Wang Yunwu made significant contributions to publishing, library science, and education reform in twentieth century China. He was also a capable calligrapher, as his transcription of Wang Xizhi's (303–361) "Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Gathering" here demonstrates. Revered by calligraphers as the greatest work in running script, this legendary text was composed by Wang on the third day of the third lunar month in 353, when forty-one eminent men of letters gathered at the Orchid Pavilion, a scenic site near Wang's hometown of Shanyin in northern Zhejiang, to perform the customary purification ritual held on that day. During the celebration, all the participants composed poems, and Wang brushed his famous preface. Half inebriated, he created a calligraphic masterpiece so extraordinary that even he could never equal it.
Wang Xizhi's "Preface" has also been widely admired for its literary finesse and depth of feeling. Lin Yutang translated the entire text in his The Importance of Living (1937), praising it for embodying a very Chinese response to the "evanescence of life." Because Wang Yunwu's transcription makes no allusion to Wang Xizhi's style, he presumably shared Lin's appreciation of the philosophic import of the "Preface."
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近代 王雲五 草書蘭亭序 軸
Title:Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Gathering
Artist:Wang Yunwu (Chinese, 1888–1979)
Date:dated 1964
Culture:China
Medium:Hanging scroll; ink on paper
Dimensions:Image: 59 1/16 x 16 13/16 in. (150 x 42.7 cm) Overall with knobs: 83 1/16 x 21 1/16 in. (211 x 53.5 cm)
Classification:Calligraphy
Credit Line:The Lin Yutang Family Collection, Gift of Richard M. Lai, Jill Lai Miller, and Larry C. Lai, in memory of Taiyi Lin Lai, 2005
Accession Number:2005.509.11
Inscription: Artist’s inscription and signature (10 columns in semi-cursive script)[1]
In the ninth year of the Yungho [A.D. 353] in the beginning of late spring we met at the Orchid Pavilion in Shanyin of Kweich’i [Guiji] for the Water Festival, to wash away the evil spirits.
Here are gathered all the illustrious persons and assembled both the old and the young. Here are tall mountains and majestic peaks, trees with thick foliage and tall bamboos. Here are also clear streams and gurgling rapids, catching one’s eye from the right and left. We group ourselves in order, sitting by the waterside, and drink in succession from a cup floating down the curving stream; and although there is no music from string and woodwind instruments, yet with alternate singing and drinking, we are well disposed to thoroughly enjoy a quiet intimate conversation. Today the sky is clear, the air is fresh and the kind breeze is mild. Truly enjoyable it is to watch the immense universe above and the myriad things below, traveling over the entire landscape with our eyes and allowing our sentiments to roam about at will, thus exhausting the pleasures of the eye and the ear.
Now when people gather together to surmise life itself, some sit and talk and unburden their thoughts in the intimacy of a room, and some, overcome by a sentiment, soar forth into a world beyond bodily realities. Although we select our pleasures according to our inclinations—some noisy and rowdy, and others quiet and sedate—yet when we have found that which pleases us, we are all happy and contented, to the extent of forgetting that we are growing old. And then, when satiety follows satisfaction, and with the change of circumstances, chang[ing] also our whims and desires, there then arises a feeling of poignant regret. In the twinkling of an eye, the objects of our former pleasures have become things of the past, still compelling in us moods of regretful memory. Furthermore, although our lives may be long or short, eventually we all end in nothingness. “Great indeed are life and death” said the ancients. Ah! What sadness!
I often study the joys and regrets of the ancient people, and as I lean over their writings and see that they were moved exactly as ourselves, I am often overcome by a feeling of sadness and compassion, and would like to make those things clear to myself. Well I know it is a lie to say that life and death are the same thing, and that longevity and early death make no difference! Alas! As we of the present look upon those of the past, so will posterity look upon our present selves. Therefore, have I put down a sketch of these contemporaries and their sayings at this feast, and although time and circumstances may change, the way they will evoke our moods of happiness and regret will remain the same. What will future readers feel when they cast their eyes upon this writing![2]
I transcribed Wang of the Right Army’s [Wang Xizhi] Preface to Collected Poems from the Orchid Pavilion at the request of [Lin] Taiyi, the bright child of my old friend, Wang Yunwu, Xiulu, at the age of seventy-seven.
[1] Documentation from Shi-yee Liu, Straddling East and West: Lin Yutang, A Modern Literatus: The Lin Yutang Family Collection of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007, no. 32, pp. 98-99.
[2] Wang Xizhi, “Lantingji xu,” translated in Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living, New York: John Day Company, 1937, reissue, Singapore: Cultured Lotus, 2001, pp. 156–58.
Richard M. Lai, Jill Lai Miller and Larry C. Lai , (until 2005; donated to MMA)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Bridging East and West: The Chinese Diaspora and Lin Yutang," September 15, 2007–February 10, 2008.
Liu, Shi-yee. Straddling East and West: Lin Yutang, A Modern Literatus: The Lin Yutang Family Collection of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy. Exh. cat. Edited by Maxwell K. Hearn. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007, pp. 98–99, cat. 32.
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