May 20, Fu Yanghua

Fu Yanghua

Associate Professor, School of Arts
Renmin University

Friday, May 20, 4:00- 6:00 pm
Location: CWAC 156

Trapped Hope: Yang Bu’s Ten-Leaf Album of Yearning Ancient Sages and His Ambivalence


Abstract:

Yang Bu(杨补) (1598-1657) was a renowned poet and painter in the 17th century. He lived through a difficult period for many Confucian scholar painters from late Ming’s corruption to the Ming-Qing dynastic transition. Despite of his well-known talents in literature, poems and paintings in Beijing and Suzhou, he did not want to become an official in the late Ming Dynasty. His friend circle involved famous official and painter Dong Qichang, Chen Jiru and many government important officials in the late Ming. In 1648, after a few years of Beijing’s falling to rebels and the Chongzhen emperor hanged himself on Coal Hill, he took his son Yang Zhao(杨照) to live a seclusive life in the FanJing Caotang thatched house and started his nine-year remnant’s life.

The ten-leaf album of Yearning for Ancient Sages ( Huai Gu Tu Yong ce, 怀古图咏册) at the Shanghai Museum was painted in 1648 when YangBu began his eremitic life. The ten leaves of paintings in the album traced ten historical stories that chosen from the formal historic books, which are linked to the eremitic life of the ancient sages. Those titles are1、(Boyi and Shuqi) picking osmund  采薇2、(Ju and Ni) plough farmland耦耕 3、(Shaoping) planting melon 种瓜 4、( Four old men in Shang Mountain)pick ganoderma lucidum采芝 5、(Shenshupan) living in the room around by trees 因树为屋 6、(Yuanhong) living in mud hut ( tu shi 土室) 7 (Guanning) offering well water 化汲 8 (Jiaoxian) Sleeping in the snow 卧雪9、(Tao Yuanming) Picking chrysanthemum 采菊10 (Zheng sixiao) Benxue world本穴世界.This article focuses on the iconography of the ten paintings as well as the painter’s self-image, and analyzes Yang Bu’s ambivalence between desire and despair at the initial stage as a remnant.

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