Footnotes

Treasury 4, no. 662

水晶內畫鼻煙壺
壺：1760～1880
內畫：王習三，1966年

The Lull Before the Storm

Flawless crystal, ink, and watercolours; with a concave lip and concave foot; painted with a scene following the artist Ren Xiong, wrapped around the inside of the bottle and joined on one narrow side, depicting a garden with three crickets and eleven dragonflies among wild flowers and grasses, inscribed twice in draft script, once on the side with the crickets with 'The most valuable quality in painting is depicting the spirit. I regret I have not been able to get it all', followed by 'Executed by Wang Xisan,' with one seal of the artist, Xisan, in negative seal script, and again on the side with the dragonflies, '[Painted] in imitation of Ren Xiong's [rendition of] the poetic ideas of Yao Xie, in the fourth month of the year bingwu,' with two seals, cong (insects), preceding the inscription, and yin (seal), following it

Bottle: 1760–1880
Painting: Wang Xisan, Taiping zhuang, near Beijing, 1966
Height: 6.79 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.73/2.40 cm
Stopper: coral; vinyl collar
Condition: Bottle: chip removed from one side of the neck, leaving minor indentation with polished edges and slightly narrower lip on that side; very slight bruise on outer lip, looking more like flaw in the crystal than a bruise, although it is certainly a bruise; some surface scratches and abrasions from use; all were there when Wang Xisan painted the bottle. Painting: studio condition


Provenance:
Unrecorded source (1972–1974)
Hugh Moss (1985)
Published:
JICSBS, Summer 1984, p. 22, fig. 3
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 365
Treasury 4, no. 662
Exhibited:
Hong Kong Museum of Art,
March–June 1994
National Museum, Singapore, November 1994–February 1995
Christie's, London, 1995

Commentary
So far, the art of inside-painting may be seen as a three-peaked mountain brush-rest, of a type that might sit on the scholar's desk while he contemplates the delights of a painted bottle. The first peak represents the early nineteenth century progenitors of the art, Yiru jushi and Gan Xuanwen; the second, the finest painters of the Beijing school of Zhou Leyuan, including Zhou, its master, Ding Erzhong and, at his finest, Ma Shaoxuan; Wang Xisan, with his finest works from the golden years, is the third peak. If one had to choose representative works to sum up Wang at his finest, one could do no better than refer to the group of works from Hugh Moss's original collection, sold to the Blochs in 1985 (all of which are in this sale – see also lots 31, 37, 44, 57, 94, 101, 104, 109, 117 and 124 and all published in Treasury 4 as nos. 656 – 667).

The art of inside painting was conceived as a way to link the high art of painting, including its poetic and calligraphic content, with the snuff bottles beloved of the influential minority of rulers and scholars, the high priests of the arts in China. None of the best and most influential artists in the medium ever lost sight of this source. It was not just a matter of transferring the arts of painting, calligraphy and poetry into the inside of a snuff bottle that mattered, that was easy enough for anyone who could master the techniques involved as we have seen in the past thirty years. It depended upon transferring the spirit of high Chinese art along with its techniques. That is the criterion by which we judge the great artists in the medium.
We revere the early masters, Yiru jushi, Gan Xuanwen, Zhou Leyuan, the early works of Ye Zhongsan, Ding Erzhong, Ma Shaoxuan at his best, and Ziyizi, because, regardless of their professional status, they were able to infuse their works with the lofty spirit of Chinese painting without allowing it to be trivialized by the medium. This is a very real danger in this art form, and one which few artists have been able to avoid falling foul of. A small bottle carries with it a built-in impression of insignificance. Multiply that small bottle by thousands and it is easy to dismiss the entire art form as of little relevance to serious Chinese art, a problem snuff-bottle enthusiasts have suffered at the hands of Chinese art experts for many years. By placing a painting inside a small bottle one automatically invites a level of aesthetic derision simply because of the medium. To overcome this, it is necessary to retain the highest standards of art. The slightest lapse into banality, decorativeness, or repetitious commercialism can be fatal and that is the great danger that faced lesser artists in this medium and, today, still faces the modern proliferation of painters. They are in danger of becoming masters of technique bereft of artistic direction, superb technicians with absolutely no idea of what turns high technique into high art. We have seen so many lesser artists fail to live up to the high standards set by the masters of the medium, and even seen the occasional master fall from grace, or, like Ma Shaoxuan, maintain a second personality as a minor, decorative artist throughout his career.

In his finest years, Wang Xisan represents the perfect harmonization of the high artistic tradition of China and the snuff bottle. In his masterpieces he transcends the medium and its inherent limitations, both physical and psychological, and creates great Chinese paintings. We have reiterated over and over again that the key to judging true mastery in this medium lies in the ability to mentally remove the bottle and view the painting on the same terms, and by the same criteria as one would view and judge a painting on paper or silk. Although all of Wang Xisan's works from his golden years, which were coming to an end with this bottle, are masterly, the examples in the Bloch collection sum up that mastery perhaps better than any others.

Wang switched, in the early 1960s, from using the traditional bamboo pens of the medium to using tiny brushes, their heads turned at a right-angle to the handle. In this painting we can see his delight in the capacity to modulate a single line as one can with a brush on paper or silk. This linear dance is one of the cornerstones of Chinese painting, and was always a bit of a problem with only bamboo pens to work with. It was not an insoluble problem, as Ding Erzhong and Zhou Leyuan proved with their bamboo pen 'brushwork,' but it was always a problem. One had to rise above the nature of the instrument one was using. With the brush that Wang Xisan used, there was no hindrance to rise above. Once mastered, he could dance as freely inside a bottle as he could on paper. The long, bending and twisting leaves of the white wild flowers beyond the katydids show Wang's brushwork at its most sublime where, with long, elegant, well-modulated strokes, we can see both the grassy leaves and the dance of the brush in perfect harmony. It is not just such techniques, however, that make this a masterpiece, it is how they are used.

Ren Xiong (1820–1857; other sources give 1956, or even 1964) was one of the 'Four Rens' of the late Qing dynasty, and one of the most original artists working in Suzhou and Shanghai in the nineteenth century. Around 1850 he met Yao Xie (1805–1864) in Ningbo. His association with this acclaimed literatus and collector of paintings not only gave him the opportunity to study Yao's collection, but also to produce a series of one hundred and twenty illustrations for poems written by Yao. Inspired by this association, as represented by a painting he had seen, Wang added a new dimension to it by joining with Ren Xiong and Yao Xie and drawing on the same wellspring of inspiration to paint his own version of one of these paintings. But Wang has not approached this just as an exercise in transferring an existing painting into a snuff bottle, and here lies the great difference between him and so many of his followers, he has used Ren Xiong's painting as a platform from which to reach greater heights in his own artistic evolution. We know this from his own description of the painting (JICSBS, Summer 1984, p. 22, fig. 3):

I painted two grass-and-insect paintings, being proud of myself. One of them was 'Hundred Butterflies' and the other is this bottle, painted in 1966. In order to master the crickets' postures, I painted from tens of living crickets.

Not content with copying Ren Xiong's painting, which he could so easily have done, Wang resorted to nature, as he so often did, in order to perfect it as his own work of art. Beyond all of this, he has also managed to imbue his painting with the lofty restraint that is characteristic of great Chinese paintings in general.

This was also one of the last bottles Wang painted during his ideal existence in the Taiping zhuang in Beijing. As he states in the same place, soon after painting this bottle he was 'washed out of Beijing by the mighty torrent of the Cultural Revolution,' and the wilderness years began for him. It has been said that Wang Xisan was the 'founder and master of the modern school of artists.' He may have been the master, but was not the founder. The Ye brothers, Xiaofeng and Bengqi founded the school in which Wang was trained. It was not until after his move to Hebei that he founded his own school, the Ji school, and assumed the formal role of teacher.

暫時平靜

無瑕水晶、墨、水色；凹唇、平斂足；膛中二面一側內畫仿任熊花卉草蟲，有三隻蟋蟀、十一隻蜻蜓，繪蟋蟀一面上題寫 "凡畫貴於神，愧余未能盡之"，其後有"王習三作"和"習三"朱地白印，繪蜻蜓一面寫"仿任熊畫姚燮詩意，歲在丙午年青禾"，其前有"蟲"白地朱印，其後有"印"朱地白印

壺：1760～1880
內畫：王習三，北京太平莊，1966
高：6.79 厘米
口經/唇經：0.73/2.40 厘米
蓋：珊瑚，乙烯基座
狀態敘述：壺： 頸一邊有磨治了缺口的微小凹口，因而那邊的唇稍微狹一點；唇外沿也有微不足道的擦傷（看起來像水晶的瑕疵，但一定是擦傷）；壺面有微小的擦損，以上都是下筆以前已經有的；內畫： 出齋狀態

來源：
未記錄來源 （1972～1974）
莫士撝 （1985）
文獻：
《國際中國鼻煙壺協會的學術期刊》Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, 1984年夏期，頁22 ，圖3
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, 編號365
Treasury 4, 編號662

展覽：
香港藝術館，1994年3 月至6月
National Museum of Singapore, 1994年11月至1995年2 月
佳士得，紐約，1995

說明：
內畫煙壺的歷史可視為三山型筆架：第一座山是十九世紀初的開山人一如居士和甘烜文；第二座是周樂元、丁二仲、和馬少宣；第三座就是王習三。要選出王習三精品的代表內畫煙壺，應該先看莫士撝原來珍藏所收而1985年賣給伯樂氏的一系列作品。它們都包括在當前的拍賣；可參見拍賣品號31、37、44、57、94、101、104、109、117、和124，也就是Treasury 4, 編號656～667。

內畫鼻煙壺的用意是把書畫的文雅藝術和那些美術權威的統治階級、學士階級所喜愛的煙壺融合起來。這個觀念，內畫家優勝者的和最有影響的都一直銘記於心。不但是把書畫詩的技術移植到煙壺內壁，要技術與藝術精神兼備。我們之所以尊重諸如一如居士、甘烜文、周樂元、早期的葉仲三、丁二仲、盛期的馬少宣、和自怡子，是因為他們成功地給內畫工藝注入了美術的精神，他們沒有讓煙壺的限制使他們的藝術弄成平凡。從事內畫煙壺這門工藝帶有一種很多藝人免不了的危險，就是煙壺的小規模和高產量會令人視之如雕蟲小藝而置之不理。對煙壺熱衷的人，面臨這個問題已經很多年了。要逃避這個困境，唯有堅持最高的藝術標準才是法寶。絲毫的陳腐、裝飾、或商務氣息的重覆是致命的錯誤。內畫煙壺的第二流藝人向來面臨這個問題，現今激增的內畫煙壺藝人也面臨這個問題。我們看過那麼多藝人沒有達到高超藝人的水平，就是高超藝人也會誤入歧路，或如馬少宣分裂衍生出次要的藝人化身， 在事業過程中既是大藝術家又是小道的裝飾藝人。

在他藝術成果高潮的時期，王習三代表中國傳統美術和煙壺的調和，他最成功的作品就超越鼻煙壺物體和心理的限制而形成偉大的國畫。我們老強調，評價內畫煙壺的關鍵在於想象煙壺不存在而用品評絹畫、紙畫的尺度來衡量畫品，也就是說，我們要把它作為一幅畫來評價。王習三全盛時期所有的作品是傑出的，而最具代表性的是全盛時期臨了之際作的本壺和伯樂氏珍藏中的所有王習三內畫煙壺。

六十年代初，王習三就不取傳統的竹勾筆了，他改用了筆頭與筆杆直角相接的毛筆，在本壺中我們可以感覺到他能發揮毛筆的獨具優點而興奮。中國書畫藝術講究用筆的遲急、起伏、曲折、氣勢流暢、筆力豐盈等技法，這都是竹勾筆難以表達。當然，丁二仲和周樂元不以用竹勾筆為限制，但這個器具的局限性總是務必克服的。王習三用的直角毛筆消除了這個局限，使他在瓶內舞筆傳神如同一大條幅筆走龍蛇的。蟋蟀後邊婉延多姿的花卉充分地表現運筆略無凝滯的成就。

任熊（1820～1857，或作1856、1864等），十九世紀蘇州～上海一帶最有創新心的畫家之一。1850年前後居寧波姚燮（1805～1864）大梅山房一年，飽覽姚燮收藏，作了《大梅山房詩意圖》一百二十幅，不到一個月就畫成。這就給了王習三啟發，他畫了自己的"詩意圖"。要強調的是，他"仿"任熊並不是把現存的一幅畫在瓶內復制，是把任熊的畫當作達到自己美術成就更上一層樓的基礎；更具體地說，王習三自已的話舊造訴我們，他畫本壺的時候，為了捉取蟋蟀的形勢他畫了幾十蟋蟀的寫生試畫（Wang 1983, 頁 22）。他跟他很多徒弟的差異就在本壺所指標的勵志精神。