Modern Views on Old Histories: Zhang Yu’s and Huang Gongwang’s Encounter with Qian Xuan

The aim of this paper is best introduced by listing the names of the men of letters and their works under discussion, bridging the early and later chapters of Yuan dynasty art : Zhang Yu’s poem (and commentary) on Qian Xuan’s painting Dwelling in the Floating Jade Mountains, and Huang Gongwang’s colophon to the same painting and his late works Nine Mountain Peaks after Snowfall and Visiting Dai Kui at Shan Creek (both dated 1349). While Qian’s work was discussed by Shih Shou-chien (1984), Huang’s two vertical paintings have achieved little attention. The main argument of this paper will be that Zhang Yu’s colophon, a poem and commentary, may be understood as a pivotal link between Qian’s archaistic yet modern work and Huang’s two late paintings. Zhang Yu, prominent in his times but rather unstudied today, may have been the first to point with his colophon to the fundamental art historical relevance of Qian’s work. From a broader perspective, this essay proposes what may be called like-mindedness among the protagonists visible in visual and literary references to the Six Dynasties and before.