Art in Daily Life: Knowledge and Practice in Late-Ming Riyong Leishu
Cheng-hua Wang
Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica
1. Introduction
There emerged a great quantity of riyong leishu (日用類書 encyclopedias for
daily use) in late-Ming China, a social and cultural phenomenon which, since the 1950s,
has attracted the attention of scholars in the fields of Chinese literature, medical, and
socio-economic history. Since the extant thirty-five editions of late-Ming riyong leishu
are mostly in the collections of libraries in Japan, 1 Japanese socio-economic historians
such as Sakai Tadao 酒井忠夫 were among the first to discover the historical value of
these late-Ming encyclopedias and used them to discuss issues ranging from popular
education, to trade routes, and commercial practice.2
Actually, the classification of
Regarding the editions and their whereabouts, see Wu Huifang 吳蕙芳, Wanbao chuanshu: Ming-Qing
shiqi de minjian shenghuo shilu 萬寶全書：明清時期的民間生活實錄 (Taipei: National Cheng-chi
University, 2001), pp. 641-59.
1
2
For two brief introductions to the use of late-Ming riyong leishu as historical data, see Sakade
Yoshinobu 阪出祥伸, ”Mindai nichiyo ruisho ni tsuite,”明代日用類書 in Chugoku nichiyo ruisho shusei
中國日用類書集成, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Kyuko shoin, 1999), pp. 26-7; Wu Huifang, “’Zhongguo riyong
leishu jicheng’ ji qi shiliao jiazhi,” 《中國日用類書集成》及其史料價值 in Jindai Zhongguoshi yanjiu
tongxun 近代中國史研究通訊, no. 30 (September 2000), pp. 116-7.
1
riyong leishu as a category of historical documents, and the recognition these
documents have received, owe much to the achievement of these Japanese scholars.3
In recent years, scholars in fields other than socio-economic history have also turned
their attention to what can be found within the late-Ming riyong leishu, especially those
in the study of seventeenth-century vernacular literature. Ogawa Yoichi 小川陽一 is
such an example in that he has attempted to investigate the commonality between
late-Ming fictions and riyong leishu in the descriptions of drinking games and
fortune-telling.4
Of the related research, the most inspiring one, a 1999 article by
Shang Wei, demonstrates a rich and sophisticated intertextuality in the writings of Jin
ping mei cihua 金瓶梅詞話 and household encyclopedias, both of which are believed
to construct and disseminate late-Ming discourse on daily life.5
For Japanese scholars, as well as scholars from China and Taiwan who have
followed their Japanese colleagues to use late-Ming riyong leishu in their research of
For example, see Sakai Tadao, “Mindai no jitsuyo ruisho to shomin kyoiku,” 明代日用類書庶民教育
in Hayashi Tomoharu 林友春 ed., Kinsei Chugoku kyoikushi kenkyu 近世中國教育史研究 (Tokyo:
kokudosha, 1958), pp. 26-154,
3
See Ogawa Yoichi, Nichiyo ruisho ni yoru Min-Shin shosetsu no kenkyu 日用類書明清小說研究
(Tokyo: Kenbun, 1995), pp. 97-322.
4
See Shang Wei, “The Making of the Everyday World: Jin Ping Mei Cihua and the Encyclopedias for
Daily Use,” a paper presented at the conference Shibian yu weixin: wan Ming yu wan Qing de wenxue
yishu 世變與維新：晚明與晚清的文學藝術, Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia
Sinica, Taipei, July 16-17, 1999, pp. 1-32。
5
2
late-Ming society, the encyclopedias, as a category of books, provide them with
historical materials of unique value-- only through which we are able to conjure up a
general picture of late-Ming daily praxis.6
In other words, these encyclopedias are
believed to disclose the detail of everyday life in its entirety, something that is often
neglected and marginalized in traditional Chinese historiography. Equally prevalent to
the issue of daily life pertains to the audience and social meaning of these encyclopedias,
including questions such as who the consumers and publishers were, why riyong leishu
were so popular, and which knowledge contained within them reflects or represents
late-Ming society and culture.
The assumption that holds riyong leishu are both a faithful and comprehensive
records of daily life is sometimes misleading because “daily life” is not a given, nor
every entry in these encyclopedias a mirror of late-Ming daily activity. As Shang Wei
points out, these encyclopedias were actually an agent in the formation of discourse on
daily life, and thus helped define what daily life was with their dissemination in
late-Ming social space which was in turn shaped by the encyclopedias. Moreover,
For example, see Chen Xuewen 陳學文, Ming Qing shiqi shangyeshu ji shangrenshu zhi yanjiu 明清時
期商業書與商人書之研究 (Taipei: Hongye wenhua shiye youxian gongsi, 1997); Wang Emin 王爾敏,
Ming Qing shidai shumin wenhua shenghuo 明清時代庶民文化生活 (Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan
jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1996); Wu Huifang, Wanbao chuanshu.
6
3
Shang Wei also notes that late-Ming riyong leishu embodied a new cultural trend in
which “daily life” became a legitimate category of knowledge or even the core of the
knowledge system. Sakai Tadao attributed this trend to the influence of the School of
Wang Yangming 王陽明 which placed day-to-day life experiences above abstruse
philosophical reflections.7
The primacy of daily life in late-Ming discourse partly explains the
emergence of a huge number of texts on how to live one’s life and what to do with
objects needed in daily life in late-Ming China. The seminal study of Craig Clunas on
such late-Ming books as Zhangwuzhi 長物志 investigates the discourse of everyday
things and life, and portrays the anxiety of a member of literati class to distinguish
himself from the nouveau riche who benefited from the late-Ming economic boom.8
The daily-use encyclopedias form an altogether different collection of writings on
everyday life during this period and appear to be more comprehensive and detailed than
Zhangwuzhi. This category of books first made their appearance at the end of the
Sakai Tadao, “Confucianism and Popular Educational Works,” in William de Bary, ed., Self and Society
in Ming Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), pp. 338-41.
7
8
See Craig Clunas, Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China
(Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1991), pp. 8-39.
4
Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279), and the inceptive Shilin guangji 事林廣記
continued to be re-edited and re-printed in later dynasties.9
Completed in the early
Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), Jujia biyong shilei chuangji 居家必用事類全集 is the first
which assumes a title referring to daily life.10
Through a comparison between these
two precedents and late-Ming riyong leishu, it is evident that the definition and structure
of daily life were not constant from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. Or, the
cultural horizons of Zhangwuzhi were very different from those of the daily-use
encyclopedias, at least in terms of social class and epistemology of social life. As such,
it inquires a re-examination of the content and knowledge of late-Ming riyong leishu to
see what “daily life” meant for those who had access to the encyclopedias.
Regarding the issues of audience and social meaning, Sakai Tadao conceives
of late-Ming riyong leishu as instructions on social life edited and published by
lower-ranking scholar-gentry to cater to the need of practical knowledge by all classes,
The first version of Shilin guangji has traditionally been attributed to Chen Yuanjing 陳元靚, an
obscure figure of the late Southern Song period. To my knowledge, there are several versions of Shilin
guangji collected in the libraries of China and Japan. The earliest one is very likely to have been printed
in the late Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) since a note of 1325 indicates that new materials were added,
including a list of Mongol characters of one-hundred surnames. See Nagasawa Kikuya 長澤規矩也,
“Jieti,” 解題 in Nagasawa Kikuya, ed., Hekeben leishu jicheng 和刻本類書集成, vol. 1 (Shanghai:
Shanghai Guji chubanshe, 1990), pp. 3-4. See also Sakai Tadao, “Mindai no jitsuyo ruisho to shomin
kyoiku,” pp. 62-74.
9
See “Chuban shuoming,” 出版說明 in Jujia biyong shilei 居家必用事類 (Kyoto: Zhongwen
chubanshe, 1984).
10
5
that is, simin (four folks 四民 ), including scholar-gentry, peasants, artisans, and
merchants. However, he also employs the term shomin (commoners 庶民) to indicate
the aspect of popular education in the workings of riyong leishu because they conveyed
to common people popularized ethical and moral teachings dripping down from the
orthodox Confucian writings.11
Following Dorothy Ko, Shang Wei argues that the
daily-use encyclopedias were targeted at a reading public which crossed the boundary of
class and region as part of late-Ming prosperous commercial publishing which produced
a great number of manuals, primers, and vernacular novels as well. In her study of
seventeenth-century women, Dorothy Ko also persuasively maintains that, even though
this reading public never exceeded 10 percent of the entire population, it triggered a
drastic and profound change in late-Ming culture and society which should not be
underestimated.12
Most of the scholars, when discussing the issue of audience of late-Ming
riyong leishu, refer to the prefaces of these encyclopedias, which emphasize, much like
Except for the articles cited above, see also Sakai Tadao, “Jogen,” 序言 in Chugoku nichiyo ruisho
shusei, vol. 1, pp. 1-6.
11
12
See Dorothy Ko, Teachers of Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), pp. 34-41.
6
modern-day advertisements, how the publishers endeavor to incorporate as much
knowledge as possible to meet the need of the four classes, or both scholar-officials and
commoners (shimin 士民). Some details in these encyclopedias also corroborate the
point that they address to a reading public irrespective of class and region, or even
gender and age. For instance, a traveling merchant could utilize one sample letter in the
Chapter of Wenhan (Epistolary 文翰) to send a message back home, as could a wife to
her faraway husband.13
Of course, a specialist in letter-writing might first learn how to
draft a letter for those who came to his service through the examples provided by the
household encyclopedias.14
Some chapters in the encyclopedias function as primers
for playing chess or identifying seal script while others teach the “proper” way to treat
courtesans or to play drinking games in the floating world of late-Ming city life.
The other common way to gauge the formation of the reading public for
late-Ming riyong leishu depends on the price list of these editions and their monetary
13
Many of the late-Ming encyclopedias for daily use that I have consulted include the above-mentioned
sample letters; for example, see the four editions collected in Chugoku nichiyo ruisho shusei.
14
Based on an anthropological study of Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s, the encyclopedias for daily
use were among the household books in the collections of families which could afford some sort of
cultural products. Nonetheless, many lower-class families were beyond the reach of any printed matter.
Under these circumstances, specialists in all realms of social life, such as funeral rites and letter-writing,
were popular in Hong Kong. See James Hayes, “Specialist and Written Materials in the Village World,” in
David Johnson, Andrew J. Nathan, and Evelyn S. Rawski, eds., Popular Culture in Late-Imperial China
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 75-111.
7
value in the late-Ming economy. According to the prices indicated in some editions of
these encyclopedias, their costs ranged from one ounce of silver to one-tenth of this
value, comparatively inexpensive in the late-Ming book market. 15
Even though
lower-class families had neither the purchasing power, nor the ability to comprehend
any kind of written materials, a family of some means should have had disposable
income, and books of practical knowledge may well have been one of their choices.16
Furthermore, an episode in the early-Qing novel Xingshi yinyuan zhuan 醒世姻緣傳
gives us a glimpse of the potential owner and use of the household encyclopedias. The
story has it that a dissipated teenager son of a low-ranking scholar-gentry family from
Wucheng 武城, Shandong 山東, possesses a small library containing a set of the
household encyclopedias, erotic woodblock prints, and vernacular novels of love affairs.
Once when the son’s beloved concubine suddenly has a terrible headache, he consults
the chapter of charm and incantation in the encyclopedia to ward off the evil spirit
See Sakai Tadao, “Mindai no jitsuyo ruisho to shomin kyoik”, pp. 140-51; Oki Yasushi 大木康,
“Minmatsu Konan ni okeru shuppan bunka no kenkyu,” 明末江南出版文化研究 in Hiroshima dagaku
bungakubu kiyo 廣島大學文學部紀要, no. 50, special issue no. 1 (January 1991), pp. 103-7; Shen Jin 沈
津, ”Mingdai fangke tushu zhi liutong yu jiage,” 明代坊刻圖書之流通與價格 in Guojia tushuguan
guankan 國家圖書館館刊, vol. 85, no. 1 (1996), pp. 101-18; Yu Yaohua 余耀華, Zhongguo jiageshi 中國
價格史 (Beijing: Zhongguo wujia chubanshe, 2000), pp. 766-830.
15
16
See Dorothy Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers, pp. 35-7.
8
which is believed to be the cause of such an attack.17
The above story of the debauched son who did not spend his time on texts for
civil-examinations, to a certain extent, suggests that there was a reading public for
vernacular novels and household encyclopedias even in a provincial town; however, it
also implies that a serious and aspiring scholar-official candidate would not include the
lightweight books such as novels and encyclopedias in his reading list. This brings us to
consider the social differentiation in late-Ming culture of reading and the competition of
marketable knowledge in late-Ming social space.
When we attempt to match the practical knowledge in the household
encyclopedias with those in vernacular novels, we tend to discern the cultural
denominators in late-Ming society, which is beyond class differentiation and regional
variation. On the other hand, if we instead shift our attention to the kinds of knowledge
in the daily-use encyclopedias which were traditionally privileged by the upper class, a
very different picture emerges. For example, the knowledge of art, such as how to get
access to artworks, how to handle them as objects, and how to appreciate the aesthetic
quality in them, should have been exclusive to the privileged class which gained the
17
See Ogawa Yoichi, Nichiyo ruisho ni yoru Min-Shin shosetsu no kenkyu, pp. 43-5.
9
knowledge primarily through family connections or literati circles. In most societies, art
is the best token of social distinction, even in a modern democratic one. Thus, since a
majority of late-Ming popular encyclopedias consist of chapters on art, especially
calligraphy and painting, we can use them to discuss the social differentiation in the
knowledge of art between the encyclopedias and the other kinds of writings on art.
The knowledge of art in late-Ming riyong leishu not only sheds light on the
issues of social differentiation and the competition of marketable knowledge, but also
relates to the first issue regarding the construction of daily life in late-Ming
encyclopedias for daily use. It is through the changes in the details of content, such as
the knowledge of art, when compared to the other writings on similar subjects, that we
are able to approach the distinctive characteristics of “daily life” in late-Ming riyong
leishu. Accordingly, before going into a detailed discussion of the chapters on art in
late-Ming riyong leishu, it is necessary to explore the meaning of “daily life” in various
texts on daily life.
2. What Is “Daily Life” in Late-Ming Riyong Leishu?
10
A large portion of the 35 editions of late-Ming riyong leishu should have
come from the Jianyang county (Jianyang xian 建陽縣) in Fujian 福建, one of the
late-Ming print centers whose history in printing can be traced back to the Southern
Song dynasty. By the time of late sixteenth century, Jianyang had long been known for
its production of books in enormous quantity cum low quality, a poor reputation to
which some shoddy editions of late-Ming household encyclopedias confirm.18
Even
so, many of the printing houses and their owners still claimed their productions of these
cheap editions of encyclopedias with their names inscribed in the beginning of the first
chapters of their own editions. In these cases, we find that the famous lineages of
book-printing families in Jianyang, with the surnames such as Yu 余, Xiong 熊, Zhan 詹,
and Xiao 蕭, all contributed to the publications of late-Ming encyclopedias for daily
use.19
Moreover, the essential elements in the format and style of late-Ming riyong
For the detailed study of Jianyang printing business, see Lucille Chia, “Printing for Profit: the
Commercial Printers of Jianyang, Fujian (Song-Ming)” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Columbia,
1996); Xie Shuishun 謝水順 and Li Ting 李珽, Fujian gudai keshu 福建古代刻書 (Fuzhou: Fujian
renmin chubanshe, 1997). I have seen one version of shoddy riyong leishu in the National Library,
Beijing. The brittle and yellowish paper, obscure print, and rough illustrations all point to its low quality
and price in late-Ming book market.
19
See Fujian gudai keshu, pp. 245, 247, 250, 253, 285, 291, 323; Wanbao chuanshu, pp. 641-58.
18
11
leishu, including two registers in page layout and a considerable amount of graphics,
bear the marks of the Jianyang imprints. The two-register format, while seldom seen in
high-quality books, first appeared in the illustrated and thus popularized versions of
Yuan dramas, a specialty of the Jianyang publications in the Yuan dynasty.20
In detail,
each register again breaks into several compartments to subsume related knowledge
under one heading (fig. 1). The fact that graphics, such as maps, diagrams, and
illustrations, were commonplace in late-Ming riyong leishu attests to the contemporary
predilection for visual representation and pleasure (fig. 2).21
In order to sell, even the
editions of poor quality showed illustrations of human faces, landscapes, and plants; in
some cases, red-color pigment was applied to the originally black-and-white pictures to
enrich the visual effect, a measure which should have swelled the budget even though it
was not unusual for late-Ming woodblock prints.22
20
See Fujian gudai keshu, pp. 338-40; “Printing for Profit,” pp. 75-80.
Regarding the importance of visual representations in late-Ming culture, see Ma Meng-ching 馬孟晶,
“Emuzhiwan: cong Xixiangji banhua chatu lun wan Ming chuban wenhua dui shijuexing zhi guanzhu,”
耳目之玩：從《西廂記》版畫插圖論晚明出版文化對視覺性之關注 in Guoli Taiwan daxue Meishushi
yanjiu jikan 國立台灣大學美術史研究集刊, no. 13 (2002), pp. 202-76.
22
I have seen five original editions of late-Ming riyong leishu in the Chinese National Library, and one in
the library of Chinese Academy of Science, both located in Beijing. Even though their qualities are very
uneven, at least three of them have two-colored illustrations. See Xu Huiying 徐會瀛, ed., Xinqi Yantai
jiaozheng tianxia tongxing wenlin jubao wanjuan xingluo 新鍥燕臺校正天下通行文林聚寶萬卷星羅,
Xinban chuanbu tianxia bianyong wenlin miaojin wanbao chuanshu 新板全補天下便用文林玅錦萬寶
全書, both in the collections of the National Library. See also Xinke siming bianlan wanshu cuijin 新刻四
21
12
Also for commercial reasons, as mentioned above, many publishers
emphasize that their editions have drawn so many genres of knowledge from a sea of
books that the reader does not need to get hold of other editions, or even the originals.
These kinds of all-inclusiveness statements allow us insight into the formation of these
popular encyclopedias, which select or abbreviate passages from various texts to cover
late-Ming existing genres of knowledge. These various texts include not only printed
materials prior to the late-Ming period but the popular encyclopedias published by the
other publishing houses around the same time. In modern concept of copyright, the act
of plagiarism characterizes the late-Ming encyclopedias for daily use; similarly, in terms
of intellectual history, the repetitive and disruptive passages are likely worthless in the
discussion of late-Ming epistemology. However, far from a conglomeration of
mismatched materials, the encyclopedias actually reshape the texts they copy, and
reorganize them to form categories of knowledge with a new order and meaning. It
means that the late-Ming household encyclopedias did undergo a process of editing and
were transformed into a genre of books with distinctive characteristics. As one of the
characteristics, the repetitive and disruptive passages, rather than pale versions of “true”
民便覽萬書萃錦, in the collection of the Chinese Academy of Science.
13
knowledge, assume significant roles in the dissemination of knowledge. For example,
many of the editions of late-Ming riyong leishu consist of an illustrated section of
foreign lands, either real or mythical, in which the Country of Gaoli (Gaoliguo 高麗國)
receives the highest evaluation as the most sinicized and thus cultivated one. Its
illustration shows a male figure fully clad in Chinese-style robe and holding a folding
fan in his hand, in a vivid contrast to the half-naked, bare-footed and sword-carrying
barbarian representing a Japanese whose act of piracy is stressed in the caption (figs. 3
and 4).23
These captions and illustrations conveyed to the reader a clear message about
these two countries close to China, constructing part of the knowledge of alien lands in
late-Ming society, no matter whether they were copies or not.24
The inclusion of a chapter on foreign lands and products in most late-Ming
For example, see Xinqi chuanbu tianxia simin liyong bianguan wuche bajin 新鍥全補天下四民利用
便觀五車拔錦, in Chugoku nichiyo ruisho shusei, vol. 1, pp. 188-90; Xinke Aixianshen Tianluge huibian
caijing bianlan wanbao chuanshu 新刻艾先生天祿閣彙編採精便覽萬寶全書 (Taipei, the Fu Ssu-nian
Library of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica), juan 7, pp. 1b-2b; Xinjuan hanyuan
shilin guangshi siming bianyong xuehai qunyu 新鐫翰苑士林廣記四民便用學海群玉 (Taipei, the Fu
Ssu-nian Library of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica), juan 10, pp. 1b-2a, 4a.
24
Regardless of the differences in detail, most of the late-Ming household encyclopedias that I have
come across, which is about eighteen, demonstrate a striking comparison in the illustrations and captions
of Korea and Japan as I mentioned here. The three editions of eighteenth-century riyong leishu in the
collection of the library of Peking University basically retain this characteristic, despite the fact that the
Japanese in each of them is no longer bare-chested. On the other hand, the famous late-Ming illustrated
encyclopedia, Sancai tuhui 三才圖會, does not share this characteristic in its illustrations of Korea and
Japan, which confirms that it does not belong to the category of popular encyclopedias that this paper
deals with. See Wang Qi 王圻 and Wang Siyi 王思義, eds., Sancai tuhui (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji
chubanshe, 1985), pp. 817, 836.
23
14
riyong leishu reveals to us that there was an interest in “the others” in contemporary
society, and, meanwhile, leads us to wonder how this kind of knowledge were
incorporated into daily life. The Yuan version of Shilin guangji also contains a section
on foreign countries, but few of which overlap with those of the late-Ming
encyclopedias, nor with the inventory of local products and the illustrations of native
people.25
The early Yuan household encyclopedia, Jujia biyong shilei chuanji, does
not offer information on foreign soils, let alone a description or illustration of their
people and goods.
Nowadays, the category of “daily life” reminds us of our subsistence need,
such as food and clothing, working hours, and all kinds of entertainments that give us
pleasure. In comparison, what is special about Shilin guangji lies in the words of advice
to the civil service, and the knowledge in regard to Neo-Confucianism and the etiquette
and paraphernalia of a scholar-official. 26
Even the section on agriculture and
sericulture is very likely to have equipped the class of scholar-gentry with the practical
knowledge of how to manage their property since the next sections prescribe proper
See Xinbian zuantu zenglei qunshu leiyao shilin guangji 新編纂圖增類群書類要事林廣記, in
Hekeben leishu jicheng, vol. 1, pp. 391-3.
26
See ibid., Bingji 丙集, juan 2; Dingji 丁集, juan 3; Wuji 戊集, juan 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8; Gengji 庚集, juan 8.
25
15
ways to be the head of a land-holding household.27
Although Shilin guangji also gives
prescriptions and recipes in such detail that we can still put them into practice much like
those found in today’s newspapers, its potential readership likely leaned toward the
scholar-gentry class.28
In his 1560 preface to the Yuan edition of Jujia biyong shilei chuanji, the
famous writer, Tian Rucheng 田汝成, resorts to the orthodox Confucian teachings of
qijia (齊家 to manage one’s household) and zhiguo (治國 to administer state affairs) to
promote the reprinted version of the book, whose rhetoric is very different from that of
late-Ming riyong leishu which were simply commercial. 29
Indeed, this set of
encyclopedia of the Yuan dynasty contains a self-designated section for civil service,
and a large segment on Confucian moral teachings and family rituals. Moreover, that the
sections functioned as introductions to Confucian learning should have been for the use
of teachers and parents, rather than primers for children themselves. 30
As with its
27
See ibid., Gengji, juan 3, 4, 5.
28
See ibid., Xinji 辛集, juan 1-5; Gueiji 癸集, juan 1-5.
29
See Tian Rucheng, “Jujia biyong shilei xu,” 居家必用事類敘 in Jujia biyong shilei, pp. 1-2.
See Jujia biyong shilei chuanji, in Beijing tushuguan guji zhenben congkan 北京圖書館古籍珍本叢刊,
vol. 61 (Beijing: Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 1988), jiaji 甲集, yiji 乙集, bingji 丙集, xinji 辛集.
30
16
Southern Song precedent, Jujia biyong shilei chuanji, especially its descriptions of
husbandry and cooking, provides the class of scholar-gentry with a comprehensive
knowledge system for household management.
These kinds of books continued to flourish in the Ming dynasty for both Shilin
guangji and Jujia biyong shilei chuanji were reprinted and circulated, as mentioned
above. In addition, a Ming scholar named Song Xu 宋詡 also compiled a set of books
in 1504 as instructions for the scholar-gentry class to administer household affairs, in
the preface of which the Confucian teachings of qijia and zhiguo were again employed
to assert the legitimacy and authority of his edition.31
Similar was a late-Ming edition
of the encyclopedia of important terminology and knowledge, whose preface assumed a
scholarly rhetoric to bolster the status of the book.32
It is evident that, in late-Ming
commercial publishing, different kinds of household encyclopedias competed for their
share of the book market, and that the encyclopedias dealt with in this paper must have
been well sold, judging by the number of existing editions of them. Their success in the
See Song Xu, Songshi jiayaobu 宋氏家要部, jiayibu 家儀部, jiaguibu 家規部, yanxianbu 燕閒部, in
Beijing tushuguan juji zhenben congkan, vol. 61.
32
See Shen Jifei 沈際飛, “Gujin leishu zuanyao xu,” 古今類書纂要敘 in Qu Kunyu 璩崑玉, ed., Gujin
leishu zuanyao, in Hekeben leishu jicheng, vol. 5, pp. 271-3.
31
17
late-Ming book market likely resulted from the commercial strategy by which these
popular encyclopedias were edited and sold. In other words, they were able to
distinguish themselves from other types of encyclopedias and to fulfill the need of a
certain group of people.
As mentioned above, the late-Ming encyclopedias for daily use could reach a
readership beyond the traditional consumers of cultural products, that is, the class of
scholar-gentry. Also, there is little doubt that parts of the encyclopedias worked as
primers or manuals for beginners in the social realms of game-playing,
couplet-composing, or brothel-visiting. To be sure, one could probably learn how to
write good calligraphy by consulting the illustrations and rhymed formulas in the
Chapter of Calligraphy (Shufamen 書法門) (fig. 5). However, through a comparison
with the late-Ming reprinted version of Jujia biyong shilei chuanji, the late-Ming riyong
leishu take on a new function and social meaning which neither primers nor manuals
were able to achieve.
The section of calligraphy in Jujia biyong shilei chuanji belongs to the
educational process of becoming a scholar, in keeping with Confucian learning. In
18
addition, even without illustrations, it contains detailed instructions for how to write
good calligraphy, as well as systematic knowledge for aesthetic appreciation.33
As for
the late-Ming popular encyclopedias, especially the ill-printed editions, the independent
chapter on calligraphy is less educational in the sense of traditionally scholarly learning
than providing social skills and conversational resources for social occasions.34
First
of all, the morality books (Shanshu 善書), which also enjoyed a wide circulation in
late-Ming society, admonished not to ridicule other people’s handwriting.35
Thus, to
write good calligraphy was not for personal cultivation but for self-presentation in a
society which must have been very interactive. Secondly, the calligraphy chapter also
offers lists of characters in different kinds of scripts, some of which were legendary and
archaic, with little utilitarian function (fig. 6). These lists were not for the betterment of
one’s scholarly learning since they included far less characters than a lexicon of specific
script should have had. If we realize that there was a fashion in writing strange scripts in
seventeenth-century society, then we begin to approach the intention of these lists of
33
See Jujia biyong shilei chuanji, pp. 18-24.
For example, see the editions Xinke qunshu zhaiyao shimin bianyong yishi buqiuren 新刻群書摘要士
民便用一事不求人 (Kyoto, the Library of Kyoto National University), juan 18; Xinke souluo wuche
hebing wanjin buqiuren 新刻搜羅五車合併萬錦不求人, in Chugoku nichiyo ruisho shusei, vol. 8, juan
11.
34
35
See Sakai Tadao, “Confucianism and Popular Educational Works,” p. 355.
19
scripts.36
They provided a slice of the knowledge in vogue for those who did not
receive a proper education to lead the tidal wave of fashion but wished to be part of it,
especially in the vibrant, fluctuating, and socially-active world of late-Ming society. In
this society, one’s self-presentation sometimes determined one’s social identity.37
Under these circumstances, it was not necessary for the late-Ming household
encyclopedias to explore thoroughly the knowledge system of any field, a piece of the
related information would have been sufficient for cocktail talk on different social
occasions. This explains why the knowledge in these encyclopedias was sometimes
partial and disruptive, and why the knowledge for personal cultivation and Confucian
learning was limited or even totally lacking. Moreover, knowledge that was not
resourceful for social interactions was not included, such as the segment on food which
instead featured prominently in the household encyclopedias of previous dynasties. For
us, food also means much in today’s definition of “daily life”.
See Bai Qianshen 白謙慎, “Mingmuo Qingchu shufa zhong shuxie yitizi fengqi de yanjiu,” 明末清初
書法中書寫異體字風氣的研究 in Shulun 書論, no. 32 (2001), pp. 181-7, and forthcoming.
36
See Kishimoto Miyo 岸本美緒, “Min-Shin jidai no mibun kangaku,” 明清時代身分感覺 in Min-Shin
jidaishi no kihon mondai 明清時代史基本問題 (Tokyo: Kumuko shoin, 1997), pp. 403-28; Wang
Hung-tai 王鴻泰, “Liudong yu hudong: you Ming Qing jian chengshi shenghuo de texing tance
gongzhong changyu de kaizhan” 流動與互動—由明清間城市生活的特性探測公眾場域的開展(Ph.D.
dissertation, National Taiwan University, 1998), chapter 2.
37
20
In sum, the rise of the popular encyclopedias as a category of books in
late-Ming commercial publishing should be examined in the context of contemporary
social and cultural environments to which these encyclopedias contributed. They
provided fashionable information and marketable knowledge for late-Ming social
communications, for which their editing and page layout, as described above, were
evidently more convenient for message checking than verbatim perusal. For one thing,
the titles of the chapters in late-Ming riyong leishu were much more topical than those
of their precedents such as Shilin guangji and Jujia biyong shilei chuanji because they
generalized related knowledge under two-character headings. In this way, some
activities in “daily life” became topics for social interactions, but not those in regard to
solitary reflections or personal amusements.
3. Art and Social Differentiation: An Alternative Social Space in Late-Ming
Riyong Leishu
That the late-Ming encyclopedias for daily use gathered the knowledge of
21
calligraphy and painting in two individual chapters signifies that the knowledge was
considered part of daily life and a topic for social interactions. 38
It is certain that art as
a form of knowledge and social practice penetrated the boundary of social classes and
became highly visible in the social space of late-Ming China. The writings on art gained
momentum among the literati class, and these writings were not isolated but formed a
knowledge system and discourse in which common interests, such as the evaluation of
the Song and Yuan painting, were openly debated and circulated.39
Meanwhile, the works of art, especially painting and calligraphy, were no
longer the preserve of the upper class with cultural and economic capital, but developed
into a kind of cultural product a man of some means could afford. Paintings on the
subject of urban life were openly sold on the streets of prosperous cities from Beijing to
Suzhou at the price of an ounce of silver or even less.40
Occasional paintings were in a
38
For most of the late-Ming encyclopedias for daily use, there are one chapter on calligraphy and one on
painting; however, there are some exceptions in which the knowledge of calligraphy and painting were
placed together in one chapter or in which one or two more chapters were dedicated to the knowledge of
art. The exceptions are, for instance, Xinke souluo wuche hebing wanbao chuanshu and Xinke qunshu
zhaiyao shimin bianyong yishi buqiuren.
See Wang Cheng-hua 王正華, “Cong Chen Hongshou de ‘Hualun’ kan wan Ming Zhejiang huatan:
jianlun Jiangnan huihua wangluo yu quyu jingzheng,” 從陳洪綬的〈畫論〉看晚明浙江畫壇：兼論江
南繪畫網絡與區域競爭 in Quyu yu wangluo: Jin qiannian lai Zhongguo meishushi yanjiu guoji xueshu
yantaohui lunwenji 區域與網絡：近千年來中國美術史研究國際學術研討會論文集(Taipei: Guoli
Taiwan daxue Yishushi yanjiushuo, 2001), pp. 339-53.
39
40
See Wang Cheng-hua, “Shiqi shiba shiji Zhongguo de chengshi tuxiang yu chengshiguan yanjiu,” 十
22
great demand for the traditional festivals and holiday seasons such as Chinese New Year;
moreover, auspicious paintings on the subject of longevity increased notably in the
late-Ming society since birthday celebration became a social norm for the elders.41
The demand for calligraphy also grew to the extent that late-Ming riyong leishu
included a chapter on how to write calligraphy couplets for various social occasions and
walks of life.42
Calligraphic works and paintings could easily be purchased from a
professional on the bustling street corners of large cities in late-Ming China at a
reasonable and affordable price.
The materials from the popular encyclopedias also corroborate the visibility of
calligraphy and painting in late-Ming society and, to a degree, illuminate the related
social practice. The section proposing auspicious days for diverse social occasions
七、十八世紀中國的城市圖像與城市觀研究 a paper presented at the conference Zhongguo de chengshi
shenghuo: shisi zhi ershi shiji 中國的城市生活：十四世紀至二十世紀, Jinan University, Nantou, Taiwan,
December 19-21, 2001, pp. 1-15.
41
Regarding the occasional paintings for Chinese New Year and other festivals, see James Cahill, The
Painter’s Practice: How Artists Lived and Worked in Traditional China (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1994), pp. 19-24, 35; Shih Shou-chien 石守謙, “Wen Zhengming yu dazhong wenhua,” 文徵明與
大眾文化 in Taiwan 2002 nian Dongya huihuashi yantaohui lunwenji 台灣 2002 年東亞繪畫史研討會論
文集, pp. 193-206. For the social phenomenon of birthday celebration, see Ch’iu Chung-lin 邱仲麟,
“Danri chengshang: Ming Qing shehui de qingshou wenhua,”誕日稱殤—明清社會的慶壽文化 in
Xinshixue 新史學, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 2000), pp. 101-56.
42
Most late-Ming riyong leishu contain a chapter or a section on how to write a couplet for different
social occasions and professions. As for the popularization of calligraphy, see Qianshen Bai, Fu Shan’s
World: The Transformation of Chinese Calligraphy in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Harvard
University Asia Center, forthcoming), pp. 7-8.
23
features a piece of advice for the right time to have one’s portrait painted.43
The
significance of the practice surrounding portraiture in the late-Ming society is again
made manifest in the inclusion of a portion of a Yuan, and also the earliest, text on how
to paint portraits in the chapter on painting.44
A sample letter in one late-Ming riyong leishu expresses a wish to borrow
several paintings from a certain collector for the purpose of decorating the space of a
social gathering.45
The same encyclopedia also offers a writing formula for presenting
ink paintings as gifts;46 for a similar occasion, the other two encyclopedias publish an
identical letter in polite diction whose purpose is to indicate how one should present
four landscape paintings—probably representing the four seasons. 47
Similar letter
formulas were applied to the works of calligraphy as well for stone rubbings and
43
See Xinqi tianxia tongxing wenlin jubao wanjuan xingluo, juan 19, p. 12b; Xinqi chuanbu tianxia
simin liyong bianguan wuchen bajin, pp. 36-7.
44
Most of the late-Ming encyclopedias for daily use include this plagiarized text on portraiture.
Concerning the social practice of making portraits, see Jan Stuart, “Introduction,” in Jan Stuart and
Evelyn S. Rawski, eds., Worshiping the Ancestors: Chinese Commemorative Portraits (Washington D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution, 2001), pp. 15-116.
45
See Xinqi tianxia tongxing wenlin jubao wanjuan xingluo, juan 7, p. 7b.
46
See ibid., juan 7, p. 11a. See also Xinqi chuanbu tianxia simin liyong bianguan wuchen bajin, pp.
353-4.
See Li Guangyu 李光裕, ed., Simin bianyong jiyu chuanshu 四民便用積玉全書(Beijing, Chinese
National Library), juan 12, pp. 11b-12a; Xin chuanbu shimin beilan bianyong wenlin huijin wanshu
yuanhai 新全補士民備覽便用文林彙錦萬書淵海, in Chugoku nichiyo ruisho shusei, vol. 6, p. 276.
47
24
calligraphy models were used as gifts.48
The most interesting case involves a letter
which requests an agent to purchase calligraphy models for regular script when he
frequents the nearby city.49
These letter formulas in the popular encyclopedias attest to
a social phenomenon heretofore unknown— that painting and calligraphy entered the
daily life of commoners in such a way that they became one of the major cultural
products in household consumption and social interactions.
In the chapter on painting, manuals for bamboo and plum painting are offered
with illustrations, a manifestation that these two genres of painting originally privileged
by the literati painters transcended the barrier of social hierarchy and became a popular
pastime or fashionable social skill for those who could employ a brush (fig. 6). Given
the blurred and low-quality illustrations, it is very unlikely that the manuals were aimed
at training a professional painter. Likewise, neither the woodblock prints in the subjects
of landscape, flower-and-bird, and various animals worked as manuals to teach a novice
how to finish a painting of complicated composition, especially under the circumstances
that learning to be a landscape painter in late-Ming society required studio training (fig.
48
For example, see Xinqi tianxia tongxing wenlin jubao wanjuan xingluo, juan 7, p. 10b;
49
See ibid., juan 7, p. 11b.
25
7).50
Instead, these prints of popular pictorial themes should have provided a glimpse
at the insignia of high society and given a sense of participation in the contemporary
consumption of culture.51
In the eighteenth century when flower-and-bird subjects
rose to the status of a mainstream genre replacing that of landscapes, the woodblock
prints in the daily-use encyclopedia went with the flow and were exclusive to the
flower-and-bird theme.52
This seems to confirm the hypothesis that the pictorial prints
included in the household encyclopedias represented the dominant social trends of the
time.
However, for those who could only look at the pale imitation and poor
mechanical reproduction of higher art in the daily-use encyclopedias, the feeling of
class differentiation must have been poignant. As a matter of fact, the above-mentioned
sample letters regarding the paintings borrowed for spatial design and the set of four
landscapes given as gifts remind us of the disparaging remarks made by the author of
Zhangwuzhi, Wen Zhenheng 文震亨, a son of a prestigious Suzhou family which had set
See Wang Cheng-hua, “Cong Chen Hongshou de ‘Hualun’ kan wan Ming Zhejiang huatan: jianlun
Jiangnan huihua wangluo yu quyu jingzheng,” pp. 353-62.
50
51
Regarding the function and social meaning of some painting manuals in the late-Ming period, see
Craig Clunas, Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1997), pp. 134-48.
52
See the three editions of Wanbao chuanshu in the collection of the Library of Peking University.
26
the standard of refined taste for several generations. In his book, Wen despised those
who owned paintings but did not know how to treat them; thus, to have paintings
hanged for a party was certainly not the proper way of appreciating artworks in his mind.
Also, he cautions that an elegant scholar-gentry will not display more than one painting
in a single room for vulgarity comes with quantity.53
More important to the issue of social differentiation is that the chapter on
painting consisted of many messages on art which completely deviated from the
mainstream discourse on art forged by the literati class, notwithstanding its own
divergent stances on the value of the Song and Yuan painting. First of all, the chapter
offers a list of famous painters, some of whom never appeared in the historiography of
Chinese painting. Fabrications? They may have been. Other obvious and quite
unbelievable mistakes include the name of the fourth-century Gu Kaizhi 顧愷之 being
printed as Gu Kai, a painter hailed as one of the founding fathers of Chinese figure
painting by the Northern Song dynasty (960-1126). In addition, in this list of eighteen
painters, only one name of a contemporary painter is mentioned. Surprisingly, it is Chen
See the annotated version of Zhangwuzhi by Chen Zhi 陳植 and Yang Caobuo 楊超伯 (Jiangsu:
Jiangsu Kexue jishu chubanshe, 1984), pp. 135, 147, and 351. Tu Long 屠隆 also expresses similar
opinions in his Kaopan yushi 考槃餘事, in Congshu jicheng xinbian 叢書集成新編, vol. 50 (Taipei:
Xinwenfeng chubanshe, 1982), pp. 341-2.
53
27
Zihe 陳子和, whose expertise, according to the encyclopedias, is immortals. Chen was
an early sixteenth-century painter from Pucheng 浦城, Fujian, and by the time of these
late-Ming encyclopedias, he was already branded as one of the wild and heterodox
painters whom the literati class exerted to remove from the historiography of art. But
Chen was indeed reputed for his paintings in the subject of Daoist immortals during his
own time, especially in his home area where religious cults were popular. 54
This may
result in his inclusion in the popular encyclopedias mostly published in Fujian, but his
being the only representative of contemporary painting still seems remarkable given the
art history that we know.
Secondly, the chapter on painting also gives instructions on connoisseurship,
which featured prominently in the late-Ming discourse on art, especially in the
development and circulation of various kinds of catalogs and treatises. The achievement
of the late-Ming connoisseurship on painting has received great recognition from
modern scholars which it deserves; however, the emphasis on connoisseurship excluded
See Richard Barnhart, “The ‘Wild and Heterodox School’ of Ming Painting,” in Susan Bush and
Christian Murck, eds., Theories of the Arts in China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp.
365-96; Shih Shou-chien, “Shenhuan bianhua: you Fujian huajia Chen Zihe kan Mingdai Daojiao
shuimuohua zhi fazhan,” 神幻變化：由福建畫家陳子和看明代道教水墨畫之發展 in Guoli Taiwan
daxue Meishushi yanjiu jikan, no. 2 (1995), pp. 47-74.
54
28
those who did not obtain membership to a club for collectors or were not influential
literati who could easily get access to famous collections. For people who did not have
the chance to handle expensive paintings or the ability to join the literati class, the status
of a connoisseur was an impossible dream. This may explain why the instructions on
connoisseurship in the popular encyclopedias, which are subsumed under the heading
Six Essentials (Liuyao 六要), sound so far removed from those of the writings by either
the literati or art dealers. The famous collector from Zhejiang 浙江, Gao Lian 高濂,
mocked the Six Essentials as warped and cheap knowledge of painting, which should
definitely be disdained by the literati in search of “true” connoisseurship.55
It seems certain that there in lies the consciousness of social differentiation in
the diction of Gao Lian, and perhaps a sense of anxiety which urged him to distinguish
the “right” knowledge of art from the “wrong,” as Clunas strongly argues in his study of
Zhangwuzhi. However, judged from the striking differences between the mainstream
discourse on painting and the knowledge offered by the popular encyclopedias, we may
want to reconsider this argument and take into consideration an alternative social space
See the annotated version of Zunsheng bajian 遵生八牋 by Zhao Lixun 趙立勛 (Beijing: Renmin
weisheng chubanshe, 1994), p. 553.
55
29
created by the late-Ming riyong leishu.
Even though the publishers of the late-Ming household encyclopedias lived in
Fujian, they should have had no problem in the acquisition of the knowledge of art
disseminated by famous scholar-gentry such as Dong Qichang 董其昌.56
Moreover,
one of the publishers, Yu Xiangdou 余象斗, assumes the persona of a scholar-official in
his image placed in front of the main text of his publication of the encyclopedia. 57
Even so, we cannot overestimate the cultural denominators of the late-Ming society; for
many commoners who consulted the household encyclopedias in their everyday life for
social interactions and other praxis, the knowledge in the encyclopedias was of use.
Also for them, the social space these encyclopedias cultivated did exist, no matter what
was constructed and disseminated in other social spaces. In a way, even though these
encyclopedias might not be rebellious to the privileged and the dominant, the social
space represented by the late-Ming popular encyclopedias reveals to us that there was a
lively world in which an alternative knowledge on art was believed and practiced.
56
The collected writing of Dong Qichang was published respectively in the year 1630 and 1635. See
Wang Shiqing 汪世清, “Huashuo jiuwei sheizhu,”《畫說》究為誰著 in Dong Qichang yanjiu wenji 董其
昌研究文集 (Shanghai: Shanghai Shuhua chubanshe, 1998), pp. 61-62.
57
See Dorothy Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers, pp. 39-43.
30
31