The dramatic mode

While the draft-cursive mode may have had been reserved for casual occassions, Yang Weizhen’s dramatic mode is far more deliberate in its intent. It is difficult to define this mode either as running script or cursive script. In fact, one of the most prominent characteristics of this mode is the organic blending of running script with wild cursive, meanwhile applying

48 _{Yang’s Letter to Lizhai is in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei; reproduced in Hua}

Ning, Yang Weizhen (Taipei: Shitou chubanshe, 2006), 8-9

49 _{Yang Weizhen dated the letter in November 16 without giving the year. However, from the fact that he}

signed the letter as “schoolmaster of the Songjiang County College,” it becomes apparent that the letter was written in 1359, when Yang briefly taught the Songjiang County College. See Sun, Nianpu, 236-237.

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brush techniques and character structures from the clerical and seal scripts. His Colophon to the Album of Ancient Currency, for example, shows a combination of different script types with an extraordinary overflow of energy.50 _{This shocking visual effect is delivered through several}

characteristics that are distinct to Yang’s style. First of all, for characters with predominantly horizontal elements Yang tends to lay down his brush and drag it across the paper surface with extreme force—it is a technique as unorthodox as possible, and it is one of the reasons that Yang was severely criticized in traditional accounts. This sudden change of brush movement creates intentional discord and visual conflict with a boldness rarely seen in Yuan-period calligraphy. Secondly, Yang Weizhen also employed a wide range of ink tonality and texture to heighten visual contrast and create tension. In the Ancient Currency album, we can observe ink tonality from the darkest black to silvery grey, from saturated brushstrokes to the dry streaks that barely register on the paper, all within the relatively small frame of the album. Furthermore, as

mentioned above, Yang’s characters tend to drift away from the central axis of the column; in this dramatic mode, the characters not only vary in size drastically, but they also tend to run into the neighboring columns, weaving together to create an integrating visual effect rather than a liner flow.

The ostentatious style of this colophon begs the question: does the content of the album merit such a display of vehement force? At first the content of the inscription seems no more than just a passing social favor. The colophon was written for Yang’s friend Yao Yuanze (fl. mid-fourteenth century), who had his collection of ancient coins mounted in an album and circulated among friends for their inscriptions. In his inscription Yang Weizhen reflects on the changes of the form of currencies since ancient time, and laments the corruption of the

50 _{Colophon to the Album of Ancient Currency is in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei;}

reproduced in Chu Hui-liang (Zhu Huiliang) et al, Yunjian shupai tezhan tulu (Taipei: Guoli gugong bowuyuan,1994), 121-122.

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present-day monetary policy. Chu Hui-liang dated Yang’s inscription to the early 1350s based on the issuing of a new paper money in 1350, which led to a serious currency depreciation and inflation in the economy, and this may have in turn sparked Yang’s comments on the monetary policy. According to Chu, the corruption of the monetary policy and its ill effects also led to the Red Turban Rebellion. During a 1352 effort to put down the Rebellion, Yang’s acquaintance Li Fu (1298-1352), then the Route Commander of Jiangzhou (present day Jiujiang, Jiangxi

province), was killed by the rebel force.51 _{Li Fu was the Principal Graduate (zhuangyuan 狀元) of}

the 1327 Metropolitan Examination and therefore a “year-mate (tongnian 同年 or tongbang 同榜)” of Yang Weizhen.52 _{To commemorate the martyrdom of Li Fu, Yang signed his name in the}

Ancient Currency album as “jinshi Yang Weizhen, [zi] Lianfu, from the same placard as Li Fu, Duke of Loyal Constancy,” even though Li Fu was by no means linked to the making of the album.53 _{This allusion to a personal as well as political event charges the inscription with an}

emotional context without which the excessive dynamism of its style would be hard to explain.

As far as extant works indicate, Yang’s dramatic mode is often reserved for painting inscriptions, especially when inscribing directly on the painting surface. For example, Yang’s inscription on the collaborative work, Old Tree, Bamboo and Rock, by Zhang Shen (fl. late-

fourteenth century), Gu An (ca. 1295-ca. 1370) and Ni Zan, delivers such a visual clash with the painted components that James Cahill commented that the artists were “trying to outdo each

51 _{The Route Commander was a third-ranking position, notably higher than any position Yang Weizhen}

had ever held.

52 _{Although it is unlikely that Yang shared a close friendship with Li Fu, their relationship as}

fellow-graduates of the Metropolitan Examination naturally created a social and political bound between the two men, and accordingly Yang expressed his admiration and lamentation for Li’s martyrdom as a fellow graduate as well as a fellow government official.

53 _{Chu Hui-liang 朱惠良, “You shuji guan shibian—Yang Weizhen ti guquan pu ce 由書蹟觀世變—楊維}

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other in amateurish ugliness.”54 _{The same aggressiveness can also be observed from Yang’s}

inscriptions directly on the Spring Landscape by Ma Wan (fl. late-fourteenth century),55 _{Bird and}

Peach Blossoms by Zhang Zhong (fl. fourteenth century),56 _{and Spring Mountains by an}

anonymous painter.57 _{Conversely, when inscribing a handscroll on attached paper separated}

from the painted image, Yang reverted to the relative casualness of the draft-cursive mode, as seen in his colophons to the Portrait of Yang Zhuxi,58 _{Deng Wenyuan’s An Improvisation, and Ma}

Yuan’s (ca. 1190-1225) Four Hoary-Heads of Shangshan,59 _{just to name a few.}

This division, however, is not necessarily exclusive. Yang’s inscription to A Breath of Spring, our primary inquiry, is seemly a glaring contradiction to his habitual division. As mentioned above, Yang’s colophon was inscribed not on the painting surface but a separate piece of paper following the ink-plum painting. Yet this exception is by no means a whim of the calligrapher. Quite the contrary, it is very likely that Zou’s masterful display of calligraphic brushwork in this ink-plum painting stimulated Yang’s response in the dramatic mode. Taken together, we may conclude that although not a painter himself, Yang Weizhen was keenly aware of the

54 _{James Cahill, Hills beyond a River: Chinese Painting of the Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368 (New York:}

Weatherhill, 1976), 175-176. The painting is in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei; reproduced in Gugong shuhua tulu (Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1989-1995), vol. 14, 321-322.

55 _{The painting is in the collection of the University Art Museum, Princeton University; reproduced in}

Shen Fu and Marilyn Fu, Studies in Connoisseurship: Chinese Paintings from the Arthur M. Sackler Collection in New York and Princeton (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973), 73.

56 _{The painting is in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei; reproduced in Shih}

Shou-chieng and Ge Wanzhang eds., Dahan de shiji: Meng Yuan shidai de duoyuan wenhua yu yishu (Taipei: Guoli gugong bowuyuan, 2001), 308-309.

57 _{The painting is in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei. While Fu Shen suggests the}

landscape was also by Yang Weizhen based on the inscription, Richard Barnhart questions this

attribution on stylistic basis. Barnhart attributes the painting to Yang’s contemporary Yang Yanqing (Yao Tingmei). See Fu Shen, “A Landscape Painting by Yang Wei-chen.” National Palace Museum Bulletin, vol. 8, no. 4 (1973), 1-13. Also see Richard Barnhart, “Yao Yen-ch'ing, T'ing-mei, of Wu-hsing.” Artibus Asiae vol. 39 no. 2 (1977): 105-123. The painting is reproduced in Xu Guohuang, Li Guo shanshui huaxi tezhan (Taipei: Guoli gugong bowuyuan, 1999), 77-80.

58 _{The painting is a collaboration of Wang Yi and Ni Zan, and is in the collection of the Palace Museum,}

Beijing; reproduced in Yu Hui ed., Yuandai huihua (Hong Kong: Shangwu yinshu guan, 2005), 242-245.

59 _{The painting is in the collection of the Cincinnati Museum of Art; reproduced in Avril, Ellen B., Chinese}

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painted images and the pictorial potential of his dramatic mode, with which he intentionally challenged the artistic creations of his painter friends to a startling effect.