Asian Art in London
29 October - 7 November 2009
15. An Octagonal She Inkstone
Dated to Bingshen year corresponding to 1776 and of the period
The inkstone is of octagonal shape and has a conforming water well with a slightly recessed based inscribed with two seals, below a five-character caption at the top.
16.5 cm. wide
Provenance:
Formerly in the Baude Collection, Dresden (by repute)
Purchased in Qingdao circa 1908 (by repute)
Exhibited:
Ostasiatische Kunst Museum, Berlin, 2001–2003
The caption:
Imitation Tang Guanxiang (Observing Heaven) Ink Stone
The inscription can be translated:
The ancient sage observed heaven,
And put his ideas to pen.
Although eight trigrams were drawn,
Their principles were primordial.
Who has made this ink stone
To expound on The Book of Change?
With four sides and four corners,
Neither a square nor a circle,
Further adding yin and yang,
Now all components are present.
Playful words to add on it,
Choosing a stone to imitate it.
Dripping dew to grind ink red,
It will aid me till the end of day.
Imperial inscription on the New Year’s Day of the bingshen year
Two Seals:
Sign of Virtue Within; Enlightened mind not far
This fairly plain looking ink stone is interesting in several aspects. In the Xiqing Yanpu, it is recorded that in the 14th year of Qianlong reign (1749) the Qianlong emperor selected ten old ink stones of particular fine material and archaic form in the Palace collection, and bestowed each with a name and dating. They were then inscribed, and stored in specially made boxes in the Palace of Heavenly Clarity (Qianqinggong), where the Emperor resided. In all there were three dated to the Tang period, six to the Song, and one to the Yuan. All were made in Duan stone, apart from two in clear clay (chengni),
The first of these ink stones was an octagonal white Duan stone, which the Emperor named Guanxiang, and dated it to the Tang period. He went on to say:
Chi Ren (a mythical sage) once said, ‘Regarding people, always choose the old (experienced) ones; regarding objects, avoid old, always choose the new.’ The only exceptions are ink stones! This is not because there are no more fine material from Duanxi and Shexian nowadays, but those old ink stones that have been steeped in the Odes and Books and taken on a dark patina are really worth treasuring!
From the above it is clear that the Qianlong emperor had a particular appreciation for antique ink stones. Apart from the Han roof-tile ink stones which he held in high regard in the Xiqing Yanpu, Duan stone was obviously his favourite material.
The name that he chose for the Tang ink stone, Guanxiang, relates to its octagonal shape. It is said that Fu Xi created the Eight Trigrams after observing the appearance (xiang) of heaven. This account was found in the first Chapter of Baihutongyi (Concordance from the White Tiger Hall), an important account of the 4th century Confucian discourse held in the White Tiger Monastery, which incorporated the concepts of five-phases and yin-yang theology to explain the relationships of all things to each other inside the universe. A very important aspect of these relationships is the legitimacy of the Emperor’s rule by Heaven’s mandate, a concept the subsequent rulers were all too happy to adopt.
Twenty-six years after Qianlong emperor gave the Guanxiang ink stone its name, he ordered copies of it to be made, such as the current piece and the one made in Daun stone recorded in the Xiqing Yanpu (see fig. 17), and composed a poem to inscribe on them. Interestingly, although he has dated the ink stone to Tang, the name he gave it and the references he made in the poem are all more relevant to the thinking of Han. The four-character format he employed for the poem was also popular in Han dynasty and obsolete by the Tang period.
It is unlikely that Qianlong did not detect the inconsistencies. In using this reference he was reminding people that his rule came from the Heaven’s mandate and is legitimate as long as he obeys the Dao. These ancient references also gave the piece a genuinely archaic flavour. Fivecharacter and seven-character poems popular in the Tang were still very much mainstream in the Qing dynasty, so to use them would have appeared too contemporary. Even the seals that he chose were archaic – ‘Sign of virtue within (Dechongfu)’ is the name of a chapter in the Daoist scripture Zhuangzi, while ‘Enlightened mind not far (huixinbuyuan)’ is taken from a 5th century text Shishuo Xinyu, accounts of the Daoist influenced scholars of that period. All these elements combined evoke a long lost era of ancient sages and hermits in pursuit of the Dao.
The current ink stone is made of She stone, a dark slate and siltstone produced in the Shexian area in Anhui and another prized material apart from the Duan. It has a very tight structure and is perfect for grinding ink. Many scholars consider She the superior stone to Duan. Ouyang Xiu (AD 1007–1072) for example claimed that She stone from Longwei is far superior to any other stone for ink grinding. Calligrapher Cai Xiang (1012–1067) also preferred She stone, and went as far as comparing it to the famous jade disc Heshibi.
