UCLA

In the mid-ninth century, works of calligraphy and texts about calligraphy were exceptionally scattered at court, in its proximity, and in private homes in Tang China. This dissertation examines how Zhang Yanyuan compiled specific texts on calligraphy that embedded his views on the precarious state of preserving model works of calligraphy and how to properly evaluate them. While Zhang directly expresses his views on painting and painting criticism, his views on calligraphy and the underlying goals with which he selects and arranges pertinent texts are only implied.Chapter One addresses the views Zhang explicitly discusses about the relationship between calligraphy and painting, and their shared relationship to the past and image making. Through careful reading of specific points in his essays and secondary sources, I find Zhang’s designation as the first historian of painting counterbalanced with his concerns for detailed records that both rely on and transcend historical time. Chapter Two analyzes the numerous records that provide textual support for specific works once held in the Zhang family collection. These records rally around anonymous notes, one of which highlights how the court was no longer an honorable and safe place for the works to gather and be preserved. Another guiding principle for the texts depends on named authors who also confirm a lineage of calligraphers. Finally, specific records describing the works of the Two Wangs, in their sheer coverage of specific details, textually substantiate the importance of the works. Chapter Three examines the specific developments in evaluating calligraphy that Zhang Huaiguan articulated, and that Zhang Yanyuan selected and supplemented with his collection of texts in the Fashu yaolu. Echoes of these specific evaluation methods can be found in Zhang’s views on painting, both implicitly and explicitly, further connecting his two books. Through structural and textual analysis, I determine how a seemingly comprehensive reference book of complete texts put forward a paradigmatic agenda that had even more to say in its design and details, in addition to its widely accepted underlying concepts.