Liu Rushi's Spirit Lives On!

 

[Caption: This is one of several of Liu Rushi's paintings that are held at the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Last year I wrote a blog post citing the relation between those paintings and a 20^th century French Diplomat Jean-Pierre Dubosc, and explaining why I featured this poet-courtesan as a protagonist in my new novel Tales of Ming Courtesans. https://bit.ly/3hA9HRE ]

The story of Liu Rushi may have ended in tragedy, but her spirit lives on!

 

In a patriarchal society where poetry writing had traditionally belonged in the male sphere, and where female writing had always been slighted, Liu was known to have purposely compiled an anthology of poems entitled 閏集, collecting poetry written by women and focusing on works by courtesans, whom society ostracized collectively as a lowly class of jianmin, i.e. worthless people. This collection was incorporated into her husband Qian Qianyi’s comprehensive collection of Ming poems entitled 列朝詩集. She could well be considered as a pioneering champion of women’s literature. Sadly a lot of Liu Rushi's calligraphy, poetry collections and paintings (along with most works by Qian Qianyi, Chen Zilong and other Ming loyalist poets/artists) had been lost during Qianlong Emperor's literary inquisition.

On a personal level, Liu was determined to seek proper marriage against all odds, as she knew this was the only way to defend herself against class discrimination. She succeeded in gaining “wife status” in literary dignitary Qian Qianyi’s household.

The multi-talented Liu Rushi was also known for her habit of cross-dressing and mingling with elitist literati in poetry societies in defiance of gender barriers and with an aim to improving her craft of writing and painting. It reminds me of the renowned 19th century French novelist George Sand, also notable for her cross-dressing in rebellion against social conventions. But Liu lived two centuries earlier, and in patriarchal China!

This all goes to show how Liu used her “spirit of independence and liberal thinking” to wage war on classism and sexism and to achieve greatness in the arts. It earned her the iconic historian Chen Yinke’s adoration and respect.  http://chinese.thu.edu.tw/upload/newspaper_upload/28/05-%E5%BB%96%E7%BE%8E%E7%8E%89.pdf

China Underground Interview

Matteo Damiani, an Italian Sinologist and founder of the media websites China Underground and CinaOggi, asked many interesting questions about my new novel Tales of Ming Courtesans.

Link to the Interview.


 

Li Xiangjun and "The Peach Blossom Fan"

As I previously mentioned, Li Xiangjun 李香君 (1624 – 1653) is one of the three leading characters of my upcoming novel. She was among the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai 秦淮八艷 and the subject of Ming scholar Hou Fangyu’s 侯方域’s literary essay titled Biography of Lady Li 李姬傳.

The premises where Li used to reside and ply her trade as a courtesan (she was a celebrated kunqu opera singer) were called Villa of Alluring Fragrance 媚香樓, which was located along the banks of the Qinhuai River, a glitzy pleasure district of Nanjing in the late-Ming dynasty. The above photographs show the reconstructed building at No. 38, Bank Note Vault Street, Qinhuai, Nanjing 南京秦淮區鈔庫街三十八号.

If you have read Kong Shangren’s 孔尚任’s iconic historical play The Peach Blossom Fan 桃花扇, you would already be familiar with the real-life heroine Li Xiangjun. This classical play is a dramatized narrative based on Hou’s essay Biography of Lady Li and is a poetic weaving of the tragic love affair between Hou and Li with the collapse of the Ming dynasty.

I’ve recently stumbled across a poem written by renowned writer and philosopher Lin Yutang 林語堂 (1895 – 1976), which gives a reflective and laudatory description of Li Xiangjun’s character, with gibes targeting men in general. He inscribed this poem on a scroll portrait of Li Xiangjun that he had privately commissioned.

林語堂之”為香君題詩”:-

香君一個娘子，血染桃花扇子，

義氣照耀千古，羞煞鬚眉漢子。

香君一個娘子，性格是個蠻子，

懸在齋中壁上，教我知所觀止。

如今天下男子，誰復是個蠻子，

大家朝秦暮楚，成個什麼樣子。

當今這個天下，都是騙子販子，

我思古代美人，不至出甚亂子。

My Translation:

Lin Yutang’s Ode to Xiangjun:-

Xiangjun is a woman, her blood spilt on the peach blossom fan.

Her moral virtue lights up history, and shames the macho men.

Xiangjun is a woman, and she has grit aplenty.

I have her painting hung on the wall, to teach me humility.

Take a look at all the men, is there any with intrepidity?

They’re all wishy-washy; what have become of them!

The world these days, is filled with crooks and shams.

I can’t go wrong admiring, beauties in a distant time-span.

Liu Rushi's Paintings and Why I Feature Her in "Tales of Ming Courtesans"

I was quite excited when I found last week on the internet a collection of Liu Rushi’s paintings. Before this discovery, I was aware that one painting by her, titled Misty Willows by the Moonlit Dike, is held at the Palace Museum of Beijing.

Liu Rushi 柳如是 (1618 – 1664), Chen Yuanyuan 陳圓圓 (1625 – 1681) and Li Xiangjun 李香君 (1624 – 1653) were courtesans with exceptional talents and stunning beauty from the late Ming dynasty. They were the most celebrated among the famous Eight Great Beauties of Qinhuai in Nanjing 秦淮八艷, by virtue of their high-profile romance with prominent literati and their drama-filled lives.

Liu Rushi was a poetry prodigy with artistic flair in calligraphy, painting and embroidery, while Chen Yuanyuan and Li Xiangjun were renowned kunqu opera singers and pipa (4-stringed lute) players. They are the three protagonists of my upcoming novel.

I’ve recently come to know that some of Liu's paintings are now in the possession of the Freer Gallery of Art (Smithsonian Institution) in Washington DC. Information on the museum’s website shows that the collection was purchased at a 1992 Sotheby New York auction from (presumably the estate of) a Frenchman named Jean-Pierre Dubosc (1904 – 1988).

Curiosity drove me to do a little research on Dubosc, and I’ve discovered another interesting story.

Jean-Pierre Dubosc was a French diplomat attached to the French Legation in Beijing and an avid collector of Chinese artefacts. He happened to be married, at one time, to Janine Loo, the youngest daughter of C. T. Loo (1880 – 1957), who had, since 1908, established himself in Paris as a dealer in Chinese antiques. According to China Rhyming’s blog post, while living in Beijing, Dubosc occupied himself with sourcing Chinese treasures from antique and curio shops for various European and American museums, as well as for C. T. Loo’s Paris dealership business.

C. T. Loo, a mysterious man of humble birth, revered in the West but scorned in his homeland for stealing its patrimony, was the subject of a 2013 biography by Geraldine Lenain, an Asian art expert now living in Shanghai, titled Monsieur Loo: Le Roman d’un Marchand d’Art Asiatique (Mr. Loo: The Novel of an Asian Art Dealer). She had obtained Loo’s precious personal archives from his grandson, and permission to write the biography from Janine Loo. The publication is in French and in Chinese. I’m not sure if there is an English translation. I digress.

Back to Liu Rushi’s paintings. It is not known when or how or from whom Dubosc got those paintings. Nor is it clear why he had not sold the paintings while he was still alive. Was it because nobody in the West knew who Liu Rushi was, and so there was no demand for her work? Or was it for some other reason? It is a known fact that many of the poem and calligraphy collections and paintings by Liu Rushi and her husband Qian Qianyi were destroyed in the Qianlong Emperor’s cull of anti-Qing literary work when he championed the creation of the Siku Quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasuries). Dubosc could well be aware that Liu’s paintings were a rare find.

For many people, especially non-Chinese, the name Liu Rushi is probably not a familiar one. Yet, despite her low status as a courtesan, she was the subject of an 800,000-word biography written by the eminent historian and intellectual luminary Chen Yinke 陳寅恪 (1890 – 1969), who spent the last ten years of his life researching and writing it. The title of the work is: An Ulterior Biography of Liu Rushi. More importantly, he famously named her as the embodiment of the Chinese nation’s spirit of independence and liberal thinking. That comment was what had goaded me to read, research and write about this multi-talented poet-courtesan.

A note of interest is that Chen Yinke had been condemned as anti-revolutionary in his fading years, and it was not until 1988 that his former students and friends could openly commemorate him. His seminal biography of Liu Rushi and other works only emerged from oblivion in the 1990s. Hence the auction of Liu’s paintings in 1992 would appear to be a natural timing.

Here are some of Liu’s paintings found on the website of the Freer Gallery of Art: