to some representative "doubts". Let's take Mr. Wang Naidong's "nine loopholes" as an example to see if these statements can be further discussed. Let's count down from the ninth "hole".
The ninth loophole is that "Pillar Inscription" is something thrown out by a neighboring museum in Japan, and a neighboring museum has always not thrown out the real work. This statement is a bit bizarre, as if some neighbors in Japan have mastered the ultimate truth of calligraphy identification, and what they throw out must be fakes. This "loophole" statement is somewhat bizarre.
The eighth loophole is about the unreliability of Fu Shen's research. In academic research, it is not possible to say that other people's research is not credible without evidence. I hope that there will be no such statement in the future controversy over the authenticity of the dispute.
The seventh loophole is to quote Zhang Chou's statement, Zhang Chou believes that "the Pillar Inscription" "its quality is still under the authentic work of the "Jing Fubo Shrine Scroll", so Wang Naidong thought that Zhang Chou did not recognize the "Pillar Inscription" as a genuine work. Not to mention whether Zhang Chou's expression is equivalent to thinking that "Pillar Inscription" is a fake, even if Zhang Chou says that it is a fake, if we believe him, doesn't it contradict the spirit of Mr. Wang Naidong's call in the "Eighth Loophole"? This loophole is a bit "shooting ourselves in the foot".
The sixth loophole is that the seal of the Song Dynasty "Autumn Gully Book" is incorrect. Let's not say whether there is a direct logical connection between the authenticity of this seal and the authenticity of the "Pillar Inscription", even if we want to discuss the seal, then we should also examine Wang Houzhi's seal! What if the seal of Wang Houzhi of the Southern Song Dynasty is genuine? What should we do? This loophole shows that Mr. Wang's research is not comprehensive enough.
The fifth loophole is that it is "the inscription is wrong", I haven't understood where the inscription is wrong for a long time, and I only saw that the text said that Fu Shen judged that the "Pillar Inscription" was genuine based on the inscription. Fu Shen's analysis of the original work is comprehensive, and it is not a judgment based on the inscription alone. This loophole seems to be a bit of a distortion of the facts.
The fourth loophole, in fact, is that the anthology of the Yellow Valley is somewhat different from the text of the "Pillar Inscription". So what "Pillar Inscription" is missing is a horse's foot. This problem, I mentioned above about the logical error in it.
The third loophole is that there is a typo in "Pillar Inscription", so it is fake. Fu Shen has already given other examples of this matter in the article, and there are pictures to prove it. But Mr. Wang's cross-examination is a bit incomprehensible. Mr. Wang said that the "Half Monument" is a collection of characters, and the sides may be put together. What does this mean? Could it be that the person who collected the characters in "Half a Monument" did not know the characters? Or could it be that Wang Xizhi's handwriting could not find "next to the characters"? This is really a logic that people do not understand at all. What is even more serious is that it can be considered that the ancients did not make mistakes? Where is this identification principle? This loophole does not seem to be valid.
The second loophole is that the style of "Pillar Inscription" is vulgar. It seems that calligraphers and connoisseurs from all over the country should come to see whether the style of the "Pillar Inscription" is vulgar. If the subjective judgment of "vulgar style" is also taken as evidence, then I have to say that this loophole is obviously not valid.
The first loophole, the problem with the strokes of the word "Xuan", has already been mentioned above.
Nine loopholes, just like that, to be honest, I was sweating and scared by the newspaper. Albert Einstein once faced the headline "100 Professors Prove the Theory of Relativity Wrong" and said: "If the theory of relativity can be proved wrong, one professor is enough, and 100 are not needed." This is also the meaning of identification.
It is precisely because the problems of the doubters have a certain consistency, and they always discuss side issues, which seem to be somewhat confusing, so it is necessary to point out the basis of their ideas and discuss them together.
Skeptics may lack introductory training in identification
Is there any other reason why so many "doubters" are wrong together? Perhaps, they may have all ignored a basic problem of identification pointed out by Xie Zhiliu -- the entry needs to be studied deeply.
Any connoisseur who can't do a serious and in-depth case study at the beginning of the day is powerless to deal with something beyond the textbook – because they don't have the knowledge to break through the textbook at any point. Textbooks, on the other hand, are only the "basics" of knowledge.
Since the authentic works in the textbooks are "flawless", then they will judge the "flawed" things they see in reality as fakes, which may be the basic form of the "doubters" who "do not depart from the textbooks".
Judging a work other than a representative work as a fake does not mean "wise", "strict", or "high-level", on the contrary, it shows that the appraiser is not familiar with the artist. If we are confined to textbooks, masterpieces, and masterpieces, we will lack the ability to engage in actual combat and the ability to identify the truth. In reality, can we use dozens of high-level masterpieces of Lin Sanzhi to judge thousands of his ordinary works as fakes? And if you do not have a deep understanding of the dominant characteristics of Lin Sanzhi's thousands of works, how can you identify Lin Sanzhi's calligraphy in reality? It is far from enough to just look at textbooks and calligraphy collections. This is why, when a collector presents several complex authentic works in a row, we immediately know that this person's knowledge is strong, because he clearly goes beyond the knowledge of ordinary textbooks.
If you are usually only familiar with textbooks, only familiar with museum collections, and only familiar with standard masterpieces, then, when you encounter something like "Pillar Inscription", you suddenly encounter a "new thing", in fact, you encounter a "practical problem", there is a huge distance from textbooks to practice, and there are also difficulties, so all kinds of ideas have appeared, which is also normal, this is the case in any discipline, not only in the identification of calligraphy and painting.
Overall, the skeptics are using old weapons and facing new problems. At present, there seems to be a lack of evaluation standards, so various voices have emerged, and the appraisal is facing a social crisis.
What is the Identification Crisis?
In fact, the controversy over the "Pillar Inscription" shows that we are facing a more severe appraisal environment than the generation of Zhang Heng, Xie Zhiliu, and Xu Bangda, because the generation of Zhang, Xie and Xu has already identified the main part of the hand-me-down calligraphy and painting, that is, the most prominent and flawless part of the style. And many people can't even master old weapons well. Therefore, we are not only facing the social crisis of identification, but also the academic crisis of identification.
Going back to the beginning of the article, comparing the theoretical narrative, we will find that at present, we may also be on the eve of a new level of calligraphy and painting appraisal, because we are facing new problems, and the old methods can no longer deal with new problems. However, there are not many masterpieces that need to be identified at present.
In the next era, the objects we are facing have changed, no longer standard works and masterpieces, and the discovery and identification of marginal works may be the main work and characteristics of the next stage of calligraphy and painting appraisal; the methods we use have changed, and it is no longer possible to simply use the concept of style to select the best works for use in textbooks, but we need to pay more attention to the artist's various meticulous habits and artistic standards, and fill in the blank spots that we did not pay attention to before; and even the evidence of our research has changed, we have relied on style to identify the most definite works as representative works, and the next stage may be mainly on the basis of various images, using theory and logic to discover the original hand-me-down that no one had ever expected.
In short, as a result of the change of objects, we will adopt a new approach to the current environment, and in this way, we will adopt new weapons, which is exactly what Kuhn said, and we will say goodbye to the old norms and move to a new level. And "Pillar Inscription" gives us the best opportunity to explore this change.
Ann Arbor, August 5, 2010