Chapter 16 Section 4 Ming and Qing Xuan Paper

In the history of Chinese calligraphy and painting art, the Ming Dynasty was also an important period.With the gradual stabilization of the social economy and the prosperity of culture and art, some famous artists and schools centered on the region have emerged.For example, the Zhejiang School represented by Dai Jin, the Wumen School headed by Shen Zhou and Wen Zhengming, the Songjiang School, Huating School, Su Song School and Lan Ying's Wulin School headed by Dong Qichang, etc.It's really a variety of genres, each showing its own splendor.In landscapes, figures, flowers and birds, all kinds of painting subjects have achieved comprehensive and huge development.

In the early Ming Dynasty, "court style paintings" mostly used ink and ink, with a little freehand brushwork.The "Four Schools of Wumen" (Tang Yin, Qiu Ying, Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming) in the mid-period, especially Shen Zhou's unique style of light crimson landscape and thick brush ink, developed literati ink freehand painting, which has great influence on ink and freehand brushwork in the future. influences.In the late Ming Dynasty, Dong Qichang's ink washes were dyed with deep and light stains (zi characters), with distinct shades.Xu Wei's paintings are even more dripping with ink and splashes of ink.

Calligraphy in the Ming Dynasty also achieved remarkable results.In addition to some famous painters who are also great calligraphers, there are also "Three Songs" (Song Ke, Song Guang, Song Sui [sui]), "Er Shen" (Shen Du, Shen Can), "Er Qian" (Qian Pu [pu Pu], Qian Bo) and "Er Zhang" (Zhang Bi, Zhang Jun) and other famous artists. There are also many schools and styles. The prosperity of painting and calligraphy in the Ming Dynasty, especially the prevalence of ink and wash freehand brushwork, promoted the perfection of the developing Xuan paper, calling for the emergence of mature and real Xuan paper.

The rice paper we are referring to now, or the real rice paper, refers to the paper for calligraphy and painting that is mainly produced by hand with sandalwood bark as the main raw material and sandalwood straw as the main ingredient.Its characteristics are: tough but moist, smooth but not slippery.Thin ones can be strong, thick ones can be endowed, the color is as white as frost, it will not change color for a long time, it will not be damaged when folded, and it is resistant to decay and moth.Its outstanding feature is "moisture". "Stone Forest Summer Records" said: "Paper is taken from the old age, and most of them are not good. Yu Su doesn't like to use it, and he can't cover it with ink." It seems that in the Southern Song Dynasty and even the Yuan Dynasty, many paper products were still "uncoverable". Receive ink". "Zunsheng Bajian" says: "Southern paper is firm and thin, and it is very easy to stretch (zhi) ink." The author believes that the word "tuo" is the same as "摭" (zhizhi), which means to pick up (see Zhang Heng's "Sixuan" "Fu"), "tuomo" means receiving ink.This shows that in the south of the Ming Dynasty, the "South Paper" in the Xuanzhou area already had the characteristic of "receiving ink".

There is a kind of Xuande paper in Ming Dynasty Xuan paper. Fang Yizhi, a thinker in Ming Dynasty, said in "Little Knowledge of Physics": "Xuande and Chen Qing... Today, cotton (paper) is promoted in Xingguo and Jingxian County." This kind is produced in Xuanzhou area. The cotton paper in Jingxian County and other places is leather paper, that is, rice paper. "Xuande" is the year name of Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty, and "Chen Qing's money" is signed by Chen Qing, the paper maker.Zou Bingtai in the Qing Dynasty also said in "Wu Feng Tang Cong Tan": "Xuan paper is thin enough to be strong, thick enough to be endowed, paper color ancient, fine writing...Xuan paper Chen Qing is the first." Produced in the Xuande period Xuan paper was once called "tribute paper" because of its high quality, and there are many varieties.In the Qing Dynasty, Cha Shenxing said in "The Story of the Sea of ​​People": "Xuande paper has tribute paper, cotton material, and jasmine paper seals made in Xuande five years. There are also white paper, sprinkled gold paper, five-color powder paper, and golden flowers. For five-color paper, five-color curtain paper, and magnetic blue paper, Chen Qing’s style is the first.”

Regarding the history of papermaking and Xuan paper making in Jingxian County in Xuanzhou area, the preface of "Cao's Genealogy" says: "When Cao Dasan was fighting for land at the end of Song Dynasty, the four policemen of the beacon towers avoided the chaos. From Qiuchuan in Nanling, he moved to Jing In the Xiaoling Mountain area of ​​the county, he moved to Shisan House. At that time, because he saw that it was a mountain (Zou Zou), there was no arable land, and because Cai Lun was behind him, he thought he made a living." This means that Cao Dasan came to avoid the war at the end of the Song Dynasty Xiaoling, and began to engage in the paper industry.In the long-term papermaking process, Cao's papermaking family and the paper workers of "Thirteen Houses" gradually created Xuan paper on the basis of the past papermaking experience and technology in Xuanzhou area.Later, from the Xuande period of the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Ming Dynasty, it took one and a half centuries to produce high-quality and mature rice paper that is "thin and strong, thick and endowed, with ancient color and fine writing".

In the Qing Dynasty, especially the early stage, culture was developed and art flourished.The art of painting continued the trend of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Literati paintings increasingly occupied the mainstream of the painting world, landscape paintings flourished for a while, and ink and wash freehand paintings became popular in the world.The painting world has branched and multiplied, and there are many factions. Under the influence of the creative thinking of literati paintings, many painters deliberately pursue the taste of brush and ink, express their "spirituality", and cultivate their emotions.

There were many calligraphers and painters in the Qing Dynasty, such as the "Four Kings" (Wang Shimin, Wang Jian, Wang Hui [huihui], Wang Yuanqi), Wu Li, Yun Shouping, the "Four Monks" (Yuan Ji, Zhu Da [da Da], Zhu [ Kunkun〕Can, Hongren), "Eight Schools of Jinling" (Gong Xian, Fan Qi〔qiqi〕, Gao Cen, Zou Zhe〔zhe〕, Wu Hong, Ye Xin, Hu慥〔zaozao〕, Xie Sun) , "Yangzhou Eight Schools" (generally referring to Wang Shishen, Huang Shen, Jinnong, Gao Xiang, Li Kui (shanshan), Zheng Xie, Li Fangying, Luo Pin), Ren Bonian, Wu Changshuo, etc.The Qing Dynasty was also an important period in the history of Chinese calligraphy, known as the "Revival of Calligraphy".Calligraphers such as Weng Fanggang, Liu Yong, Liang Tongshu and Wang Wenzhi, who are known as the Four Great Masters.Almost all of them paint and write on rice paper.Their painting and calligraphy are smooth and majestic, pursuing dripping ink and bright colors.All of these have promoted the development and improvement of Xuan paper.

Furthermore, the prosperity of the book engraving and printing industry in the Qing Dynasty also promoted the development of the Xuan paper industry.Just taking literary works as an example, there were Gao Ming's "The Story of the Pipa", Zhang Fengyi's "The Story of the Red Fu", "Water Margin" and so on that were engraved on Xuan paper in Huizhou and other places at that time.The famous early copies were only handed down. In the fifty-sixth and fifty-seventh years of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty (AD 1791 and 1792), they were printed with movable type twice in the Huizhou area. These are the famous "Cheng Jiaben" and "Chengyiben".In the forty-second chapter, when Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu, Xue Baochai, Jia Xichun and others were discussing and drawing the whole picture of the Grand View Garden, Baoyu said: "There is snow wave paper at home, which is big and ink-filled." Baochai sneered and said: "The Xuelang paper is good for writing, drawing freehand brushwork, or painting Nanzong's landscapes with ink, so it can't be dyed." The "Xuelang paper" mentioned here is a kind of rice paper .The so-called "Tuomo" refers to the moistening property of rice paper.Xuelang paper is very suitable for freehand landscape painting.

In the Qing Dynasty, the Xuan paper industry in Xuanzhou developed unprecedentedly.In the early Qing Dynasty, Chu Zaiwen said in "Rubbed Paper Fu": "Ruo Fujing is a group of people, but it is difficult to point out the species. The mountains are beautiful and clustered, and the water is gurgling [gu bone] and clear. Even the clouds of Tongguan. The sound of the box and the ground pestle rang into the Xuancao. The selected rocks are like waterfalls, and the collected villages are like cities.” This means that Xuan paper in Jing County was the crown of paper at that time. There are many categories.The mountains are beautiful and steep, the water flow is clear and urgent, and the valley trees (valley trees are green sandalwood trees) cover the sky. The sound of the pestle in the "pit" (the lowland between the mountains) resounded through Caoxi Township, Xuancheng.Refined paper, stacked like a rock formation, dried like a waterfall.On the day of collection, the remote mountain village is as lively as a market.After reading Chufu, the bustling scene of papermaking is really vivid on the "paper".

The papermaking industry in Xuanzhou area was still very prosperous until the end of Qing Dynasty. "Xuancheng County Chronicles" contained a poem by Zhao Tinghui, a poet of the Qing Dynasty: "People in the mountains are busy with their affairs? They are transporting stones to build new walls. There are no paper dunes along the stream. Pause, a sound of pounding shakes the sunset." From this, we also understand the hardworking scene of the local papermakers "the paper reel never stops", and the moving scene of "the sound of pounding shakes the sunset". Finally, we would like to explain that the current samples of Xuan paper from the Ming Dynasty are tested, and the results show that all of them are sandalwood pulp fibers.That is to say, the raw material for making Xuan paper in the Ming Dynasty was single green sandalwood bark.It was after the Qing Dynasty that rice straw pulp was added to rice paper (see "Xuan Paper and Painting and Calligraphy").It seems that the manufacture of Xuan paper has a gradual development process.In a broad sense, if it refers to the paper produced in Xuanzhou area, then this kind of Xuan paper appeared in the Tang Dynasty at the latest; It only began to appear in the Xiaoling area of ​​Jingxian County.If it refers to the paper made of green sandalwood bark as the main raw material and Shatian straw as the main ingredient, that is, the real Xuan paper, it was not produced until the Qing Dynasty.After long-term practice and arduous exploration, the working people in ancient China not only invented papermaking, but also created Xuan paper.The invention of Xuan paper is the glory and pride in the history of papermaking technology and culture and art in my country, and it is also an outstanding contribution to the history of world culture.