Colophons and cultural biography: episodes from the life of The Ear Picker.

• Author: Lee, De-nin D.
• Position: Critical essay

A white-robed gentleman sits casually in front of a landscape screen idly picking his ear [figure 1]. The activity is intimate and curious. What is the meaning of this gesture, and why should it become a subject of a painting? (1) Over the centuries, these questions about the hand-scroll painting traditionally attributed to the Southern Tang court painter Wang Qihan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (active ca. 960-75), The Ear Picker [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], also known as Collating Texts [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], have generated lively debate among collectors, viewers, and scholars. In the spirit of these exchanges, this article explores this painting's multiple meanings by adopting the strategy of cultural biography and examining colophons to see how three sets of previous viewers constructed the scroll's significance. To the extent that these viewers concern themselves with the painting's authorship, we will take up issues of authenticity, but that topic will not be our primary focus. (2) Rather our project will be to consider the viewer's share in generating meaning and to draw attention to some of the twenty-seven inscriptions and colophons, by writers famous and obscure, that are part of this extraordinary object.

Although The Ear Picker is quite worn, as evident in photographic reproductions, we may still appreciate the image of a large screen painted with a lush, blue-and-green landscape, framing a middle-aged man in a domestic interior. The simple and elegant furnishings include a long, low table supporting a number of objects suggesting learning and art: bundled scrolls, books, and a stringed musical instrument. Wearing a white robe that opens slightly, the man sits at another, smaller table with paper, brushes, and books. He neither reads nor writes, but picks his ear, tilting his head slightly as a servant approaches from the right bringing tea. Unfortunately some of the painting losses obscure the man's expression, but he purportedly closes one eye. (3)

Currently in the collection of the Department of History of Nanjing University, The Ear Picker has, as one colophon writer put it, "circulated and delighted many eyes," and some of those delighted audiences have left physical traces of their viewing on the scroll. (4) The painting bears two inscriptions and twenty-three seals, and twenty-six colophons follow. Accompanied by three ostensibly imperial Northern Song seals, the inscriptions that frame the image are patently forged, poor imitations of the slender-gold calligraphy of Song Emperor Huizong [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (r. 1101-25). They give the alternate title, "Collating Texts," and praise the "marvelous brush of Wang Qihan" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. The seal of the Southern Tang dynasty (937-975), "Jianye wenfang zhi yin" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], purports to be the earliest marking; however, that remains unverifiable. Numerous other seals and the twenty-six colophons, dating from 1091 through 1911 and appended to the painting, make the scroll much longer than its official dimensions (28.4 x 65.7 cm) and permit an approximate reconstruction of its provenance [figure 2]. The precise origins of the painting remain obscure, but we may be more confident that the Northern Song scholar-official Wang Gong [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1048-1104) once owned it. Later colophons confirm other collectors, including a certain Li Shuxia [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] of the Jin dynasty, An Guipo [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (mid- to late 16th c.?), and his descendant An Wujiu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (ca. early 17th c.), and the Qing imperial prince and grandson of the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-95), Miande [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. (5) Strong external evidence indicates that the Manchu official Duanfang [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1861-1911) possessed The Ear Picker before it came into the hands of the Canadian-American sinologist John C. Ferguson (1866-1945), who later donated it along with much of his Chinese art collection to Nanjing University.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

In addition to providing evidence regarding provenance, the many colophons provide clues to understanding the meaning of the ear picker. The three earliest colophons figured in Peter Sturman's study of portraiture by Northern Song intellectuals. (6) Wu Hung examined these same colophons in the context of his research on the peculiarities of the handscroll format. He sees colophons as "textual enclosures," which mediate the viewer's understanding of imagery. (7) Although these treatments of The Ear Picker contribute to our understanding, neither of them deals with the presence of the twenty-three colophons following those of the Northern Song period. In the present study I shall analyze the colophons in three sets--those from the Northern Song period, from the Jin and Ming dynasties, and from the high Qing period--and shall discuss their allusions in order to understand how different viewers have responded to the painting at different times. We shall find that Song-dynasty poet-politicians saw the painting as political metaphor; Jin and Ming dynasty men treated it as a commodity; and Qing imperial princes and officials raised questions of connoisseurship and religious enlightenment.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

NORTHERN SONG SECRETS?

Since this inquiry is based on the texts physically appended to the painting, our analysis begins in the late Northern Song period (960-1127) when a group of men brought personal, political matters to bear on The Ear Picker. A complicated narrative engaging and elaborating the imagery of The Ear Picker emerges in the three colophons written by Su Che [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1039-1112); Su Che's famous older brother, the accomplished statesman and literatus Su Shi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1037-1101); and their friend, the painter and imperial son-in-law Wang Shen [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (ca. 1048-after 1104). (8) This episode has previously been examined by Peter Sturman as the basis for a new attribution and an example of the portraiture of naturalness. Here, it serves primarily as a point of departure from which to measure shifts in audience reception.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

On February 1, 1091, Su Che inscribed the following colophon [figure 3].

The feather-clothed gentleman leans on his bed, picking his ear. With emptied breast, he can be especially happy! At the moment, Dingguo [Wang Gong], has no matters [to deal with] and can be like this. But he is about to gallop around and will not return [to this repose]. On the tenth day of the first lunar month, sixth year of Yuanyou [February 1, 1091] seen by Ziyou [Su Che]. (9) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. Obvious discrepancies exist between Su Che's text and the image in The Ear Picker: Su describes a man dressed in feather garb leaning on a bed, whereas the figure wears a white robe and sits on a chair. (10) But, in both colophon and painting, the figure picks his ear, giving some basis for their juxtaposition. Su Che's unnamed figure is free from material desires, unencumbered with worldly responsibilities, and consequently enjoys an enviable state of happiness. By comparison, his friend Wang Gong [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1048-1104) faces a future altogether different from that exemplified by the ear picker. As Sturman has previously explained, Wang Gong's present idleness was a consequence of his indictment in the Crow Terrace Poetry Case of 1079, in which the main defendant Su Shi stood accused of composing and disseminating treasonous lyrics that opposed the reforms led by Wang Anshi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1021-86). (11) A later shift in politics signaled by the ascension of Emperor Zhezong [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (r. 1086-1100) led to Wang Gong's recall to the capital. Su Che's colophon of 1091 coincides with the time of Wang's rehabilitation. Su Che does not write that the figure in the painting is Wang Gong, but that, at the moment, Wang Gong is like the figure. Wang Gong will soon be "galloping around," but for now, he enjoys an "emptied breast."

Su Che's statement identifying the figure with (not as) Wang Gong may be read against later colophons. Several months after Su Che's initial colophon, his brother, Su Shi, wrote the following [figure 3]:

In the past, Wang Jinqing [Shen] suffered a sudden attack of deafness. He could not endure it and thus sought a cure from me. I answered saying: "You, Sir, are the descendant of a military general. (12) Were your head severed or your breast pierced, there would be no regret. So, are these two ears of such use that you cannot bear to part with them? [I grant you] a three-day limit for your illness to pass. If it does not, cut off and take my ears. Alarmed, Jinqing suddenly understood. In three days the illness was cured. He praised me, saying: The old ninny's [punning on Su Dongpo] heart is anxious and [you] repeatedly exhorted me; [Your] difficult nature only allowed me a three-day limit. My ear is already [well], so you need not cut yours; And so, I am pleased that for our two families things have turned out well. Today I see The Ear-picker that Dingguo [Wang Gong] owns, which he says he received from Jinqing. I learned about this matter in [our] casual conversation. On the second day of the sixth lunar month, sixth year of Yuanyou [June 21, 1091], written by [Su] Shi. (13) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. Besides acknowledging Wang Gong's ownership of the painting, Su Shi clarifies the context for both his and his brother's writing--Wang Gong has requested the colophons from his close friends. Responding to this request, Su Che had the painting's owner in mind when composing his colophon. Su Shi deliberately chose an alternative interpretation associating the image with a past incident involving not Wang Gong, but Wang Shen. Inspired by the gesture of the man picking his ear...