<吳昌碩藝術年表>補正考

Abstract

Wu Changshuo is the master of the four generations of “poetry, calligraphy, painting and printing”, among which seal engraving has the greatest achievements. He himself once said, “People say that I am good at painting. In fact, my calligraphy is better than painting, and my seal engraving is better than calligraphy.” So he likes to call himself “Panhandler of seal.” Wu Changshuo lived a poor life around the age of 40. However, God did not abandon this artistic genius, and let him meet Min Yongyik, a foreign minister in the late Korean dynasty, who was addicted to seal, stayed in Shanghai for more than 20 years, and famous seal engravers were met. Min came to China as an exile at the age of 27, and spent his life as a fugitive calligrapher and painter in Shanghai. He has a wealth of money in his life, no worries about food and clothing, providing Wu Changshuo with a fairly stable and solid economic source, and even let him play his artistic talent with peace of mind. Wu Changshuo wrote in the preface of the long poem “The wail of Panhandler of orchid” written after Min Yongyik's death: “When Min lived in Shanghai for more than 30 years, he was fond of seal a seal engraving, and played for more than three hundred stones”. A famous seal engraver actually carved more than 300 square seals for one person, the number is so staggering, it can be inferred that between Wu Changshuo and Min Yongyik, not only the relationship between the buyer and the seller, but also they have the same intimate relationship with Boya and Zhong Ziqi, a pair of like-minded friends. Wu Changshuo's seal margin is the record of their communication. Through analyzing the margin left by Wu Changshuo and related materials, this paper aims to explore the change process of their communication, and this can help modify the Wu Changshuo's art chronology.