Li Liu-fang (1575–1629)
Li Liu-fang received the degree of Provincial Graduate in 1606, in the same year as Ch’ien Ch’ien-i. Four years later Ch’ien won third place in the metropolitan examination (with Chung Hsing among his classmates), but Li was passed over. In 1622 Li was to make another attempt, but, due to adverse travel conditions had reached only the suburbs of Peking when the examination started inside the city.
The corrupt eunuch Wei Chung-hsien (1568–1627) had quickly risen to power with the enthronement of Emperor Hsi-tsung (r. 1621–27). At the peak of his authority Wei incited his supporters to have shrines honoring himself built throughout the empire. Li refused to participate in the worship, saying, “To do the service is a matter of an instant; not to do it is a matter of a thousand ages.” He gave up his ambition for an official career, went back south, and built a villa—the Sandalwood Garden at Nan-hsiang, in the southeastern part of his native county, Chia-ting, Southern Metropolitan Region—for his old mother and himself. Together with his son Hang-chih, a talented painter, Li personally saw to the planting and placement of all the trees and rocks in the garden.
In this beautiful garden Li Liu-fang entertained his friends, including his classmate Ch’ien Ch’ien-i, who had asked for leave on the excuse of ill health and returned to live in nearby Ch’ang-shu County. Here Li devoted himself to calligraphy, painting, poetry, and the study of Taoism. He also made frequent trips for sightseeing and painting in the Chiang-nan area, especially to Soochow and Hangchow.
Today Li is remembered first of all as an accomplished landscape painter, known as one of the Nine Painter Friends, a group headed by Tung Ch’i-ch’ang, the great master of the age, and immortalized in a poem by the famous poet Wu Wei-yeh (1609–72). The bold brushwork and rich ink tones of Li’s paintings display grace and spontaneity as well as the influence of various masters of the Yüan dynasty, especially Huang Kung-wang (1269–1354) and Wu Chen (1280–1354).
Though leading a recluse’s life, Li still cared about affairs of state and had a tragic sense of the doom of the Ming imperial reign. In 1629, when he heard that Ch’ien Ch’ien-i, who after the death of Wei Chung-hsien had returned to the capital and become a high-ranking courtier, was dismissed, Li sighed and said that the situation for the empire was now hopeless. Soon he fell sick, started coughing up blood, and died shortly.
Su Shih, the great Sung writer, made a famous saying about the achievements of Wang Wei (701–61), the great T’ang poet and painter: “In his poetry, one feels that there is painting. In his painting, one sees that there is poetry.” One may say the same thing about Li Liu-fang’s landscape paintings and his hsiao-p’in pieces.
A Short Note about My Trips to Tiger Hill
Tiger Hill is most frequented by tourists on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival.1 Gentlemen and ladies of the entire city go out there. The sound of music and talk, filling up the vales and bubbling in the woods, continues throughout the night. The entire place is turned into a tavern, and I am often disgusted by such rowdiness.
I arrived at the prefecture on the tenth, and went to Tiger Hill that very night. The moonshine was grand, and there were few tourists. The gazebos in the breeze and the waterside pavilions in the moonlight, adorned by a group or two that included some rouge-cheeked singing girls, were surely not repulsive at all.
Still it was not as agreeable to me as when I went there alone, when the hill was deserted and quiet. One autumn evening I sat by the Moon-fishing Jetty with Jo-sheng. It was very dark, and no one walked by. From time to time we heard the sound of bells in the wind, and saw the light on and off from the Buddhist temple above the trees. On another occasion during the past spring, I called upon Chung-ho here together with my nephew Wuchi. At midnight the moon rose and no one else was around. Together we squatted on the stone terrace. We neither drank nor talked. Contemplating the scene with a detached mind, we felt as if we had imperceptibly become a part of the exquisitely tranquil landscape.
I think there have been only two occasions in my life when I visited Tiger Hill and saw its natural beauty. To quote the lines of my friend Hsü Sheng-yüan,
Only the depth of winter reveals things at their best;2 And they are singularly suited to visits at midnight.
He knew the secret, indeed!
A Short Note about My Trips to Boulder Lake
In the past I have visited Boulder Lake1 three times, and had a great time on all three trips.
In 1575 Fang-ju and I put on clogs and went there in the rain. We climbed to the gazebo on the summit of the hill, where we drank some wine, sang wildly, and shouted at the top of our voices. All those who saw us stared.
Last year Meng-yang,2 Jo-sheng, Kung-yü, and I went there looking for early plum [Prunus mume] in bloom. We toured all the buildings at Chih-p’ing Temple, climbed up the Sacrificial Terrace, and went to Shang-fang Temple at the summit. There was a refreshing breeze, the sun was bright, and we had a very nice time.
On the ninth, we went there again for “height-ascending,”3 but due to a rain didn’t climb up the hill. We went on the lake in our boat and watched all the masts, sails, and oars coming and going in the rain. We had a drink while enjoying the view, and it was very pleasant.
On this trip it was a bright and clear autumn day. My younger brother Po-mei and others were all in a good mood. We went up to Shang-fang via Vetch Village, and then we found a way to come down via the Sacrificial Terrace and the Tea Mill. Wildflowers growing by the roadside often sent out a soft, sweet scent; some of our boys picked up armfuls of them. At sunset we let our boat stay in the middle of the lake and waited for the moon to rise. We were about to start drinking when Meng-yang and Lu-sheng arrived one after the other. We sat on the boat in the dew, drank a lot, and didn’t return until midnight. I had not had such a nice time for a decade!
Inscriptions on An Album of Recumbent Travels in Chiang-nan (Four Passages)
Horizontal Pond
Three miles outside the Hsü Gate1 there is a village by the name of Horizontal Pond. It is a lovely place indeed, with low and smooth hills around, the pond affording an unobstructed view, and bridges and streams lying between villages. Every time I passed by, I felt as if the city were receding farther and farther away and that the lake and hills there were very friendly. My heart felt lifted up, as if the fresh wind and bright sunshine were there for my sake, though my fellow travelers were unable to feel the same kind of ecstasy.
Above Horizontal Pond is Horizontal Hill. P’an Fang-ju and I were once stopped there en route by a windstorm. We found our way to the foot of the hill. There were elegant pines and bamboos, and the small peach trees were just in bloom. It looked almost like a wonderland. We helped each other climb to the top of the hill. The wind was extremely strong. We felt as if we would be blown off our feet and fall down. That was twenty years ago.
In 1617, three days after the Mid-Autumn Fesitval, I painted this picture at Meng-yang’s residence by the Ch’ang Gate. In the ninth month I made another trip to Wu-lin in the company of Meng-yang.2 It rained at night. I wrote this inscription while our boat was moored at Chu’s Cape.
Boulder Lake
Boulder Lake is below Mount Leng-ch’ieh. The Buddhist temple at the summit is named Shang-fang. Along the winding path to the east, where the hills become lower but more undulating, stand the Sacrificial Terrace and the Tea Mill. The temple beneath the Sacrificial Terrace is named Chih-p’ing. The bridge that spans the lake is called the Spring Walk. The bridge across the streams, which leads to the winery, is called Yüeh-lai. The lake is about three miles away from the city. Easily accessible to tourists, it is most popular for “height-ascending” parties; gentlemen and ladies from the city gather there.
On the Double Ninth in 1608, Meng-jan and I made a trip there. It happened to be windy and rainy; there were few tourists. The hills and the lake looked newly washed. We put on clogs and went to Chih-p’ing Temple, and stayed there until dusk. I wrote a poem on the occasion:
On the Double Ninth, full of thoughts of home,
A traveler has come here to watch the hills in rain.
Unable to reach the summit of the mountain,
We just moor our boat in the western bay.
Above the Tea Mill a white mist soars up in the wind;
At Vetch Village the foliage takes on a splendid hue.
Who’d say this is not a cap-dropping party1
At which we shall not return before we get drunk?
Beneath the mountain is Purple Vetch Village. Meng-jan used to live there, but he is gone forever now. Alas!
Tiger Hill
Tiger Hill fits in nicely with the moon, with snow, with rain, with mist, with dawn in spring, with summer, with the refreshing cool of autumn when the leaves are falling, and with the setting sun. It is nice for all such moments, but it is never nice when there is a crowd of tourists. Its misfortune comes from being situated close to the city. Tourists frequent the place, like those attracted by the smell of mutton or “addicted to the stench of body odor,”1 not because they really understand the pleasure of sight-seeing.
In the eighth month of this year, Meng-yang passed by Soochow. I took a boat ride to meet him. On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the moon did not come out. On the sixteenth it cleared up by night, so we made a trip to Tiger Hill together, but couldn’t get close to it because of the crowd and the filth—we left holding our noses. Today, when I put down this inscription for Meng-yang, the hills and the woods have emerged in their natural look.
On the sixth day of the ninth month in 1617, I wrote this note en route to Clear Brook.
Divinity Cliff
On my trips to Western Hill, I passed by the foot of Divinity Cliff Hill (Ling-yen-shan) several times. On an autumn day in 1608 I finally got to ascend the hill with Ch’i-tung and his two sons, Liang-chan and Jung-chan. On all the previous occasions, I had only watched from aboard my boat the pretty view of its woods and rocks in the distance.
Divinity Cliff is the site of the Belle’s Lodge.1 The Footfall Corridor, the Flower-Picking Trail, and the Zither Terrace are all located there. On one of the rocks there is a depression that looks like a footprint. It is said to be the track left by Hsi Shih’s shoe, which is hard to believe. When I was young, I once dreamt that my friends and I went to the Buddhist shelters there to compose poems. On waking up I still remembered one line: “Wind among the pines, moon on water: both have the power of speech.” In 1611, on our way to watch early plum in bloom at Western Moraine, my younger brother and I passed by Divinity Cliff. I wrote a poem with a reference to that dream:
The rain keeps falling beneath Divinity Cliff;
Flower Trail and Zither Terrace are enveloped in cloud.
I remember the autumn hills and the yellow leaves on the road;
Wind among the pines, moon on water: message of Zen in a dream.
On the seventh day of the ninth month in 1617, I wrote this inscription in a boat on Western Pond.
Inscription on A Picture of Solitary Hill on a Moonlit Night
Once, after getting drunk in the company of Monk Yin-ch’ih and several brothers, we took a little boat on our way back from the West Fall.1 The moon had just risen, and the branches of the weeping willows on the new embankment were all reflected on the lake, vibrating in that open sheet of light. It was like a scene in a mirror or in a picture.
I have always cherished that scene in my memory. In 1612, while staying in the villa, one day I was suddenly tempted to put it in a painting for Meng-yang. Now it is really in a picture.