In Zhou Mi's History of Dong Qiye in Song Dynasty, there is a chapter entitled "Style of Painting and Calligraphy in Shaogong Palace", which describes the norms and requirements of mounting ancient paintings and calligraphy in Southern Song Dynasty. As it says: "Mounting and cutting systems have their own scales, printed with titles and equipped with formulas." So how did the Southern Song people mount paintings and calligraphy? What is the so-called "Shicheng"? What does the restoration principle of Song people have to do with today?
Choose materials according to your taste.
The decoration of calligraphy and painting in the Southern Song Dynasty is first a process of evaluating ancient calligraphy and painting. Different grades of calligraphy and painting will use very different decorative materials. For example, The Original Calligraphy of Chu Deng includes the ink of Han Dynasty, Three Kingdoms, Two Kings, Six Dynasties, Sui Dynasty and Tang Junchen, and the calligraphy inscribed by the Southern Song Emperor and written with the word Miao, with silk as the head, green silk as the head, white silk with ginger teeth as the head, and Korean paper as the tail, with the second-class original of Chu Deng and famous stone carvings in Jin and Tang Dynasties as the head. The grade of the material is obviously reduced.
Even in the Tang Dynasty, there were three kinds of calligraphy: upper, middle and lower. Although the materials of club head, ceiling, waterproof and tailing are the same, they are all Xia Hongyun Luan Jin club head, Biluan silk ceiling, Bailuan silk waterproof and Korean paper tailing, but the shaft heads are different. The first-class calligraphy uses a hairpin-topped jade shaft, and the middle and lower ones are flat-topped jade shafts. The same decoration indicates the age (Tang Dynasty) and classification (calligraphy), while different shaft heads are used to distinguish the good from the bad.
Different categories have their own decorations.
For the inner government of the Southern Song Dynasty, decorative calligraphy and painting is also a process of classified collection. For example, the "imitation of the original works of the Six Dynasties" is listed as a single category, with the blue balcony brocade as the first package, the blue silk as the first day, the white silk as the waterproof, the Korean paper trailing, and the white jade shaft head. This kind of decoration is obviously different from the Jin and Tang original mentioned above, and the original and replica are distinguished by decoration.
From the perspective of material selection, it seems that the horizontal axis of famous paintings in the Six Dynasties is more valued than the hanging axis of famous paintings in the Six Dynasties. The first package of the former is silk brocade, while the latter takes soap Luan silk as a two-color world; The former takes green silk brocade as the head, the latter takes Biluan silk as the head, and the latter only takes Biluan silk as the same world, regardless of advantages and disadvantages. In addition, the horizontal axis of the famous paintings of the Six Dynasties is "the first-class white jade grinds floral axis", and the hanging axis is the first-class jade axis. Although they are all famous paintings of the Six Dynasties, the horizontal scroll and hanging axis are obviously different.
The paintings and calligraphy of this dynasty also occupy an important position in the collection of the Southern Song Dynasty, such as Su Shi, Wen Tong, Mi Fei and Fan Long. All these have detailed decoration rules, and it is required to print dry hexagrams, lithographs and Shaoxing seals. Of course, the paintings and calligraphy of the Song people were only framed with silk, and there was no brocade or silk. The shaft heads were just ordinary white jade shafts, even agate shafts and black rhinoceros shafts, and their materials were not as good as the ink left by the sages of the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties.
Minimum intervention and maximum reservation
"Minimum intervention" and "maximum information retention" are the restoration principles of contemporary painting and calligraphy cultural relics. According to China's "Guidelines for the Restoration of Painting and Calligraphy Cultural Relics", "minimum intervention" means that "in the process of restoration of painting and calligraphy cultural relics, the main goal should be to reduce intervention, alleviate diseases and prolong preservation life, and the actions taken should be controlled to a minimum according to actual needs, and excessive restoration is not allowed." In contrast, the principle of "maximum information retention" emphasizes "retaining all elements that can reflect the value of calligraphy and painting".
Uncovering and cleaning the painting heart is a key step in the restoration of calligraphy and painting since ancient times.
Shaoxing Yufu painting and calligraphy style puts forward specific requirements for ancient painting and calligraphy, which is very close to the contemporary principle of "minimum intervention". For example, "The imperial palace's books in the Six Dynasties, Xian and Tang Dynasties are mixed with poems and fu", all of which are "thick and thick, not thin", and it is clearly pointed out that uncovering the frame should not damage the painting core. Painting core is the soul of painting and calligraphy. In the history of painting, Mi Fei even regarded the success or failure of painting and calligraphy as its life. "The life of painting and calligraphy lies in painting and calligraphy". If the painting is not well framed, the essence of the painting is gone. As Miffy said, "The spirit of the characters is colorful, the flowers are colorful, and bees and butterflies are only between shades. Once it is too much, it will be lost. " People in the Southern Song Dynasty also thought: "If half of the paper is removed, it will damage the spirit of the text, just like copying." Zhang Yanyuan has already talked about the cleaning of painting cores in Notes on Famous Paintings of Past Dynasties, saying: "There must be dust in ancient paintings, so it is necessary to soak the soapstone water for several nights to remove dust, so that the paintings are vivid and do not fade." Painting and calligraphy cleaning is not only for beauty, but also a way to protect painting and calligraphy.
The court in the Southern Song Dynasty followed the principle of "being suitable for ancient paintings and not being washed again", and "being afraid of losing people's breath and enriching flowers and trees". Whether to wash them or not depends on the actual situation. People in the Southern Song Dynasty also followed the decoration principle of "no excessive cutting", which is very close to the contemporary principle of "retaining information to the maximum". Cutting is an important step in the restoration of calligraphy and painting. It is necessary to lay the painting core flat on the cutting board, cut off the old mounting based on the large-size board and correct the painting core. Cutting the blank space around the border in a large area may destroy the original intention of the painter's composition and cause difficulties for the subsequent mounting. Zhou Mi once cursed the officials of the Southern Song Dynasty, saying that they were "low in character and short-sighted". Everything carved by predecessors has been removed, so there are many unknowns in the Forbidden City, and its source, giving and receiving, year and examination are hard to find. "It can be seen that the Song people also cut historical information when cutting.
Repair, legend, innovation and sublation
If "Shaoxing Imperial House Painting and Calligraphy Style" represents the painting and calligraphy mounting criteria in Tang and Song Dynasties, "China Painting and Calligraphy Cultural Relics Restoration Criteria" represents the contemporary attempt to establish a unified painting and calligraphy cultural relics restoration criteria. The two connect the preceding with the following, and innovation and sublation coexist.
In fact, the style of painting and calligraphy in Shaoxing Forbidden City is not a national standard, but only represents the decoration requirements of the Southern Song Dynasty court. Although the content covers materials, regulations, working procedures, collection system, decoration forms and many other aspects. There is no strict logical relationship before and after, which is more like Zhou Mi's own rambling about painting and calligraphy mounting. And this set of decoration requirements, once separated from the collection mechanism of the Southern Song Dynasty Palace, is also difficult to achieve. In addition, since the Song and Ming Dynasties, literati have loved painting and calligraphy, and they also know something about the decoration of painting and calligraphy. Scholars can understand and appreciate the painting and calligraphy decoration of the Forbidden City in Shaoxing, but they taste it more from the perspective of a legal system and anecdotes, rather than paying attention to the decoration skills. However, some of these principles have always been followed by the restorers of calligraphy and painting in later generations. For example, many principles in Ming History Decoration Record are from the writings and actual decoration experience in the Song and Yuan Dynasties.
Compared with the painting and calligraphy style of Shaoxing Palace Museum, The Guide to the Restoration of China Painting and Calligraphy Cultural Relics is more modern. The restoration of painting and calligraphy cultural relics is not only a traditional skill, but also a problem of how to protect ancient painting and calligraphy works in the process of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. As far as the restoration principle is concerned, the Guidelines for the Restoration of Calligraphy and Painting Cultural Relics in China is undoubtedly more comprehensive and innovative. The principles of "minimum intervention", "maximum information retention" and "reprocessability" advocated by him can also be seen in Shaoxing Yufu's painting and calligraphy style. Taking the principle of "maximum information retention" as an example, the inner government of the Southern Song Dynasty adopted a double principle for the inscriptions of predecessors. On the one hand, it requires "no excessive cutting", on the other hand, the title of Xuanhe Imperial Book has been "merged and deleted". It can be seen that the Southern Song Dynasty government did not completely focus on the protection of cultural relics in painting and calligraphy decoration, but also followed some political principles. When the imperial palace in the Southern Song Dynasty encountered broken paintings and calligraphy, it did not try its best to protect the ancient paintings and calligraphy that were about to be destroyed. Instead, it ordered the study to be copied as it was, dyed antique, sealed with bells and put into the pool. Many of the ancient paintings and calligraphy in the Jin and Tang Dynasties that people see today are copies of the Song Dynasty. Modern cultural relics restoration has preserved all historical information as much as possible, no matter who wrote it or whether it is damaged or not, and has formed a set of strict professional guidelines.
"Preface to Lanting Collection" said: "Look at the present, but still look at the past." Song people would not have thought that their mounting skills could be passed down for thousands of years, but today, under the shadow of Song people, we inherit and innovate and usher in a new era of restoration of calligraphy and painting cultural relics. Wen Peng Yu
(The author works in Hangzhou Museum)