《文 字系》
Pictures and
Words Linked
A.
Where
did
the Wenzixi《文
字系》come
from? (English)
1.
Research
Method: In
this digital monograph I have tried to find the most 'conservative
approach possible' as far as introducing Hua Xuesu and the Wenzixi
(as
well as his other literary works), therefore, our central point of
reference will be Endymion Wilkinson's Chinese
History: A Manual [2000 Cambridge, Mass p.391].
After more than a century of research and scholarship there are still
many unanswered question regarding the discovery of the Jiaguwen in
1899. There seems to be a lot of uncertainty as to whether it was
Tianjin or Beijing where the Darentang pharmacy was actually located?
This study will focus on Tianjin as being the place where the
'initial research' into the newly discovered Jiaguwen took place.
Beijing is where the 'antiquarian dealers' were located and it is
they who first led scholars to the location of the Jiaguwen hoard at
Anyang, according to the account cited in Wilkinson above. There is
only one problem with that account...no documentation. For almost a
century the true saga has eluded us because we failed to realize that
embedded within the history of the Changlu Salt Merchants of Tianjin
we would find the key. I offer a different account based on Fan
Shouxuan and Wang Xiang’s version of these events. Hua Xuesu as a
member of a wealthy Changlu salt merchant family (Anyang is in the
Changlu District and Wang Xiang was the Chief Salt Inspector) used
his family and community connections to start gathering, collecting
and researching Jiaguwen based on the prior collecting,
connoisseur-ship and research of Pan Zuyin and Wu Dacheng. It appears
that Hua actually purchased Pan's collection. My hypothesis is that
during the first two decades of the twentieth century Hua Xuesu and
his Tianjin based researchers are at the forefront of gathering,
collecting, identifying, researching and publishing information about
the Jiaguwen and contemporary archeology; and thus form the Tianjin
School: Hua
Xuesu and Wang Xiang (Hua Xuesu was Wang Xiang’s teacher,
publisher, employer, collaborator and friend),
the first of its kind in China. The Tianjin
School is
the unofficial 'research arm' of the New
Cultural Movement 新文化運動
they
focus mainly on 'philology 文獻學
and
field archeology'. Luo Zhenyu and Wang Guowei, in my opinion,
represent a Beijing School and they have more of a 'philosophical
approach'. Hua Xuesu and the Tianjin
School pay
special attention to western field archeology methods and western
linguistic theory; whereas the Beijing School are more interested in
'historical interpretations of ancient history'. Hua Xuesu starts
buying and collecting Jiaguwen and other neolithic cultural relics
around 1906 the year Wang Xiang became his student and future
collaborator; between 1913-1916 the revolutionary ideas of American
Jesse L. Nusbaum (Georgia O’Keefe and friends) gave Hua Xuesu and
Yan Zhiyi the ‘blue-print’ and Fred Harvey Concessions sold them
the American Indian artifacts and photographs needed to start a
modern national museum. Thus, the theoretical frame work and a lot of
the ethnographic material both were imported from San
Diego and San Francisco, California in 1915. By 1916 Hua Xuesu
has amassed enough ancient material to open a public museum; he is
also by this time a renowned expert in reading and interpreting the
newly discovered Jiaguwen. This situation prompted him and his two
business associates in 1918 to found the Tianjin Museum as (See
section 9 below) part of his business and publishing empire. In
contrast, the Gugong in Beijing was founded in 1925 and in the decade
prior to its founding was dealing with a serious “daobao”
situation; which lasted until 1945.
From
a art history perspective; I feel that we have enough documentation
to prove that between 65-68% of the neolithic objects excavated in
China during the 20th
century
came from within the borders of the Changlu Salt District which
covered parts of four (4) provinces (Hebei, Henan, Shandong and
Shanxi). Today some of the finest of these treasures are in the
Tianjin Museum. Modern museums in China are organized by provinces
but a strictly provincial analysis does not match the stylistic
analysis of the contents of the Tianjin Museum; once we accept the
Changlu Salt Merchant District boundaries as a analytic and
organizing concept we can use the way Hua Xuesu assembled the
collection (his choices as a connoissuer and collector) to prove that
Hua Xuesu is the key organizing person and the Changlu Salt Merchant
culture is the overall organizing theme while the Tianjin Museum is
the organizing institution responsible for collecting this massive
amount of cultural relics and thus forming the Tianjin
School.
2.
The
Wenzixi《文字系》(Pictures
and Words Linked) and
the Shuowenjiezi
《說文解字》
(Pictures
Explained and Words Explicated). (Best
Internet Version of Shuowenjiezi Dictionary).
B.
Biography
of Hua Xuesu
華學涑H.
石斧Shifu
1872-1927. (Chinese)
1.
Tianjin
Changlu Salt Merchant Family: For
this section, I have decided to rely on the work of Professor Kwan
Man Bun’s The
Salt Merchants of Tianjin,
University
of Hawaii Press 2001.
Professor Kwan’s years of researching the Salt Merchants of Tianjin
provides us with a clear picture of the economic, social and
historical development of Tianjin and the Changlu Salt Commission
headquartered there.
First, I would like to describe
the bounders of the Changlu Salt District (see map on page 31) using
the names of neolithic cultural sites to mark the cardinal points. To
the North we have Hongshan, South there is Liangzhu, East there is
Lungshan and West we have Yangshao. Small parts of the provinces of
Hebei, Henan, Shandong and Shanxi are all part of the Changlu Salt
District. This is important because Hua Xuesu and the Tianjin Museum
had writ and access to all of the cultural objects being discovered
and unearthed in these four (4) provinces. That is why the present
day holdings of neolithic artifacts, especially its jade collection,
is perhaps the best in China (see Cangyu/Jade Collection
below). Professor Kwan tells us (page 46) that the Salt Merchants had
three (3) big problems 1) Smugglers and smuggling. 2) Corruption. 3)
[Fluctuating]Profits. It appears that there was a well established
smuggling network that included many members of the gentry as well as
some salt officials. The first Jiaguwen and many of the early
neolithic objects, in my opinion, were first circulated within this
'antiquarian/smuggler network'; moreover, many of the antiquarian
dealers may have, in slack times, been associated with well connected
salt smugglers. In the Fan Shuoxuan/Wang Xiang version of the
discovery of the Jiaguwen all of these men are both indirectly and
directly connected to/with Changlu Salt Merchant culture. With the
kind of reputation that Hua Xuesu had as a scholar, collector and
buyer of antiques he must not have been very difficult to locate.
Between 1913-1927 Hua Xuesu could suddenly appear at any one of these
sites as a provincial level official or as the buyer and collector
for the largest modern museum in China or both.
2.
Tianjin Chamber of Commerce.
3.
Gutenberg Tianjin Museum
4.
Wang
Xiang 王襄
1876-1965
5.
Yan Zhiyi 燕智怡
1822-1935
6.
Li Qinxiang 李琴湘
1841-1947
13.
Hu
Shih 胡適1891-1962.
16.
Pan
Zuyin
潘祖蔭
1830-1890.
21.
Gao Meiqing 高美慶
22.
Anne Birrell
23.
Christopher Reed
24.
Kwan Man Bun 1955
25.
Li Xiandeng 李先登
1938-2009
26.
Tang Shifu 唐石父
1919-2005
27.
Wang Juru 王巨儒
28.
Sarah Allan
29.
David Keightley 吉德煒
1932
30.
Qiu Xigui 裘錫圭
1935
C.
Wenzixi the book.(Chinese)
D.
獸象
Animal/Beast
pictograph: I have decided to use this conceptual/analytic category
to anchor my study because I think that between 50-60% of the images
we see in Shang/Zhou bronze and jade art are images of both wild and
domesticated animals; perhaps another 20% are images of birds
(moreover in certain areas of the south bird imagery may be 50-60% of
the overall total), while the reminder are from the world of insects
(and other sources).
E.
The three (3) conceptual/analytic
categories used in this study.
1. Animal/Beasts.
2. Birds.
3. Insects
F.
Charts:
Animals/Birds/Insects: Each
one of the fourteen (14) categories has a custom built chart for each
category that list the characters found in the Shuowenjiezi
by
linking the older pictograph (if there was one) with related word
families. Using his knowledge of Egyptian hieroglaphs Hua Xuesu
decides to experiment with a different system of arranging the
characters found in the Shuowenjiezi;
his
modified conceptual/analytic categories are arranged more like the
Egyptian hieroglyphs. Once you fore go arranging them by radical,
they automatically become more pictorial when grouped in related
categories. These charts are powerful conceptual aids as well as
serving as a way to locate individual characters as long as you know
which category it belongs in/with. The charts along with Hua Xuesu's
annotations and the clever way he has used the newly discovered, in
1899, Anyang Jiaguwen 甲骨文
(Oracle
Bones) pictographs
to work back from a Han Dynasty word towards a neolithic pictograph
is impressive. Hua Xuesu has emancipated himself and the Shuowenjiezi
from
its “pre-modern archaeological straight jacket” and in doing so
he was the first person in the twentieth century (1921) to use
'excavated texts' to successfully edit, re-arrange or publish an
ancient text; specifically, the Shuowenjiezi.
This
is a extraordinary example of 新學
Xin
Xue (New Learning) applied. I recommend that students print out and
assemble two or three of these charts so that the visual impact of
physically linking 'pictures and words' can be experienced (if you
crop the chart so as to remove the heavy black lines, they will fit
together seamlessly).
G.
Character
Index: The
second book in V. 8 contain a character index for the 9,353
characters of the Shuowenjiezi
rearranged
graphically so as to show the evolution of the 文
'wen
or picture' portion of the script from pictograph to Han dynasty 字
'zi
or word'. Characters can be located by stroke count, the Wade
romanization system as well as BoPooMoFo. These charts and phonetic
tables are very modern in conception, by that I mean that they seem
based on the latest archaeological and linguistic information coming
from Western Europe. In several places Hua Xuesu mentions the
archaeological excavations, conducted by foreigners, going on in
Henan and Gansu provinces between 1916-1926. Hua Xuesu is part of a
elite network of Tianjin based scholars, collectors and connoisseurs
who know what the foreigners are looking far and they also know how
important these finds are when it comes to the ancient script, its
evolution and its history.
H.
Advance/Scholars:
This
section is for those people who can read classical Chinese and who,
in time, on their on would be able to figure out what the Wenzixi
contain
and how it is organized. I have included the complete
chapters
for three of the most important categories that make up the
iconography for the Shang/Anyang and Zhou bronzes. [Note how I have
grouped these three categories for the purpose of analysis; Hua
Xuesu's fourteen (14) conceptual/analytic categories have allowed me
to isolate and arrange whole families and categories of 'pictures and
words' according to my research interest.] 1)獸象
Shou/Animal/Beast
and
2)蟲象Chong/Insect
pictograph.and 3)鳥象Niao/Bird
pictograph. For those at the advance level you now have the
Introduction,
the
Character Index chapter, (These
are very large files; they take a while to download) the
Character
Charts and three (3) complete chapters of the Wenzixi;
with all of the above resources one can now translate, evaluate and
hopefully enjoy this unique and interesting work.
I.
Hua
Xuesu's Museum Collection and Related Publications:
We
have a unusual situation in that we now have 1) Hua's major literary
works; which all deal with ancient philology, in some way. 2) We now
know that as the founder of the Tianjin Museum, Hua had a massive
private collection that had been built up over the prior fifty years
by Pan Zuyin (Hua Xuesu may have acquired portions of Wu Dacheng's
collection after his death?); after 1906 Hua Xuesu became an avid
collector of Yinxu archaeological artifacts as well as both ancient
and modern art. Neither Pan or Wu knew about neolithic cultures ( Wu
died in 1901); even if their collections included one or two oracle
bone or jade Sun-Bird
emblems it would have to be by luck or chance, I would think. For
the purpose of this monograph, we will assume that the large
concentration of Hongshan, Liangzhu, Lungshan and Yangshao neolithic
objects presently in the Tianjin Museum were originally collected by
Hua Xuesu. We can use the Wenzixi
and
Hua's other text to cross-check the jade and bronze (all of the
coins, weapons, jades, lacquer, pottery chards, etc., that he
illustrate in his text are examples taken directly from his massive
collection) items in his collection with the entries for those items
in his text. For example, I often use the Sun-Bird jade emblem from
the Tianjin Museums collection and the Niao/Bird pictograph chapter
from the Wenzixi
to
compare the actual object with the entry for it in the
Wenzixi/Shuowenjiezi
(See
no. 3 above). I now realize that Hua Xuesu owned a private museum and
that he quite often had the physical object that he was writing about
setting right in front of him and this is what makes his research and
his first person account so fresh. I have collected more than a dozen
high quality slides of Neolithic and Shang Sun-Bird jade
emblems/insignia from the Tianjin Museum that I believe were
originally collected by Hua Xuesu. Collectively, I call them the
Tianjin
Sun-Bird Jades. (See item number one below Cangyu
藏玉
(Jade
Collection).
The
Hebei
Diyi Bowuguan Huakan 河北第一博物館畫刊
(Hebei's
First Museum Pictorial) is the third resource that we will use in
order to setup our triangularization, just to reiterate, we have this
scholars 1) Literary works. 2) The museum's bi-monthly pictorial
magazine (1931-1936). 3) The museum's holdings, the physical objects
that Hua and his associates have collected, mainly in north China;
including a American Indian installation purchased in San Diego,
California in 1915. I am in the process of preparing an extensive
bibliography but for now there are four (4) important visual
resources (Chinese) that must be made available:
1)
Tianjin
Shi Yishu Bowuguan Cangyu 天津市藝術博物館藏玉
(The
Jade Collection of the Tianjin Municipal Art Museum) Cultural Relics
Ministry Publication Hong Kong 1993.
2)
Wenwu
Cangpin Dingji Baojun Tulie: Yuqi Juan
文物藏品定级标准图例：玉器卷
(Illustrated
Important Chinese Cultural Relics Ranking Standard: Jade Objects
Juan) Cultural Relics Ministry Publication (?) 2006.
3)
Minguo Wenwu
Kaogo Huibian: Fu Bowuguanguankan Quanguo
TushuguanWenxian Suowei Fuzhi Zhongxin 民国文物考古期刊汇编：
附博物馆馆刊
:
全国图书馆文献缩微复制中心
(Anthology
of Republican Era Archaeology: The Museum's Peridical) National
Library Document Reproduction Center (Beijing?) 2006. Vol. 18-19.
(This is the anthology where you will find the Hebei
Diyi Bowuyuan Huakan/Hebei's First Museum Pictorial [Magazine]).
4)
Hebei
First Museum Pictorial 1931-1936 河北第一博物館畫1931-1936
Published
by the Hebei First Museum between 1931-1936. Original issues
published for the first time in the west; fifty (50) selected pages.
5)
Hebei
First Museum Pictorial 1931-1936: Table
of Contents.
6)
I have culled
more
than 100 Jiaguwen articles from
Hebei’s
First Museum Bi-Monthly Pictorial 1931-1937
河北第一博物院半月刊that
were written by Hua Xuesu. 羲教鉤沈
(There
is a Deep Hook in the Teachings of Fu Xi or The Teachings of Fu Xi
are Deep and Profound) Fu
Xi;
[tr. by M. Geh]) was
the name
of the title he carefully selected for his article and the title, in
my opinion, reflect the profound connection between myth and the
origins of Chinese writing as explained in the Zhouyi.
This is the first time that this material has been made available to
western scholars and I would hope that these articles, in
translation, will allow us another view into the mind of one of
China’s first Jiaguwen scholars and collectors; and the only one
who later went on to found a museum. These articles are punctuated
(The Wenzixi
unfortunately
is not punctuated) and are similar to Qiu Xigui’s chapter 7 in his
Wenzixue
Gaiyao [Tr. Mattos and Norman 2000]. At
this early stage what I’ve noticed is that Qiu devotes one
paragraph (Chapter 13 page 403) to myth, while Hua is using modern
western concepts of art history, linguistics and archeology; he holds
on to the traditional received myth-historical legend of Fu Xi as
described in the Zhouyi.
One
can
use the above Table of Contents
if dates of publication are important far your analysis.
(Note:This
is 128 MGB file and it will take 8-12 minutes to download on a slow
computer).
J.
Hua
Xuesu and Charles Lang Freer: At
this early stage, I have not found direct evidence that these two men
every met, although I believe that Mr. Freer visited Tianjin between
1907-1908 (I have a list of Freer's Chinese and Japanese contacts
(Charles
Lang Freer Archives: Correspondence) but
have not had time to research all of the names on that list). If one
really want to understand who Hua Xuesu is and how he and the Tianjin
Museum fit into a much larger global picture of Chinese Art and
modern 'international collectors and collections' of the early
twentieth century then the unlikely comparison of Charles Lang Freer
and the Freer Art Gallery to/with Hua Xuesu and the Tianjin Museum
will yield one of the most interesting and powerful cross-cultural
comparison, for this period, that I have yet to find. Here are a few
of the reasons why this comparison works so well:
1. Their birth
and death dates are close enough; so that we know they shared the
same Zeitgeist.
2. They both
represent the wealthy elite in their respective societies.
3. They share a
common interest in collecting cultural artifacts and museum
building. Both of these collections were started at about the
same time so we can plot their parallel development between 1906
and the present. Both institutions survived into the twenty-first
century. Both institutions represent their perspective countries
at the highest levels.
4. I suspect
that many of the early pieces, all of which were collected prior
to 1923, may have actually come from some of the same sources
(peasants, agents, corrupt officials, pawn shops, salt smugglers
and a network of antiquarian dealers); they all share a somewhat
unclear provenance according to modern standards. As early as
1913 Hua Xuesu had created a Department of Cultural Relics Survey
and Inspection for Hebei County and either Yan Zhiyi, Li Qinxiang
or Hua would be its Director; this agency had the authority to
inspect all (foreign or domestic) archaeological sites and other
sites of historical or cultural value for there use in forming
secondary and university educational programs. Hua has figured
out that any type of farming or large capital projects that
required heavy digging could unearth cultural artifacts and he
makes it a point to visit these site frequently; it seems that he
is always involved in business that takes him out to rural areas
(within the Changlu Salt District). Hua Xuesu had developed a
systematic way of gathering and collection cultural artifacts
between 1906-1913 and between 1913-1923 he managed to assemble
(most were bought outright but some were donated) the ‘core’
of what we today call the Tianjin Museum Collection. Hua Xuesu's
identification and documentation of the objects he selected for
his collection is the earliest and the best we have for cultural
relics collected inside China between 1900-1928. Hua Xuesu's
literary works and his collection are 'historical documents' when
viewed from the 21st century.
5. My research
seems to indicate a indirect, or sometimes a direct link between
the holdings of the original Tianjin Museum and varies other
collections and museums in United States and Europe. Noel Barnard
and Wu Hung have done an excellent job of showing us how certain
Zhou Yuan bronzes with inscriptions and certain neolithic jade
motifs from the Freer, Brundage, Shanghai, Paris and Tokyo
collections are related [Barnard 2006] and scattered about, i.
e., Japan, China, North America and Europe.
6. I see the
Tianjin Museum collections as being remarkably stable over the
last century; what that means is that I believe that once we are
allowed to get to know it (The mainland authorities controls our
access) and we become comfortable with its more 'historically
significant' bronze and jade objects, we will then be in a
position to re-evaluate or re-think some of the more puzzling
questions related to provenance, in general and more
specifically, we through understanding what Hua Xuesu was focused
on as a connoisseur and collector will be able to began
understanding the motifs and inscriptions that are found on
Chinese artifacts gathered during the first two decades of the
twentieth century. In short discovering Hua Xuesu and coming up
with a working theory as to how he and the Tianjin Museum
impacted both Chinese and Western Art History and museum
collecting between 1906-1938 can led to exciting new discoveries
and perhaps changed perspectives.
7. We have
enough primary Chinese source material that we are able to
document that Hua Xuesu organized the first three (3) exhibitions
of Chinese art in the western world. 1) the 1914-1915 Chinese
Exhibit at the Panama California Exhibition. 2) The 1924 Paris
Exhibition. 3) The 1934 London Exhibition. None of my more famous
colleagues have ever established the correct source (person) or
the correct chronology for a documented organized introduction of
Chinese art to the west; usually the conversation is about the
introduction of Western Art into China. Hua’s taste as a
connoisseur and collector of Chinese art make an early but strong
impression on how Chinese art will be perceived and collected in
Europe, Japan and America. Hua Xuesu died in 1927 but according
too Chiang Yee (Who came to Europe as a Lecturer with the 1934-35
London Exhibition) it too was also organized by Hua Xuesu and the
Tianjin Museum. It appears that all of this is the result of Hua
insisting that a ‘Foreign Exchange Program’ work hand-n-hand
with his ‘community out-reach programs’. Not only did Hua
Xuesu set a very high standard within China; it is fair to say
that his standard, viewed from the twenty-first century, became
the global standard.
K.
The
Website: www.wenzixi.com
(Notice: This website is still under construction and may change
daily; all errors, omissions, type-o’s and dumb-o’s are mine.)
This is a bi-lingual research website dedicated to researching and
translating the Wenzixi
into
English. Why, one might ask? Why would it be important to understand
Hua Xuesu, the period he lived in, the circle of people who
influenced him and in return were influenced by him, the books he
wrote, the Jiaguwen he collected, the art he collected, the museum he
founded, his contributions to culture and education inside of China,
his contribution to modern western art history? First, his works are
important because they are ‘historical documents’ that allow us a
rare glimpse (perhaps one of the best) into a chronologically close
but hard to understand period when the sprouts of various western
ideas both inside and outside of China are being openly explored.
After the abolition of the Imperial Examination in 1905 the educated
people of north China were on a global search for ideas and models to
use in building a modern education system. In Hebei county they
were led by merchant/scholar Hua Xuesu and the Tianjin Museum who
were the creators of novel educational programs administered through
the museum's 'Youth Programs'. Li Xuhua, the 16 year old Egyptologist
is an example of a successful Hua Xuesu inspired student; apparently
many parents were exposing their children, at a very early age, to
all forms and levels of western knowledge and some of it was what we
might call some 'heavy stuff' but some of it apparently worked. Hua
Xuesu shows us that some Chinese, during the early Republican Period
were willing to explore and adopt ideas, about art and culture from
America; the American southwest, San Diego and San Francisco
California, provided ideas and material that would help them realize
their goals of establishing the first modern museum in China.
Secondly, because of the advances in digital research methods and
methodology, we are now able to give Hua Xuesu a voice here in
America and the rest of the international community that he could
have never imagined. We have already taken this ‘time capsule’
and given it digital wings; I am doing exactly what Hua
wanted...finding ways to share this information with as many people
as possible. It may surprise you to find out that this research is
privately funded; it is not funded by any government agency,
corporation or grant source; anyone wishing to contribute money,
ideas, equipment or supplies to this important research project can
contact me directly at mohfei.geh@gmail.com
or you can use a credit card or PayPal. Thank You!
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