True Self and True Thing: A New Reading and Reinterpretation of Wang Lü’s “Preface to the Second Version of the Mount Hua Paintings”

Abstract

1 True Self and True Thing: A New Reading and Reinterpretation of Wang Lü’s “Preface to the Second Version of the Mount Hua Paintings” Peng Feng School of Arts, Peking University pengf@pku.edu.cn Since the early 20th century, Wang Lü 王履 and his Album of Mount Hua Paintings 華山圖 冊 have received extensive attention in the fields of art history and aesthetics. In addition to countless articles and book chapters, three monographs are worth noting: Kathlyn Liscomb’s Learning from Mount Hua,1 Xue Yongnian’s 薛永年 Wang Lü,2 and the catalogue Wang Lü’s Album of Mount Hua Paintings.3 Considering that Wang Lü was known less as a painter than as a physician, it is surprising that his paintings and theory of painting should attract so much attention. Indeed, Wang’s essay is worth these efforts. Despite the quantity of research to date, some of his most important ideas require elucidation, namely, the “true self” and the “true thing.” In my view, these are the most important themes in his most important text on painting theory — “Preface to the Second Version of the Mount Hua Paintings”重為 華山圖序. Back to the Original Text One reason this topic has not received sufficient attention is that the original text was altered. Before the first publication of his original text in 1978,4 Wang’s essay was read in a corrupted form. There are 13 differences between the original text and the corrupted one.5 Among these alterations, one change crucially altered the meaning. The original sentence read as follows: “If Mount Hua did not give me my self, could I be me” 苟非華山之我余余 2 其我邪? This sentence was changed into “If I did not know the visual forms of Mount Hua, how could I paint them” 苟非識華山之形我其能圖耶? Liscomb corrected many errors in her impressive monograph Learning from Mount Hua, including changing the wrong pronunciation “Wang Li” to the correct “Wang Lü,”6 and the wrong title “Preface to the Mount Hua Paintings” to the correct rendering “Preface to the Second Version of the Mount Hua Paintings.”7 Liscomb also noticed that the original text had been changed, but she retained the altered text. In a note, she wrote: “The original text at this point seems garbled: Gou fei huashan zhi wo yu, yu qi wo ye? For lack of a better solution, the present translation is based on Yu Jianhua’s 俞劍華 interpretation of this sentence as: Gou fei shi huashan zhi xing, wo qi neng tu ye? …Yu does not identify this as his interpretation, but presents it as the proper text.”8 Liscomb was unaware that Yu had not seen the original text, and so she accepted the altered text for the original one. In other words, it was not Yu’s interpretation, but rather a textual error that Yu mistook for the original text. In fact, in an earlier edition, Yuding peiwenzhai shuhua pu 禦定佩文齋書畫譜, this sentence had already been altered. Yu likely relied on this version when he edited Zhongguo hualun leibian 中國畫論類編. It is hard for me to pin down the reasons for the alteration. Perhaps this sentence was obscure, and the editor of Yuding peiwenzhai shuhua pu wanted to make it clear. In revising this sentence, he likely referred to the first preface, i.e. “You huashan tu ji shi xu” 游華山圖記詩序, which says: “You would think me preposterous if I wrote about Mt. Hua without having traveled there” 文而弗遊,將以餘為誕.9 Perhaps art historians will discover the truth some time in the future. In any case, the original text was not garbled. Xue Yongnian had already read this sentence and punctuated it correctly.10 But Xue did not 3 follow up on the theoretical implications of that sentence. This oversight more or less reflects his mistakes in subsequent punctuation.11 The “Past Self” and the “Present Self” As mentioned earlier, the sentence can be read as follows: “If Mount Hua did not give me my self, could I be me?” How could Mount Hua give Wang his self? Did Wang have no self before climbing Mount Hua? How could a man live so long without his self? Wang Lü admitted that he had studied painting for many years and aimed to follow the old...