Song Mi Fu's calligraphy, Shu Su Tie

Author: Compiled by Shanghai Shuhua Publishing House
Publisher:
Publishing Date: July 1, 2003
Features: After the Tang people pushed the rigorous calligraphic style to its extreme, the Song Dynasty masters turned their creative gaze to the vast realm of running and cursive scripts, each setting new standards and establishing their own schools, thus pioneering a fresh artistic landscape and forming the era's characteristic of "Song calligraphy valuing intention." The so-called "intention" refers to a calligrapher infusing their aesthetic concepts and tastes into their works, giving the entire piece a new spiritual realm. However, the aesthetic category of "intention" manifests in the forms of each calligrapher's works in a rich and diverse manner: some pursue a rational beauty of "creating novelty within the rules, embodying profound wisdom beyond unrestrained freedom"; some seek a natural beauty of "poetry need not be exquisite, nor characters extraordinary—innocence and spontaneity are my master"; some aim for an ideal beauty of "to achieve excellence in brushwork, one must first excel in the heart"; or a retro beauty of "victory through charm," especially in the Northern Song masters, who, despite sharing the same era, could not break new ground with their intellect, knowledge, insights, and strong artistic personalities, giving rise to the "Four Masters of the Song"—Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, Mi Fu, and Cai Xiang—among whom Mi Fu stood out as the most outstanding.
Born in the third year of the Renzong Emperor's Huangyou era (1051) and passing away in the first year of the Huizong Emperor's Guanguan era (1107), Mi Fu was thirty-nine years younger than Cai Xiang, fourteen years younger than Su Shi, and six years younger than Huang Tingjian. His courtesy name was Yuanzhang, and his original name was Fu. His ancestral home was Taiyuan, Shanxi, but he later moved to Xiangyang, Hubei, hence the nickname "Xiangyang Manshi." The southeastern part of Xiangyang has Lumen Mountain, the hermitage of Meng Haoran, so he also took the sobriquet "Lumen Jushi." In middle age, he moved to Zhenjiang and built Haiyue An at the foot of Beigu Mountain, thus adopting the title "Haiyue Wai Shi." He held the position of Assistant Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites and was known as "Mi Nan Gong" in his later years. He took the sobriquet "Mi Laoren" in his old age.
Mi Fu was exceptionally intelligent in his youth. By the age of seven or eight, he could climb walls and write large characters. At the age of eighteen, Emperor Shenzong ascended the throne. Thanks to his mother's acquaintance with Empress Xuanren, Mi Fu was granted a special appointment as a Copyist in the Secretariat and later served as a magistrate in Jingguang. After traveling south for official duties, he held minor posts in Guilin, Changsha, Hangzhou, and Yangzhou. He only entered the capital as a Grand Historian in the second year of the Chongning era, at the age of fifty-three. In the third year of the Chongning era, an imperial edict established the Painting and Calligraphy Academy, appointing Mi Fu as a Professor of Painting and Calligraphy, granting him the privilege of viewing the imperial collection of artworks. He was soon promoted to Assistant Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites but was dismissed after being criticized and sent into exile as a low-ranking official in Huaiyang. In the first year of the Guanguan era, he died of an untreated scalp ailment while serving in office, at the age of fifty-seven.
Throughout his life, Mi Fu faced setbacks and could only immerse himself in calligraphy and painting, expressing his life through a playfully indifferent attitude. He had an obsession with stones and cherished inkstones, exhibiting unusual cleanliness and often feigning madness, earning the nickname "Mi Dian." Born into a noble family, he grew up surrounded by vast collections of artworks and was skilled in appraising them. His mother's connections allowed him to visit imperial collections, where he studied masterpieces from all dynasties and associated with top figures of the time, such as Wang Anshi, Su Shi, Cai Jing, Xue Shaopeng, Wang Shen, Liu Jing, and Huang Tingjian, all of which greatly contributed to his artistic success.
In calligraphy, Mi Fu initially devoted himself deeply to the rigorous styles of Tang calligraphy, immersing himself in the works of Yan, Liu, Ou, and Chu. Once he established the foundations of these styles, he longed for the simplicity of the Wei and Jin periods and traced back to Zhong Yao and Wang Xizhi, luckily acquiring the "Letter of Comfort from Xie An," the "Letter of Strategy from Wang Xuan," and the "Mid-Autumn Letter from Wang Xianling." He studied these works day and night, naming his study "Baojin Zhai." Later, he expanded his studies to seal script, learning from Shi Yi Guan's "Stele of Liu Kuan," the "Seal Script of Chu," and the "Seal Script of Shigudu" to capture the essence of ancient simplicity. Thus, his calligraphy blended the old and the new, absorbing and integrating various styles with remarkable skill.
Before the age of forty, Mi Fu had not yet developed his own style and was criticized for "pasting ancient characters." Later, when criticized by Qian Xue (styled Mufu, a Northern Song calligrapher) for being too deliberate in his brushwork and for focusing too much on form rather than momentum, he had a breakthrough and finally broke free, creating his own unique style. As he himself wrote in "Haiyue Mingyan," "In my youth, I failed to establish my own style, and people criticized my calligraphy as a mere collection of ancient characters. I gathered the strengths of various masters and combined them. Only in my old age did I finally form my own style, and people no longer know its origins."
Mi Fu excelled in using a brush with swift, dynamic movements, blending dry and moist strokes with an effortless naturalness. His strokes drew from regular script, so his handwriting was deliberate yet expressive, each stroke imbued with intention. In structure, he overturned the traditional formulas of stability, dignity, and uniformity, advocating "steadiness without stiffness, danger without strangeness, age without dryness, and richness without fatness." He sought balance in his works through the dynamic tension of the brush, making his calligraphy "profound and forceful."
The "Shusu Tie" scroll published in this volume was written by Mi Fu in the third year of the Yuanyou era, when he was thirty-eight years old. Dong Qichang praised this scroll as "like a lion seizing an elephant, exerting full effort—it is the best work of his life." It is now reproduced for the enjoyment of calligraphy enthusiasts.