Mi Fu’s Account On Paintings: Textual Studies And Emendation

Mi Fu’s Account on Paintings is an important piece of writing in the history of Chinese art,following the suit of Zhang Yanyuan’s Records of Famous Paintings of the Past.It catalogues a collection of paintings from the Jin Dynasty to the Song Dynasty by means of introducing and assessing collectors and painters,identifying their styles and characteristics,differentiating authenticities,discussing mounting and framing,evaluating the quality of ink,paper and inkstones,and occasionally providing comments on astronomy,sound and rhyme.Mi Fu lived in an era when promotion of art by the imperial court and the cultivation of literati led to the formation of a unique standard of evaluation and viewing style.This paper examines Account on Paintings from the dual perspectives of literature and art history on the basis of emendation,in an attempt to outline the connoisseurship and collecting taste of Mi Fu and his contemporaries in the literati circle.