Interiority and the Value of Connection

252 Conclusion Conclusion Interiority and the Value of Connection Song romantic paintings of women demonstrate multiple ways that art and interiority intertwine. First, and most obviously, they depict women feeling (most typically) longing or desire—themes that require a painter’s representa- tion of not only an ineffable inner state, but also a female figure’s subjectivity. Second, paintings that were so clearly about emotion could serve, in much the same way as poems, as the authors’ expressions of their own interiority: thus, painters or patrons could use art to convey their ideas on topics that pertained to romance or addressed other situations. Third, paintings of longing and desire could stir thoughts or emotions in their viewers, as evident from some of the surviving inscriptions for these works. The skillful handling of subjectivity in particular allowed viewers to identify with a painted figure or to imagine themselves interacting with her, and that in turn meant that paintings on these themes could serve as political allegories or as models for femininity. Finally, the themes of interiority under consideration in these paintings could foster connections among people precisely because they stimulated deeper feelings, and this quality made the works intrinsically valuable, making them appropri- ate as gifts, for example. Throughout the early chapters of this book, I chose to focus on paintings with themes of longing or desire for which I could reconstruct a historical or social context. Though some are associated with members of the literati, most were produced at court. This suggests that the predilection for romantic themes was more prominent among members of the court than among the literati, es- pecially given that some of the latter group registered distaste for paintings of this type, though it may also reflect the better preservation of works that once belonged to the imperial art collections. Thus: the Northern Song emperor Huizong commissioned Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk. The Liaoning Provincial Museum version of Goddess of the Luo River can arguably be placed at the court of Southern Song emperor Gaozong. At the court of Southern Tang ruler Li Yu, Zhou Wenju painted the original version of In the Palace, and both he and Gu Hongzhong painted versions of Night Revels of Han Xizai, possibly for the ruler’s inspection; Song copies of these compositions were owned or viewed by officials or scholars. Mou Yi, a painter who may have served at court but had literati sensibilities, created two versions of Pounding Cloth, giving one to an official and another to a friend who was a collector. Looking at tenth- through thirteenth-century patterns of artistic production, collecting, and © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004369399_007 Interiority and the Value of Connection 253 viewing, then, both members of the court and highly educated individuals, including some who served in the bureaucracy, demonstrate a clear interest in romantic themes, a trend also seen in the broader culture. Because so much can be determined about the early histories of the paintings listed above, one can speculate on what they might have meant to specific male artists, male patrons, male collectors, and male viewers. The compositions of Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk and Goddess of the Luo River are believable as political instruments, with the former used by Emperor Huizong to assert his possession of the mandate of heaven and the latter possibly used as a signifier of political legitimacy at Emperor Gaozong’s court. Night Revels of Han Xizai, when first created, may have functioned as Li Yu’s critique of his minister; the Song copy seems to present the minister’s point of view, as a man of integrity unappreciated by his ruler. The surviving version of Pounding Cloth arouses sentiments consistent with homesickness and nostal- gia, perhaps relating artist Mou Yi’s feelings during his travels, while at the same time attesting to his connection to his friend Dong Shi, the scroll’s recipient. Only In the Palace is difficult to classify, and this is because we know too lit- tle about collector Zhang Cheng’s motivations. Perhaps obtaining a copy of a painting owned in the Northern Song by official Zhu Zaishang helped to demonstrate Zhang Cheng’s esteem for this presumably influential man. Many figures within this painting approach the archetype of the neglected palace consort, which may have stood for an official with unshakable devotion to his ruler, though its presentation of multiple ladies passing time together may also convey camaraderie among officials. Coincidentally, Zhang Cheng is recorded as the author of another colophon, dated 1141 and mounted on a fragmentary copy of Night Revels of Han Xizai that is held in the National Palace Museum, Taipei. The colophon has striking simi- larities of content to the colophon written for In the Palace: following informa- tion about the painter (in this case, a summary of Gu Hongzhong’s court service and ruler Li Yu’s commission of Night Revels), whole passages are re- peated verbatim or with minor changes (see my translation of the colophon in Chapter 1). The writer asserts that the artist is working in a style “similar to Zhou Fang’s but more delicate and beautiful,” referring in particular to the “abundantly fleshy” figures “with long skirts of fine silk.” (The figures in the surviving fragment, however, are slenderer than the figures in In the Palace.) He again recalls a visit to Jiaonan during which he viewed imperial portraits, and he compares the hairstyles of the female figures in Night Revels to those of palace women. (The hairstyles of the figures in this painting are actually some- what different from those found in In the Palace, rendering it unlikely that a .

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