He Cheng and his Illustrations to the Homecoming ode
Creators: name: Hall, Hugh Dickson
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2010

description: He Cheng and his Illustrations to the Homecoming Ode are newly rediscovered additions to the short list of painters and paintings of the Yuan dynasty court from the beginning of the fourteenth century. Artists and paintings from this category have received little attention from traditional Chinese connoisseurs or modern art historians. This oversight has led to an overly simplified view of the period as one in which the scholar-amateur painter innovatively created a new direction for Chinese painting while court and professional artists continued to paint conservative imitations of past styles, particularly those of the Southern Song. He Cheng's Illustrations to the Homecoming Ode reveals a more complicated situation in which court and professional artists partook of and contributed to this new direction, sharing many ideas and techniques. Chapter one of this essay is an examination of the biographical sources concerning He Cheng's life. This information, in some cases contradictory, has been assessed and a date given for the artist's birth, period of known activity and death. The titles and dates of assignment of He Cheng's various official positions are also noted. Information concerning He Cheng's painting of figures, horses and architectural studies is presented with assessments by his contemporaries and later connoisseurs of his artistic achievements. These are recorded to understand reasons for his popularity while alive and subsequent decline into anonymity. Chapter two is a discussion of the painting Illustrations to the Homecoming Ode. This section consists of an examination of the painting's relationship to the poem by Tao Qian, compositional and stylistic analysis and a discussion of the painting's relationship to various other paintings based on the same literary theme. He Cheng's painting is judged to be pictorially, stylistically and emotionally related to the Northern Song literati painter and muse of the Yuan dynasty scholar-amateur, Li Gonglin, and his tradition. The third chapter is an examination of literary evidence for pre-Yuan dynasty paintings based on the Homecoming Ode. This evidence indicates that Li Gonglin was an important figure who contributed to the popularity of this theme and confirms that He Cheng, in his Illustrations to the Homecoming Ode, was following the tradition of Li Gonglin. Chapter four is a discussion of two further works attributed to He Cheng: The Taoist Divinity of Water and a painting of Samantabhadra sitting on an elephant. The traditions and styles of these paintings are discussed as well as reasons for accepting or rejecting them as paintings by He Cheng. An Appendix of three parts is included. Part one is a discussion of the inscription found at the end of the painting of the Illustrations to the Homecoming Ode. Part two of the Appendix is an identification of the seals of collectors and connoisseurs on the painting and colophon sections of the Illustrations to the Homecoming Ode. This part includes a discussion of the original format of the handscroll and various later additions. Part three is translations of the most important colophons from the Illustrations to the Homecoming Ode, one important colophon from the Taoist Divinity of Water, and a translation of the most important literary source concerning He Cheng: Cheng Qufu's postscript to Three Verses on the 'Jie Hua' of He Cheng.