The Water Mill and Northern Song imperial patronage of art, commerce, and science - China

(104.) For the juma chazi text, see Li Jie, chap. 8, 4a-5a, and for the two illustrations, chap. 32, 17a-b.

(105.) Needham et al., 1971, 107. Needham emphasizes the importance of the "working drawings" in a global perspective, 85: "The attention given in the Ying Tsao Fe Shih [Yingzao fashi] to the basic construction and the shaping of the woodwork is striking since this is missing from European building manuals until the end of the eighteenth century."

(106.) See the two artists' biographies in SCMHP, chap. 3, 459a, which end, "Lu Zhuo and Liu Wentong devoted their attention exclusively to the painting of palaces and other architectural constructions. So much so that even common builders were able to follow their designs. They could truly be called perfect!"

(107.) Since the first scholarly publications on the painting in the 1950s, including the important Ph.D. dissertation by Roderick Whitfield, "Chang Tse-Tuan's Ch'ing-ming shang-ho t'u" (Princeton University, 1965), the study of the Qingming scroll in Beijing has become a global phenomenon. Today the painting--one of the most famous works in the current study of Chinese painting--is as much debated as ever, as scholars have not even come to agree on the meaning of its given title, which might also be translated as "Peace Reigns over the River." For three recent studies of the Qingming scroll, see Whitfield (as in n. 3), 1998; Zhou Baozhu, Qingming shanghe tu yu Qingming shanghe xue (Kaifeng: Henan daxue chubanshe, 1997); and Liu, 147-90 (chap. 5, "Rethinking the Qingming shanghe tu: A Seasonal Journey of Commerce along the River"), in which the author argues for a late 11th-century date.

(108.) There are as many as seven welcoming gates of various sizes depicted in the Qingming scroll, six in front of wineshops and one for a spice store.

(109.) The measurements of the Rainbow Bridge in the Qingming scroll come from the engineer Du Lianshen's calculation of the twenty-three rail pillars (shuzhu) on the sides of the bridge deck; see Du, "Song Qingming shanghe tu hongqiao jianzhu de yanjiu," Wenwu 227 (Apr. 1975): 57.

(110.) The Rainbow Bridge of the Qingming scroll is in fact the main source for Needham's knowledge of the type in China. For a structural analysis of the bridge, see Needham et al., 1971, 165, fig. 823e.

(111.) For a discussion of the Rainbow Bridge as an 11th-century engineering innovation to facilitate the barge transport of tax grain and supplies on the Bian River, see Liu, 172-74.

(112.) The presence of a favorable biography of Wel Xian in three Northern Song histories of painting testifies that the master's fame endured and even increased after his death. The earliest and most informative account is given in WDMHBY, chap. 5, 463a; the other two are in THJWZ, chap. 2, 475b-76a; and XHHP, chap. 8, 83.

(113.) Based on my preliminary reading of Song sources, the only recorded court painter with the Zhang name is Zhang Xiyan, an instructor at Huizong's Imperial Painting Institute with a specialty in birds and flowers (recorded by the 12th-century scholar Deng Chun in Huaji (A continued record of painters), in SHQS, vol. 2, chap. 6, 717b), evidently an unlikely author of the Shanghai Water Mill.