The Upright Brush: Yan Zhenqing's Calligraphy and Song Literati Politics.

• Author: Harrist Jr., Robert E.
• Position: Review

The Upright Brush: Yan Zhenqing's Calligraphy and Song Literati Politics. By AMY McNAIR. Honolulu: UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII PRESS, 1998. Pp. 177, illus.

Recent years have witnessed growing maturity and sophistication in Western studies of Chinese calligraphy, as monographs and exhibitions have focused new attention on this art--attention it surely deserves given its preeminence among the visual arts in China. Scholars outside the field of art history may wonder, however, how this tradition of writing as a fine art can be studied in relation to historical, social, or cultural phenomena. In spite of the pictographic origins of many Chinese characters, calligraphy, unlike the representational arts of painting or sculpture, does not point directly to anything in the external world. As written communication, calligraphy conveys meaning through words, but it was rarely the content of a text that determined its significance as a work of art. The texts, for example, of brief letters by Wang Xizhi (303-61) that are among the most treasured artifacts of Chinese calligraphy consist of banal social correspondence.

In the book under review Amy McNair demonstrates with great authority how calligraphic style could function as an implement of political argument. She achieves this by re-constructing the ideological and artistic discourse of Northern Song scholars associated with the conservative faction, most notably Ouyang Xiu (1007-72) and Su Shi (1037-1101), who saw in the calligraphy of the martyred Tang dynasty statesman Yan Zhenqing (709-85) a visual embodiment of values with which they hoped to associate themselves. By arguing that Yan's bold, unmannered calligraphic style reflected his unshakable integrity, and by rejecting, at least in theory, the more superficially elegant manner of Wang Xizhi promoted by the imperial court, these Northern Song men used calligraphy as a means of defining themselves and their political independence.

The key term in McNair's book is "characterology," which she defines as a theory of the study of man based on the belief that "moral character can be deduced from an examination of a person's external manifestations, such as appearance, behavior, or aesthetic endeavor." McNair does not give a direct Chinese counterpart for this term; xiangshu or physiognomy might be related to it. But she does offer concrete examples of how characterology could shape responses to calligraphy. A vivid instance of moral scruples canceling out...