On October 18, 2020, the Ten Faces Lingbi Scroll sold for RMB512.9 million in Beijing, setting a new auction price for an ancient Chinese artwork and becoming the world's most expensive Chinese artwork of the year.
(a)
The Picture Scroll of the Ten Faces is 55.5 centimeters high and 11.5 meters long. The first is 26 centimeters high and 1.125 meters long, the second is 47.5 centimeters high and 1.43 meters long, and the inscription is 55.5 centimeters high and 11.32 meters long.
The content depicted in the "Ten Faces Lingbi Picture Scroll" is about the rare strange stones collected by Mi Wanzhong, a famous calligrapher and painter, a stone collector and a connoisseur of strange stones in the Ming Dynasty. However, in terms of painting techniques, Wu Bin, who is sometimes known as the "painting immortal", used ten paintings from ten angles to present the unique connotation of this strange stone, which is rare in ancient and modern times.
Mi Wanzhong (1570-1631), the word Zhongzhao, Ziyuan, the name of Youshi, also known as the Shiyin hermitage, the seaside fisherman. Descendants of Mi Fu. Originally from Anhua, Shaanxi Province (now Qingcheng, Gansu), he later served as Jinyiwei and moved to Wanping, Beijing. Zeng Guanjiangxi was appointed as an envoy and a young secretary of the Taifu Temple. He is good at painting landscapes, flowers and bamboos, calligraphy and grass are good, there are Nangong seals, chapter grass relics. It is as famous as Dong Qichang and is known as "South Dong North Rice". He also called Dong Qichang, Xing Dong, and Zhang Ruitu as "the four masters of calligraphy in the late Ming Dynasty".
Miwan is fond of stones. In the thirty-sixth year of Wanli (1608), when he served as the commander of Liuhe County, he got a Lingbi stone, which has a magnificent shape, a considerable face, and the beauty of the five elements. Mi Wanzhong was overjoyed and invited his friend Wu Bin to build a statue for this stone.
Wu Bin then drew ten drawings, each of which depicts different aspects of the stone in real size, that is, from ten angles and in ten paintings. In addition to the use of traditional Chinese painting brush and ink, the paintings also refer to the principles of geometry, rhythm and rhythm, and the theory of the five elements.
Wu Bin (1550-1643), the character Wenzhong, Wenzhong, also known as Wenzhong's father and Wenzhongzi, self-named Hugu Shanqiao, branch hermit. A native of Huangshi, Xinghua (now Putian), Fujian, he lived in Jinling (now Nanjing, Jiangsu), and worked in the court painting academy. He is one of the main advocates and leaders of the "Metamorphist painting style" of the late Ming Dynasty and the "revival of the classic landscape painting style of the Northern Song Dynasty".
(b)
After the painting of "Ten Faces Lingbi Picture Scroll", Mi Wanzhong traveled thousands of miles away and invited Ye Xianggao, the famous writer and former chief assistant of the cabinet, Li Weizhen, the leader of the late Ming Dynasty literary circle, Dong Qichang, a famous calligrapher, Chen Jiru, a famous writer and painter, and Zou Diguang, a famous painter, to write inscriptions.
These inscriptions clearly outline the political ecology and literati life scenes in the late Ming Dynasty. The industry commented that "the painting ideas and techniques of the work are difficult for future generations to surpass, the seclusion culture is desirable, and the stone appreciation culture is rich in connotation."
Ye Xianggao's inscription for the "Ten Faces Lingbi Picture Scroll", the full text is as follows:
This stone picture is like this, the title is like this, it is a real strange thing.
It's a pity that the rest is in Chang'an Day, and it is too late to ask for a view from Zhongzhao. However, Yu Yu is not very familiar with the stone theory, that is, he can not appreciate the wonder such as Zhong Zhao. Zhong Zhao is a confidant in this Shi Zhen. The world is called immortal, and the immortal is not as good as the golden stone, and now the edict is more immortal.
There is Fulu Mountain in my hometown, its stones are embedded in the hollow exquisite, the big one is like a house, the small one is like an elephant, such as a horse, such as a lion, such as a zhi, such as a wat, strange shapes, everything. However, since the opening of the project, there has been no one to look for. After returning to the mountain, the beginning of the trace is obtained, and it is stamped. So the tourists gathered, all of them were shocked, thinking that there was no such thing in the universe. Once the thousand-year-old spiritual mystery appears, the obscurity of things is like this. However, it is not fortunate that this stone met Zhong Zhao. If Zhong Zhao he comes to Fujian with the fate of heaven in the future, when he is at the top of Dengfulu, he will be entertained and traveled, and I don't know if there is more like Wen Zhong, who can draw it, so as to pass on good things. Zhong Zhao often hates Bao Jin Zhai Centurion to make a stone too big, if you hear Yu Yan will laugh, Yu and Zhong Zhao are suitable for each other.
The inscription "Futang leaves to the high". Seal "Purple Cloud Yellow Barberry Mountain People" and "Ye Xiang Gaoyin".
The writing is fluent and imaginative. Ye Xianggao compared the strange stones of Lingbi with the craggy and strange stones of Fulu Mountain in Longtian, Fuqing, his hometown, through white drawing techniques, and expressed his heartfelt admiration. Ye's text revealed that he sincerely invited Zhong Zhao (Mi Wanzhong) to visit Fulu Mountain in Fujian, which shows the depth of friendship between the two.
"Futang", now Fuqing, Fujian, is the hometown of Ye Xianggao, a politician and writer in the late Ming Dynasty. Seal "Ziyun Huangbari Mountain People", Huangbari Mountain is also located in Fuqing's fishing stream. Ye Xianggao, who called himself "Huangbari Mountain Man", once helped rebuild Huangbari Temple and left many poems about Huangbari Mountain. Ye Xianggao in his later years and called himself "Fulu Mountain People", Fulu Mountain was formerly known as Guo Lushan, during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, Ye Xianggao first resigned and returned to seclusion, and renamed it "Fulu". In the end, Fujian, Fuzhou, Fuqing, Futang (li) and Fulu have become a famous tourist attraction in southeast China.
At the beginning of the "Ten Faces Spirit Wall Picture Scroll", there is also the inscription of "Rock Gully Strange Posture" by the famous calligrapher and painter Xing Dong, the seal "Xing Dong's Seal" and "Zi Yuan", the inscription of "Wuyue Pian Yun" by the famous painter Huang Ruheng, and the seal "Huang Zhen's Father's Father" and "Shang Shulang's Chapter".
It is precisely because of the paintings, inscriptions, and inscriptions of these celebrities that the "Ten Faces Spirit Wall Picture Scroll" has become a masterpiece and the "ceiling" of the painting world.
(c)
After entering the Qing Dynasty, the "Ten Faces Lingbi Picture Scroll" was hidden for a hundred years, and the inscription of the Manchu nobleman Sa Ying'a after the volume shows that the work was given to his son-in-law, the governor of Shandong, Aishan. The scroll later traveled across the ocean.
In December 1989, the "Ten Faces of the Soul Scroll" was first auctioned at Sotheby's in New York, and it was sold for a whopping $1.21 million, which was a sensation. This is the first time that Sotheby's has broken the record of more than one million dollars in Chinese paintings and calligraphy since its establishment.
Thirty-one years later, in October 2020, the work reappeared at auction in Beijing, China, setting a new auction record.
Authors: Zheng Xunyu, Jiageng College, Xiamen University, and Zheng Songbo, Fuqing Huangbai Culture Promotion Association