KAISHIEN GADEN　芥子園画伝

KEY WORD :　art history / paintings

Ch: Jieziyuan Huazhuan. Lit. Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting; a Qing dynasty painting manual that had a great impact on Japanese Southern style *nanga 南画 painters. The Mustard Seed Garden refers to the Nanking villa of the Ming loyalist and literatus Li Yu 李漁 (also known as Li Liweng 李笠翁). Li owned the Shanshui Huapu (Jp; SANSUI GAFU 山水画譜, Instruction Album in Landscape) by Li Liufang (Jp: Ri Ryuuhou 李流芳: 1575-1629), and asked his friend Wang Gai (Jp; Ou Gai 王概: ca 1662-1722) to expand it. The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting was published first in a color woodblock printed edition in ca 1679 according to the preface by Li Yu. The first section includes fundamental ideas and techniques of painting such as the Six Laws *rikuhou 六法, Six Requirements, Six Merits and Three Weaknesses, Twelve Things to Avoid, Three Classifications *sanpin 三品, Division of Schools, Works of Quality, Great Makers, Important Changes, Method of Texture Strokes, Explanation of Terms, Uses of the Brush, Uses of Ink, Brushwork and Color, Placement of Earth and Sky, Avoiding Heterodoxy, and Avoiding the Banal. The next section on methods for coloring includes 27 rules for selecting materials. There follow illustrated sections on ways to paint and examples of how to paint trees, rocks, figures, birds and animals, houses, pavilions, terraces and towers, family, and landscapes. In 1701 Wang Gai and his two brothers published the second collection that includes illustrations of how to paint orchids, bamboo, plum blossoms, and chrysanthemums, as well as the third collection which added sections on flowering plants, grasses, insects, flowers, birds and animals, and technical and theoretical discussions. In each of the collections, the introduction summarizes the essence of the work; next are illustrated explanations of painting methods; last are copies of works by famous artists. Being very popular, in 1818 a publisher produced a fourth collection including figure paintings taken from other sources. The Mustard Seed Garden Manual was first introduced to Japan in the late 17c, and reprinted there in 1748 due to its great popularity with painters. Artists such as Gion Nankai 祇園南海 (1677-1751) and Yanagisawa Kien 柳沢淇園 (1706-58) valued the manual as the preeminent means of instruction in Chinese painting, valuing it even more than Bazhong Huapu (Jp; *HASSHU GAFU 八種画譜). Artists not only learned technique, theory, and history from the Mustard Seed Garden Manual, but frequently copied actual compositions from it, using the work as a template for their own paintings. Even creative artists such as Ike no Taiga 池大雅 (1723-76) used it extensively, and Yosa Buson 与謝蕪村 (1716-83) used the section on avoiding banality in his haiku 俳句 theory. The impact of the Mustard Seed Garden Manual on nanga painters was such that, until the 1980s, scholars overlooked the role of imported Chinese painting in the development of nanga.

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