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The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's Illustration to the Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff, attribu... more The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's Illustration to the Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff, attributed to Qiao Zhongchang, has been long celebrated as a major achievement of early Chinese literati painting. Nevertheless, the lifelike portraiture of Su Shi and the depiction of an actual site, as well as the contemporary colophons, all point to a memorial function for the scroll. The early provenance of this handscroll indicates that Liang Shicheng, the eunuch at Emperor Huizong's court, was the one who commissioned it. The painting bears witness to the appropriation of the Li Gonglin style in the late Northern Song court.
Previous Life 前生旧帐 by Lei Xue
Talks by Lei Xue
Books by Lei Xue
University of Washington Press, 2019
Eulogy for Burying a Crane (Yi he ming) is perhaps the most eccentric piece in China’s calligraph... more Eulogy for Burying a Crane (Yi he ming) is perhaps the most eccentric piece in China’s calligraphic canon. Apparently marking the burial of a crane, the large inscription, datable to 514 CE, was once carved into a cliff on Jiaoshan Island in the Yangzi River. Since the discovery of its ruins in the early eleventh century, it has fascinated generations of scholars and calligraphers and been enshrined as a calligraphic masterpiece. Nonetheless, skeptics have questioned the quality of the calligraphy and complained that its fragmentary state and worn characters make assessment of its artistic value impossible. Moreover, historians have trouble fitting it into the storyline of Chinese calligraphy. Such controversies illuminate moments of discontinuity in the history of the art form that complicate the mechanism of canon formation.
In this volume, Lei Xue examines previous epigraphic studies and recent archaeological finds to consider the origin of the work in the sixth century and then trace its history after the eleventh century. He suggests that formation of the canon of Chinese calligraphy over two millennia has been an ongoing process embedded in the sociopolitical realities of particular historical moments. This biography of the stone monument Eulogy for Burying a Crane reveals Chinese calligraphy to be a contested field of cultural and political forces that have constantly reconfigured the practice, theory, and historiography of this unique art form.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's Illustration to the Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff, attribu... more The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's Illustration to the Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff, attributed to Qiao Zhongchang, has been long celebrated as a major achievement of early Chinese literati painting. Nevertheless, the lifelike portraiture of Su Shi and the depiction of an actual site, as well as the contemporary colophons, all point to a memorial function for the scroll. The early provenance of this handscroll indicates that Liang Shicheng, the eunuch at Emperor Huizong's court, was the one who commissioned it. The painting bears witness to the appropriation of the Li Gonglin style in the late Northern Song court.
University of Washington Press, 2019
Eulogy for Burying a Crane (Yi he ming) is perhaps the most eccentric piece in China’s calligraph... more Eulogy for Burying a Crane (Yi he ming) is perhaps the most eccentric piece in China’s calligraphic canon. Apparently marking the burial of a crane, the large inscription, datable to 514 CE, was once carved into a cliff on Jiaoshan Island in the Yangzi River. Since the discovery of its ruins in the early eleventh century, it has fascinated generations of scholars and calligraphers and been enshrined as a calligraphic masterpiece. Nonetheless, skeptics have questioned the quality of the calligraphy and complained that its fragmentary state and worn characters make assessment of its artistic value impossible. Moreover, historians have trouble fitting it into the storyline of Chinese calligraphy. Such controversies illuminate moments of discontinuity in the history of the art form that complicate the mechanism of canon formation.
In this volume, Lei Xue examines previous epigraphic studies and recent archaeological finds to consider the origin of the work in the sixth century and then trace its history after the eleventh century. He suggests that formation of the canon of Chinese calligraphy over two millennia has been an ongoing process embedded in the sociopolitical realities of particular historical moments. This biography of the stone monument Eulogy for Burying a Crane reveals Chinese calligraphy to be a contested field of cultural and political forces that have constantly reconfigured the practice, theory, and historiography of this unique art form.