- 1 On fengsu hua, see Hammers 2007: 87-95; Cheng 2003: 21-87. An earlier draft of this article was pre (...)
- 2 See, for example, Huang 2012a, 2013, 2018; Tsai 2015; Cheng 2011, 2016; Hammers 2021. For a classic (...)
1In the past, Chinese artworks belonging to the category known as fengsu hua, “genre paintings”—non-narrative illustrations dealing with neither identifiable individuals nor specific events and therefore more conveniently associated with classes or types—have often been taken as straightforward depictions of everyday life and as objective representations of the customs and material culture of a certain period.1 Recent scholarship has shifted the focus from the documentary value of genre scenes to other important and sometimes neglected dimensions of these images, thus amply demonstrating that they are not simply a direct rendering of life but an interpretation of it, selective accounts that often present non-existent events and figures. Like their Western counterparts, moral meanings, witty commentaries on society or even biting satire are hidden beneath the realistic surface of many works.2
- 3 Little scholarship has addressed the representation of the blind in Chinese art. Notable exceptions (...)
2With an increasing interest in the history of genre scenes, most of the so-called “low-life” works that depict poor or marginal elements of society have yet to gain sustained scholarly attention. This is the case with paintings featuring blind characters in comic or incongruous situations, which seem to have developed into a distinctive genre during the Qing period (1644-1911), as indicated by both literary sources and extant paintings. In art, from at least the end of the seventeenth century, blind people were represented as fighting or acting as connoisseurs, enjoying antiquities, and drinking. By the mid-eighteenth century, there were separate works devoted to each activity and combinations thereof. These images belong to the broad category of genre scenes whose exact function and meaning has yet to be carefully examined.3
- 4 For biographical information about Zhu Yan, see Chongxiu Xinghua xianzhi: 8/24b-25a.
3The present paper seeks to fill the gap in current scholarship, and in so doing examines the pictorial representation of the blind in Qing-dynasty China, discussing the use of humor and visual satire in paintings of this kind as tools for moral critique. For this purpose, I focus on a neglected handscroll entitled Groups of Blind People (Qunmang tu), created in 1757 by the professional Yangzhou painter Zhu Yan (active mid-eighteenth century) who, according to written sources, specialized in portraying these characters.4 By casting some light on this and similar works, the present article also hopes to understand how blind people were depicted in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century China and to open the way to further studies of this topic.
- 5 The painter’s signature appears at the end of the scroll: “Painted by Zhu Yan of Chuyang, during th (...)
4This painting’s uniqueness within the larger genre can be ascribed to the fact that it is the earliest signed scroll combining subjects that were previously treated independently, among the three extant works on this theme that I have been able to locate. The scroll counts one hundred characters, a highly symbolic figure (taken metaphorically to mean “innumerable”), suggesting that the painter was trying to represent every activity, posture, attribute and instrument associated with the blind, as we can see for example in paintings of one hundred birds (Bainiao tu), one hundred horses (Baijun tu) or one hundred children (Baizi tu). Zhu Yan’s painting is also the most detailed of the three scrolls and the one of highest quality, a feature still discernable today despite the fact that the scroll is known only through poor quality black and white reproductions in the magazine Yilin yuekan (Art World Monthly), where it was published in five parts, between 1933 and 1934 (fig. 1).5
- 6 The handscroll is dated 1736. However, its style does not match the reliable works of Li Shan, who (...)
- 7 The scroll (ink and color on paper, 25.5 x 241 cm) is dated 1855. For a reproduction, see Farrer 19 (...)
- 8 See for example the note by Yuan Mei (1716-1797) below and the reference in n. 29.
5The other extant handscrolls I have located include The Hundred Blind Men (Baixia tu), representing the same subject in a similar composition (fig. 2). The painting, in the collection of the Princeton University Art Museum, bears the signature of Li Shan (1686-1762), which was likely added at a later date.6 Another painting on the same subject, in the collection of the British Museum, is a later copy by the Yangzhou painter Wang Su (1794-1877), displaying a similar theme with a different title, Fighting for Fame and Profit (Zhengming duoli). This scroll represents about fifty blind characters engaging in activities such as enjoying antiquities, playing musical instruments and drinking, and, according to the painter’s inscription, is a copy of a composition by Hua Yan (1682-1756), a Fujianese painter based in Yangzhou.7 It may not be a coincidence that these works are associated with members of the so-called “Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou,” (Yangzhou baguai) such as Hua Yan or Li Shan, Zhu Yan being from Xinghua, a suburb of Yangzhou that was the hometown of Li Shan as well. Judging from the presence of similar paintings, this theme was possibly quite popular in eighteenth-century Yangzhou.8
- 9 Zhou Zhaoxiang, native of Shaoxing in Zhejiang province, served as the Governor of Sichuan, Fengtia (...)
- 10 See Lu sheng shuizai chouzhen hui 1935: 7a-b.
6As for Zhu Yan’s scroll, it was not until the 1930s that it re-emerged from oblivion, only to be forgotten again shortly thereafter. The painting was published in one of the leading art magazines of the time, whose editor Zhou Zhaoxiang (1880-1954) was also its owner.9 It was also put on public display during the autumn of 1935, when an art exhibition was organized in Beijing to raise funds for the victims of a devastating flood of the Yellow River that affected the province of Shandong.10 After this renewed interest during the 1930s, the painting and its author once again dropped out of sight. Its present whereabouts are unknown.
Fig. 1. Zhu Yan, Groups of Blind People, 1757. Handscroll, ink and colors on paper. Opening section: group of scholars walking (1). Dimensions and present location unknown. Photograph from Yilin yuekan, no. 44 (1933): 12.
Fig. 2. Li Shan (attr.), The Hundred Blind Men, 1736 (?). Handscroll, ink and colors on paper, 31 x 667.5 cm. Opening section. Princeton University Art Museum (y1947-255). Gift of DuBois Schanck Morris, Class of 1893.
7Isolated against a plain background, the various vignettes that constitute Zhu Yan’s scroll are independent from each other and can be considered as single narrative units. What lends thematic coherence to the composition is the fact that all the characters are blind. The artist used various solutions to help the viewer identify their condition: All figures have their eyes closed, some show uplifted heads and an unsteady gait, and others rest their outstretched hands on the shoulders of a man walking in front. For some characters, rather than depicting the physical mark of their visual impairment, the condition is more politely suggested by attributes, such as a stick. One can also note the presence of children, used as guides for some of the blind persons.
- 11 The poor quality of the reproductions makes the stylistic analysis of this scroll a quite difficult (...)
8In the eight scenes that compose the scroll, these blind figures are grouped according to their activities or actions. These eight sections include a group of scholars walking (1), others drinking (2), various fortunetellers and storytellers performing (3), beggars soliciting alms (4), scholars enjoying antiquities (5), playing musical instruments (6), people arguing (7) and grabbing a giant copper coin in front of a meditating man (8). The figures wear robes defined by heavy ink lines. Their facial features are more carefully depicted, but the characters are not individualized. The rough style, deliberate coarseness of the brushstrokes and smeared effects recall the figures of Huang Shen’s (1687-1772) paintings and the work of painters of the Zhe school.11
- 12 For a reproduction of Street Scenes in Times of Peace, held in the Art Institute of Chicago, see: [(...)
9As for the system of grouping characters according to their activities, it is a form that Zhu Yan’s scroll shares with the contents of model-books and painting manuals, which normally provide a series of iconographic models that can be adopted into larger, integrated compositions. This convention is also found in handscroll representing street and market scenes without an articulated background, such as the impressive Street Scenes in Times of Peace (Taiping fenghui tu), dating to the mid-Ming period and representing the public activities of common people, or Zhang Hong’s (1577-after 1652) Various Entertainments (Zaji youxi tu, 1638), depicting lower-class professional figures in the marketplace.12 Scenes illustrating professional fortunetellers and storytellers are featured in the three paintings.
- 13 This gong-like instrument was used mainly, but not exclusively, by blind fortunetellers to attract (...)
- 14 For a brief review of the historical development of physiognomy in China, see Wang 2020: chap. 1.
- 15 Most physiognomists who specialized in this technique were blind. See Wang 2020: 98-99.
- 16 According to written records, the pipa was, at least from the mid-Ming dynasty, one of the most com (...)
- 17 For a description of this technique, see Wang 2020: 198-207.
10In Zhu Yan’s Groups of Blind People, this section starts with two figures, one waving an abacus (suanpan) and the other holding a small gong, known as the “announcer” (baojun zhi) (fig. 3).13 The suanpan may indicate that they are practicing the traditional astrological divination technique known as the “Ziping” or the “eight characters” (bazi) method. Next to them, a man holds a fan showing the character xiang, suggesting the practice of physiognomy (xiangshu or xiangmian).14 A figure holding a piece of paper reading “The Divine Physiognomy of Bone-touching and Spirit Physiognomy” (mogu shenxiang) stands just behind him, indicating a less conventional type of physiognomy, consisting in telling fortune by studying the customer’s bone structure.15 The next three figures hold musical instruments: a pipa, a sanxian and a small gong, and are probably performing storytelling (shuochang, lit. “storytelling and story singing”).16 Standing at their left, a man is pointing at his wrist, probably indicating that he is practicing pulse physiognomy (xiangmai), a technique using complex numerological principles applied to the pulse to reveal one’s fortune.17
- 18 The fortuneteller is sitting behind a desk, a brush in hand, under a parasol bearing the inscriptio (...)
11A fortune-teller practicing the “Ziping” method and a physiognomist appear also in the section of Street Scenes in Times of Peace depicting diviners and healers (fig. 4).18 In another section are featured three blind musician/storytellers holding a qin, a sanxian and a pipa, supported by a child to lead the way, which may be compared to the trio carrying similar instruments in Zhu Yan’s scroll.
- 19 One of the characters is holding bamboo clappers (zhuban) while his companion is playing the flute, (...)
- 20 For other examples dating from the eighteenth century and representing some of the same iconographi (...)
12The duo holding a suanpan and a baojun zhi featured in Zhu Yan’s scroll is also seen in the opening section of Zhang Hong’s painting, among a group of three blind people, including one who is supported by a child (fig. 5). Behind them, a man is holding a large folding fan (zheshan), a prop used for storytelling. This group is preceded by a couple of beggars wielding long bamboo branches, disguised as the God of the Stove (Zaowang) and his wife for the lunar New Year festivities. Beggars are also featured preeminently in Groups of Blind People. Some of them are disabled and show their handicaps in order to arouse pity. Others play musical instruments to elicit alms from potential donors,19 or use more ruthless methods to appeal for alms, as it is the case with the man holding a wooden board over his head, employing it as a coercive tool. If refused, he would start to hit himself with the board, inducing people to give a few coins to get rid of him (cf. fig. 3).20
13If Zhu Yan’s painting draws compositionally and thematically on these Ming-dynasty works representing street and market scenes, it differs from them in its depiction of certain figures, whose actions appear to be incongruous with their social type or physical condition. If some of them are in fact represented as performing activities usually associated with blind people such as playing musical instruments, performing storytelling, divination or even begging, with an accurate rendering of their props, other activities such as appreciating antiquities are more often performed by sighted people. Even though some of the scenes have a documentary component—those, for instance, representing fortunetellers or beggars—most of them center on something ludicrous or absurd, which is contrary to or incompatible with normal expectation. Clearly, the images depicting blind men in incongruous and comic situations such as appreciating antiquities, fighting or grabbing a giant copper coin cannot be taken at face value, suggesting an allegorical content.
Fig. 3. Zhu Yan, Groups of Blind People. Fortunetellers (3) and beggars scenes (4). From Yilin yuekan, no. 46 (1933): 12.
Fig. 4. Zhu Yu (attr.), Street Scenes in Times of Peace, 14th century (?). Handscroll, ink and colors on paper, 26 x 790 cm. Detail of the fortuneteller (upper center) and the physiognomist (bottom right). The Art Institute of Chicago, Kate S. Buckingham Endowment (1952.8).
Fig. 5. Zhang Hong, Various Entertainments, 1638. Handscroll, ink on paper, 27.5 x 459 cm. Detail of the opening section. Palace Museum, Beijing. Image provided by the Palace Museum, Beijing.
Fig. 6. Zhu Yan, Groups of Blind People. Appreciating antiques scene (5). From Yilin yuekan, no. 48 (1934): 16.
14The section following the beggar scene opens on a group of scholars holding wrapped books and scrolls while walking towards a table, where are displayed four archaic bronzes, including a ding tripod and a gu vessel. Here, eight people are engaged in a quite incongruous activity, considering their condition. They are appreciating antiquities: The man at the center is examining a sword; the one turned backwards, sitting on his chair, is handling a bottle; one is holding a stone chime, another a cup, and so on (fig. 6). It is not accidental that the blind experts are eight in total. According to the first record that I have found of this pictorial theme, dating from the early Kangxi era (1661-1722), in scenes of this kind, this figure was originally a pun:
- 21 李文貞公 […] 康熙九年庚戌進士。前此時文陋劣,浮油相尚,可以不學而能。京師無名子,有繪八股圖者,作瞽者八人,或題詩,或作字,或鑒賞古玩,或品評法書名畫與調琴奕棋,言作八股猶此八瞽者無知妄作也。L (...)
Li Wenzhen [Li Guangdi] earned his jinshi degree during the gengxu year of the Kangxi era [1670]. Before that time, modern prose [i.e. the eight-legged essay] was vulgar and poor; deceitful people could succeed without studying. Someone in the capital painted The Eight Legs [representing] eight blind men: one was composing a poem, another one calligraphy, one was appreciating antiquities while others were judging paintings and calligraphies, playing qin or board games. This amounts to saying that those who produce eight-legged essays are acting as thoughtlessly as these eight blind men.21
- 22 On this reform, see Struve 2004: 284-288. For a recent study on the shiwen (modern prose) or bagu w (...)
- 23 I would like to thank one of my reviewers for bringing this point to my attention. The use of luck- (...)
15Li Guangdi (1642-1718), Grand Counselor (Daxueshi) under Kangxi and a prominent Confucian scholar of the day, had passed the jinshi examination just after the Oboi Regency examination reform (1663-1668), that moved the eight-legged essay (bagu wen) to a later session of the exam, the new format focusing more on policy questions.22 According to this source, this subject emerged in the capital during the 1660s in the context of strong criticism against the rigidity of form and content of the modern prose. It had likely been commissioned by a pro-reform partisan such as the Censor-in-chief Wei Yijie (1616-1686), its principal instigator. This satirical work relied on the homophonic pun between the “eight legs” (bagu) and the “eight blind people” (bagu) seen in the painting, and was directed at those scholars succeeding through plagiarism and mimicry induced by this particular form of writing. Such satirical punning may have added another layer of fun when we consider that normally puns were sincere and beneficent, and their use in pictorial art linked to the pursuit of auspiciousness.23
- 24 The painting is undated, but one of its inscriptions refers to Yu Zhiding using the honorary title (...)
16Another painting of this kind, associated with preeminent scholar-officials of Li Guangdi’s circle, was produced shortly after by Yu Zhiding (ca 1647 - ca 1716), one of the most eminent portraitists working in the capital during the Kangxi period. Titled Eight Blind Men (Bagu tu), this work of art is no longer extant, but the content of some of the inscriptions has survived in various literary anthologies.24 The Hanlin Academician and president of the Board of Rites Han Tan (1637-1704), a fine scholar considered one of the greatest masters of examination essays in the Qing dynasty, composed for it two undated poems, preceded by a preface that describes the painted scene:
- 25 禹鴻臚為此圖,譏也。羅古器卷軸甚夠,主人倨坐其上,色自得。客各奉持作鑒賞狀,或嗅之,或耳之,或摩挲之,皆瞽也。主人一瞽,而召群瞽,群瞽各極態,以娛一人之瞽,然皆不自知其瞽也。嗟乎,譏之誠是也。然安 (...)
This picture by Yu [Zhiding] of the Court of State Ceremonial is satirical. Antiquities and paintings are in great supply, the host is seated cross-legged in the place of honor, looking self-confident. Every guest holds a [piece] that he is examining: One is sniffing it out, another is trying to hear its sound, and another one is caressing it. They are all blind. The host is himself a blind man, and he has gathered a group of blind people. Each one of them adopts an exaggerated posture to please the blindness of the host, but none of them is aware of their own blindness. Alas! This mockery suits them perfectly. That said, where can we go where there would be no blind people?25
- 26 On this scroll, in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, see Little 1999: 189-219. (...)
- 27 Han Feizi IV: 13.
17According to this text, Yu Zhiding’s painting might have matched the corresponding scene in Zhu Yan’s painting in terms of the activities in which the blind connoisseurs are engaged. Thematically, works like this mock the genre known as Wangu tu (Enjoying Antiquities), as in Du Jin’s (active ca 1465-1487) famous painting focusing on the activity of examining, studying and identifying bronze vessels and other antiquities, a practice that scholars had been pursuing at least since the Tang dynasty (618-907).26 On a first level of interpretation, Zhu Yan’s scene might be seen as merely a parody created for the purpose of laughter, as those examining the antiquities are actually the sightless, who are forced to use their other senses to conduct the expertise and who, in addition, are unaware of their condition. The emphatic turn of phrase in the last sentence of Han Tan’s preface—asserting that blindness is everywhere—suggests, however, a second reading, in which these images can be considered as satires intended to criticize those who are not blind but act as if they were. This point is confirmed by Han Tan’s poems, which allude to classical texts to reflect on the lack of judgment and discernment of those who are not physically blind and are deceived by appearances. The most famous reference is to the story from the Han Feizi known as “Mr. He” (He shi), about a man of Chu who was punished by having both feet amputated as he presented an unpolished jade to his ruler, and later on to his successor: indeed the court experts upon examining the stone failed to appreciate the precious material harboured in the object he presented (and, if we stretch the meaning of the allegory, in his own person) and declared the man was a fraud.27
18When the poet and scholar Zha Shenxing (1650-1727) composed his poem to match Han Tan’s rhymes in 1700, he was still one of these “ordinary stones” on the outside, waiting to be recognized. That year he was in fact in the capital to compete in the metropolitan examination for the second time, but again failed to pass (he became a jinshi and entered the Hanlin Academy in 1703). If Han Tan is making fun of the fact that few are those who can recognize the true value of things and people of talent, Zha Shenxing pushes the reasoning forward, mocking those people with high self-esteem, who think they have dug out the “Marquis of Sui’s pearl,” (Suihou zhu) a famous gemstone often mentioned along with Mr. He’s jade as a metaphor pointing at the fault of underestimating the value of a person or a thing. Drawing extensively on Zhuangzi, the poet claims that polishing the jade will destroy the true nature of the material worked on, implying that accepting rank would corrupt one’s integrity and purity.28 In sum, these authors see Eight Blind Men as a satire ridiculing those who claim an expertise they have not earned, who have reputations they do not deserve, and who arrogantly assume that their judgments are always correct.
19It is unclear what happened to Yu Zhiding’s painting thereafter, but its subject became popular during the Qianlong era (1736-1795). This point is confirmed not only by extant works such as the one attributed to Li Shan and the one by Wang Su discussed above, but also by a note written by perhaps the leading southern poet and man of letters of the time, Yuan Mei (1716-1797), in his Suiyuan shihua:
- 29 有人畫七八瞽者,各執圭、璧、銅、磁、書、畫等物,作張口爭論狀,號《羣盲評古圖》 ; 其誚世也深矣。劉鳴玉題云: 「耳聾偏要逢人聒,足跛轉喜登山滑。可惜不逢周師達,眼珠個個金篦刮」。Yuan rep (...)
Someone painted seven or eight blind men who were discussing animatedly, while holding objects such as jade tablets and disks, bronzes, porcelain, books, and paintings. He titled [his painting]: “Blind Men Appreciating Antiquities.” What a rebuke to his time! Liu Mingyu added a colophon which reads: “They are deaf and yet want to hear people’s cackling; they are lame and like to climb mountains [where one] skids. It is a pity that they did not meet Zhou Shida, who would have scraped the [film from their] eyes with a golden comb.”29
- 30 Zhou Shida, who specialized in the treatment of cataracts, is said to have attempted, unsuccessfull (...)
- 31 Blum 2013: 248-249.
20Zhou Shida (dates unknown), a famous ninth-century ophthalmologist, is invoked here not to treat an eye condition but to metaphorically open the eyes of those blinded by ignorance.30 The so-called “golden comb” (jinbi, also known as jinbei, “golden scalpel,” referring to a shaped needle) is in fact first mentioned in the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra (Ch. Da banniepan jing), in a passage where Buddha compares the removal of the screen of ignorance using the needle of wisdom (the sūtra itself) to the action of a surgeon who is couching a cataract using a golden comb.31
- 32 For a detailed study of this painting, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art, see Ho 1980: 373-376.
- 33 盲人寶陋物,惟下愚不移。 Zheng 1760: 61; translated by Chaves 1986: 433.
- 34 Tang 2017: 111-112.
21If the thick cataracts of blinding ignorance and the delusions that prevent people from seeing the truth are common metaphors that apply to all living beings in the Buddhist tradition and not just to a particular class or category of people, in Yangzhou, where both Yu Zhiding and Zhu Yan were active, the target of these images might have been not only members of the gentry (such as those appearing in the Wangu tu pictures) but also of the newly risen salt-merchant class, those people who were using every available means, financial and social, to model their own lives on the style and aspirations of the literati. Merchants such as the famous “Two Ma brothers” (Ma Yueguan [1688-1755] and Ma Yuelu [1697–after 1766]) often sank their wealth into books, paintings, antiquities, and sponsored literary gathering, as shown in the scroll A Literary Gathering at Xing’an on the Double Nine (Jiuri Xing’an wenyan tu), painted in 1743 by Fang Shishu (1692-1751) and Ye Fanglin (active late seventeenth–early eighteenth century). This depicts them alongside other members of a Yangzhou poetry society engaged in activities such as reciting poems, music-making and painting appreciation.32 Works portraying blind characters engaged in similar activities might therefore be seen as a form of critique of this phenomenon. For instance, the famous painter and calligrapher Zheng Xie (1693-1765) denounced the lack of taste and connoisseurship of these merchants who collected art and antiquities as part of their quest for social prestige and cultural refinement. His poem entitled “Antiquities” (Gudong), condemns precisely such fake connoisseurial practices. Its final line reads: “These blind men treasure vulgar things, they are the stupid of the lowest class, who cannot be changed.”33 Again, it is probably not a coincidence that this kind of statement was made by Zheng, Zhu Yan’s fellow countryman and a good friend of his, who also inscribed the 1757 album in 1764.34
- 35 For other examples of paintings representing this topic and their interpretation, see Bianchi 2014; (...)
22Images of blind people enjoying antiquities are not common in eighteenth-century painting, but this theme was later revived by Su Liupeng (1796-1862), one of the most innovative Guangdong figure painters of the nineteenth century.35 Su made a number of paintings of this subject starting as early as 1824, as documented by the inscription on his 1834 scroll Blind Men Appreciating Antiquities (Qunmang pinggu tu, fig. 7), where he states:
- 36 《群盲評古圖》。十年前偶讀《小倉山房詩話》中有此題,偶為友人戲作一幀,如是不下二三十幅矣。
Blind Men Appreciating Antiquities. Ten years ago, I came across this title while reading Xiaocang shanfang’s [Yuan Mei’s] Shihua and, for fun, I did a painting on this theme for a friend. I then made twenty or thirty more of these pictures.36
- 37 余前曾作《群盲評古圖》,見者叱嗤余譏世。For a reproduction of the painting (now in the Guangzhou Museum) and its inscri (...)
23He goes on to say that he had since decided to put an end to this type of production, but that he could not refuse a friend who, during the spring of 1834, asked him for an additional painting of Blind Men Appreciating Antiquities. In the inscription of A Gathering of Blind Musicians (Qunmang juchang tu), also dated 1834, Su explains the reasons for his decision. He complains that “in the past, when I executed Blind Men Appreciating Antiquities, the viewers criticized me for ridiculing their contemporaries,”37 suggesting that pictures of blind people enjoying antiquities were not always well received—perhaps by some of the painter’s patrons who felt targeted by the satire. He continues to say that since the present painting has no satirical intent, it will not attract criticism from his contemporaries anymore.
Fig. 7. Su Liupeng, Blind Men Appreciating Antiquities, 1834. Handscroll, ink and colors on paper, 41.6 x 168.5 cm. Guangdong Provincial Museum.
- 38 For a classical study of comic incongruity, see Clark 1987.
- 39 See note 3 above.
- 40 Bianchi 2014.
24The last section of Zhu Yan’s scroll opens on a group of ten people sitting on the ground. Judging by their gestures, they are arguing, and two of them even on the verge of starting a fight, as we can tell by the act of rolling up the sleeves of their tunics (fig. 8). Here, the fight is only suggested but not represented as is the case, for example, in the scroll attributed to Li Shan, whose comic effect lies in the fact that the characters can’t see their target and they gesticulate in a vacuum, the incongruity of an action being an important ingredient of humor (fig. 9).38 As Huang Xiaofeng has demonstrated, this pictorial theme most likely appeared as early as the early Ming.39 In my article “Mendiants et personnages de rue dans la peinture chinoise: un ensemble de quatre rouleaux des Ming et des Qing,” I have discussed the meaning of a group of paintings of beggars featuring the theme of blind men fighting. I have argued that, on top of their comic dimension, these images could also be read as metaphors of the struggle for money and power among those who are spiritually blinded.40 One of these paintings, an anonymous scroll titled One Hundred Beggars (Baigai tu), includes a scene depicting a fight among blind musicians. The abacus lying on the ground most likely symbolizes such struggles. Commenting on this scene in his inscription dated 1662, the Ming loyalist Wang Dajing (1621-1692) remarked:
- 41 豈有鑒於見利則爭,爭而弗遂,則羣起而相攻擊,排陷以自傾其黨類耶? 吾不知其藉此等輩以愧天下之人與? Wang 1817: 7/7b.
Does the [painter] want to warn those who fight for profit, fight and do not succeed, rise up in bands fighting each other, leading to the loss [of someone] in order to harm their peers? […] I’m wondering whether the [painter] planned to use those characters in order to embarrass the world.41
Fig. 8. Zhu Yan, Groups of Blind People. Last section featuring discussion scene (7), masters and pupil scene and the giant copper coin and meditation scene (8). From Yilin yuekan, no. 50 (1934): 16.
Fig. 9. Li Shan (attr.), The Hundred Blind Men, 1736 (?). Handscroll, ink and colors on paper, 31 x 667.5 cm. Fighting scene. Princeton University Art Museum (y1947-255). Gift of DuBois Schanck Morris, Class of 1893.
- 42 For other examples of paintings representing this topic and their interpretation, see Bianchi 2014; (...)
25Examples of this type are common in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century painting, and continue to be a popular theme for nineteenth-century artists such as Su Liupeng.42 His Blind Men in a Fight (Mangren dadou tu, 1865) depicts three blind people: Two are fighting in front of a woman and her two children, while the third figure tries to calm them down. On this scroll, Su penned an inscription revealing that he intended this theme as a social commentary for the world of the literati, in which discrimination and power struggles abounded:
- 43 狼藉如他亦異常,兩無調護變參商,進來世事何堪閒,同類文人各詆傷。For reproduction, see Kao 1990: 97.
This kind of mess is unusual. These two [blind men] can’t see each other yet they are fighting fiercely. What kind of world are we in, where the learned slander and scorn one another?43
26Following the people arguing, Zhu Yan’s scroll depicts a young boy who is receiving a “blind” education by his two masters, books in hand. The trio doesn’t seem disturbed at all by the scene unfolding before their eyes, which adds a comical touch to the whole. Seven people are trying to handle a giant copper coin bearing the inscription “National Treasure Source Stream” (Guobao yuanliu), where a man has placed his head in its square hole. The others are grabbing the coin and hold it tightly, while two men are pulling a rope attached to it. This scene marks the narrative climax of the painting, which closes with an image of complete stillness, contrasting with the immediately previous one. Sitting on a meditation mat (futuan), a white-bearded man is shown with his body turned toward the giant cash while visualizing a tiny copper coin that is floating on a cloud emanating from his head (fig. 10).
- 44 鑽在錢眼裡。In commenting this scene, Zhou Zhaoxiang used a similar saying, “Money is the only thing to g (...)
27It seems likely that the depictions of people grabbing a giant copper coin emerged during the seventeenth century; I trace this theme back to an anonymous album leaf, probably a late Ming or early Qing work in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing. It depicts several workers trying to seize the coin. The scene takes place under the eyes of people from all walks of life (fig. 11). Its comic effect is based not only on the fact that the workers are engaged in an impossible task (grabbing a round piece of cash that is constantly rolling), but also by the presence of a Buddhist monk and a Daoist priest kneeling in front of it and thus implying that money has become an object of worship for them, too. A similar idea is expressed in Zhu Yan’s painting, even if the representation differs slightly. In Zhu Yan’s version the characters are all blind, and one man has put his head into the square hole, as if wearing a cangue, suggesting the idea that he is a slave to money. The painter is literally representing the saying “Put one’s head into the coin hole,” which stands for money-grubbing.44 The idea that everyone, including religious people, is greedily trying to obtain money at every given opportunity is expressed by the presence of a Daoist practitioner visualizing a coin in his meditation.
28In an album by Zhu Yan of the same year, a similar scene appears to substantiate this reading of the image and the identity of the man depicted. This leaf, which closes the album series, depicts an old man sitting on a meditation mat, with a copper cash floating on a cloud mass emanating from his head (fig. 12). The various props placed at his left, including a gourd (hulu), a horsehair whisk (fuchen), and a cauldron for refining cinnabar (liandan lu), identify him as a Daoist. This point is confirmed by the painting’s inscription:
To completely renounce the wealth and fame, this man has just to use the technique of internal alchemy by refining Yin and Yang.
- 45 富貴功名一筆勾,只憑丹汞煉剛柔。三華聚頂皆棄化,只少純陽金指頭。Tang Jing mistranscribed one of the characters of this poem (bing 秉 (...)
29But he has abandoned the three flowers congregated on top; he simply misses Pure Yang’s [Lü Dongbin’s] finger to be able to turn [stone] into gold.45
30The “Three flowers congregated on top” (sanhua juding) is a term of Inner Alchemy (Neidan), referring to the completion of the process whereby the three vital elements of the body (jing, the essence, qi, the energy, and shen, the spirit) are brought back to the top of one’s head during meditation. However, this practitioner has decided to abandon them, to concentrate on another quest: money. The poem comments with irony on the fact that, to achieve his goal, he is only missing Lü Dongbin’s finger. Here, the text alludes to an anecdote in which the Daoist immortal had turned a stone into gold to help a poor man who had piously honored him all his life. When the latter refused the precious gift, Lü Dongbin, very pleased with the answer, said:
- 46 「子誠如此,便可授子大道。」其人曰:「不然,我心欲汝此指頭耳。」呂祖倏不見。Wang and Wang 1995: 619.
“Since you are willing to be like this, I can teach you the way to immortality.” The man, however, said, “No, what I want is that finger of yours.” Lü Dongbin immediately disappeared.46
- 47 See, for example, Shan 2015 for this topic in Feng Menglong’s short stories. The obsession with mon (...)
- 48 Yan 1999: 1197.
31Coins played an important role in people’s daily life, and the means of acquiring them is a central theme in many stories dating from the late Ming and the Qing period.47 The satire of those greedy for money is nonetheless a much older theme, as Lu Bao (dates unknown) wrote an essay titled “Debates on the Spirit of Cash” (Qianshen lun) as early as the beginning of the fourth century CE during the Western Jin (266-316). In it, he compares the copper cash to a family member, the “brother of the square hole,” (kongfang xiong), to express the importance of coins in people’s lives and the growing materialism of his time.48 The Qianshen lun was an influential text, taken up by later writers time and again. By the end of the Ming, Li Shixiong (1602-1686) had expanded this book into the Records of the Spirit of Cash (Qianshen zhi), which described the retribution that followed the death of a man driven by a hunger for money. Completed in 1645, the text was published only in 1825. It may not be a coincidence that at least two paintings were produced during this period, representing the theme of the giant copper coin—in which the characters are however not blind.
Fig. 10. Zhu Yan, Groups of Blind People, 1757. Detail of the giant copper coin and the meditation scene (8). From Yilin yuekan, no. 50 (1934): 16.
Fig. 11. Anonymous, Untitled leaf of people seizing a giant copper coin, 17th century (?). Album leaf, ink and colors on silk, 36 x 285 cm. Palace Museum, Beijing. Image provided by the Palace Museum, Beijing.
Fig. 12. Zhu Yan, The Hundred Blind Men, 1757. Album leaves mounted as a handscroll, ink and colors on paper, 32 x 563 cm. Leaf 7. Zhenjiang Museum.
32The earliest one, a hanging scroll titled Copper Coin (Tongbao tu), was painted in 1837 by Su Liupeng (fig. 13). People from all walks of life gather in front of the reverse of an enormous coin that stands in the background like an architectural element and whose inscription, in Manchu, establishes its mint, Boo Yün (Yunnan province mint). Artisans and peasants try to climb up its sides, one person is holding a knife and tries to cut it, one is beating it up, another is about to saw it, and even more funny, a man is holding an oar, and tries to use the coin as a boat. Outside the piece, we see merchants, knick-knack peddlers, fishermen, woodcutters, farmers, officials, monks, beggars, jugglers, idlers and so on. In short, the whole society is summoned in this scroll, whose inscription specifies that it targeted upstarts of all kinds.
Fig. 13. Su Liupeng, Copper Coin, 1837. Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk, 134.3 x 663 cm. Guangdong Provincial Museum.
- 49 For reproduction of this painting, held in the Xinhui Museum, see the official website of this city (...)
33The second painting, Money (Jinqian tu), was produced in 1844 by Zheng Ji (1813-?), a Cantonese painter from Xinhui. This short handscroll features the reverse of a similar giant gold and copper-colored coin, whose Manchu inscription read Boo chiowan (Board of Revenue, Beijing). Around the coin appear various people, including a man holding a woman and a child attached to a rope, as if he is about to sell them for money. Two men are fighting, most likely for money as well. The two kneeling figures in front of the coin are comparable to those seen in the anonymous seventeenth-century album leaf of the same subject (cf. fig. 11). Similar to the poem penned by Su Liupeng, the one inscribed on this scroll describes a world where everyone and everything is money-oriented.49
- 50 For an overview of the source materials on humor in Chinese literature, see Myhre 2001.
34The practice of utilizing blind men in incongruous situations as rhetorical figures symbolizing other forms of blindness was not a new eighteenth-century phenomenon. These were established subjects by Zhu Yan’s time and have probably informed the scroll as well as the album he created in 1757. As these examples have shown, it is in fact possible to trace a tradition of representation of the blind dating from the seventeenth up to the nineteenth century combining a comic mode and a moralistic intent, where the behavior of the sightless stands for immoral practices that are criticized or condemned. This tradition parallels the use of humor in ancient Chinese literature, generally instrumental to moral and didactic purposes, and only rarely used for its own sake.50
- 51 Blum 2013: 248-249.
- 52 On the tradition of representing horses as a metaphor of how to govern and take good care of imperi (...)
35If none of these vignettes were completely new by Zhu Yan’s time, the idea of combining them into a unique composition numbering one hundred characters certainly was. It is worth noting that this symbolic figure could have its origin in the already mentioned parable from the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, where a good doctor (the Buddha) removes, with the use of a golden scalpel, the cataracts from the eyes of one hundred blind men, representing those people who do not understand and have not seen the Buddha nature (Skt. buddhatā; Ch. foxing), and whose delusion or spiritual blindness (Skt. avidya, Ch. wuming) prevent them from seeing the truth.51 That being said, this scroll seems to reinterpret, as already mentioned, time-honored themes such as the one hundred horses or the one hundred boys—motifs that traditionally allowed painters to show their ability to depict the full complement of subjects, varying their poses and gestures to avoid monotony and combining the intensity of the scenes to keep the interest of the viewer within the composition. However, with respect to these pictorial themes, Groups of Blind People seeks to convey neither the image of an idealized world, symbolic of a government in good order as images of horses traditionally do, nor the wish for prosperity and many generations of accomplished scholars, as is the case with pictures of one hundred children, often portrayed in in the four pursuits that dominated the leisure time of the educated elite: music, board games, calligraphy and painting (qinqi shuhua). 52 Its singularity lies in its bent for moral teaching through satire and humor.
36If single-scene images would have targeted only a particular group of people (as with the newly risen salt-merchant class) by adopting the one hundred characters format, Zhu Yan’s handscroll takes an overall view where individual activities are to be read as part of a general representation of mankind’s follies, vices, and moral decadence that may affect anybody (officials, scholars, merchants, monks, beggars, etc.) irrespective of class, age or social status.
37One of the questions that remains open to debate is the identity of the clients of Zhu Yan’s painting and similar images. Written records seem to suggest that pictures of this kind were commissioned and appreciated by the gentry, as with Yu Zhiding’s scroll. The same is probably true of Zhu Yan’s clientele, if we consider that his The Hundred Blind Men bears an inscription by the retired official and painter Zheng Xie. If these texts substantiate this kind of commission, the fact that the painter created at least two similar paintings in the same year might also indicate that he was aiming at a popular appeal, targeting a broader clientele, one which was neither the very rich nor the poor in Yangzhou society, such as the lower-level gentry or the small-scale merchants. These contemporary viewers would have read different meanings depending not only on the artist’s adaptability but also on the knowledge and connotations that he brought to the experience.
- 53 On blind musicians of early China, see Sterckx 2011: 196-201. On the figure of Master Kuang, see Mi (...)
- 54 Milburn 2018: 266.
38If we assume that the market motivated the artist in depicting blind people, why was there a fascination with this condition? A reason we could ascribe would have to do with the artist’s awareness of the iconographic type as a vehicle for critical statements. In literature, blind musicians had in fact long assumed the role of admonishing and warning rulers, or that of interpreters of the past and foretellers of the future, as with the Music Master Kuang (Shi Kuang) from the State of Jin, undoubtedly the most famous of all Music Masters from of the Spring and Autumn period (771-475 BCE).53 In one of the numerous tales in which Master Kuang appears in a conversation with his ruler Lord Ping (Jin Ping Gong, r. 557-532 BCE), we see clearly expressed the contrast between clear-sightedness and physical eyesight. To Lord Ping, who pities the fate of the music master condemned to live in the dark, Kuang retorts that the truly blinded one is the ruler who is not aware of the ills of his regime.54 This contrast was later popularized by Han Yu (768-824). In a letter that he wrote in 810 to the Surveillance Commissioner of Zhedong Li Xun (761-823), on behalf of his friend and protégé Zhang Ji (ca 766-830), in which he makes a clear distinction between the physical loss of sight and spiritual blindness, the former is deemed the lesser of the two evils:
- 55 當今盲於心者皆是,若籍自謂獨盲於目爾,其心則能別是非。For this letter, see Han 824: 20-22. Zhang Ji was a major poet and a min (...)
Nowadays, people with a blind mind are everywhere; people like me simply have blind eyes; their mind is still capable of discerning right from wrong.55
- 56 The paradigm of sight is even more natural in the Chinese context. For instance, one of the terms t (...)
- 57 Dai 1900: 1/38a-39b.
39This association finds a parallel in later traditions, where “to see” is a pervasive metaphor for understanding and clarity of judgment, and to be blind, a metaphor for the lack of self-understanding or insight.56 For example, Wang Dajing is playing upon the difference between the physical blindness and the metaphorical blindness while commenting the One Hundred Beggars scroll in 1662. Dai Mingshi’s (1653-1713) “Speech of a Blind Man” (Mangzhe shuo), one of the texts included in his famous Nanshan ji, is another version of the topos that physical loss of sight is a lesser evil than being blind to society’s evils. This is a dialogue between a student and a blind fortune-teller who plays the pipa. The former pities the latter for his physical infirmity, while the blind man explains that sighted people are actually those who should be pitied, for they are often far more blind than non-sighted people.57 This sort of reasoning can be traced back to the Zhuangzi in which amputated people show that missing a limb is a bodily condition much less severe than having an “incomplete” virtue (de) or than being disgraced and chastised by Heaven (chapters 5 and 6).
- 58 不如魯襄晉曠明而聰。
- 59 立論定可昭群蒙。For the text of this poem, see Zhou 1852: 2/9a-b.
40In short, these narratives show that blindness, intended as visual impairment, was represented in a very positive manner not only in pre-Qin and early imperial-era writings, but also in late imperial times, and blind musicians were considered masters in the art of instruction and veiled comments, as their apparent physical handicap did not prevent them from possessing some advanced form of perception. Paintings such as the scroll I have discussed, which depict the sightless figures in comic or incongruous situations, belong to the type that uses them as a mirror of those who are sighted yet deceived. And yet some contemporary viewers provided a different interpretation of images of this kind. For example, in commenting on Yu Zhiding’s Eight Blind Men, the Hanlin Academician and poet Zhou Qiwei (?-1714) placed special emphasis on the dignity of the blind characters. His poem presents several examples of famous people of the ruling class with no eye impairment but still incapable of recognizing true talents, and ends by claiming that they “are no more clear-sighted than Music Master Xiang of Lu or Music Master Kuang of Jin,”58 the two famous blind musicians of the Spring and Autumn period whose disability cast them into the role of wise advisers of the ruler. The poet goes even further by describing blindness as a divine gift, and by claiming that “[these people’s] advice can enlighten the short-sighted.”59
- 60 Other examples of these portraits of blind musicians or blind storytellers produced during the eigh (...)
41Visibly, two discourses flourished in parallel without being mutually exclusive: one that blamed the metaphorical blindness of stupid and ignorant people, and one that praised the physical blindness affecting highly intelligent and gifted people. A distinctive group of works that seem less exceptional, and perhaps less puzzling, can be considered as visual counterparts of the discourse that dignifies sightless people. These are individual or group portraits of blind musicians, sometimes depicted with their young companions as guides. One of them was created by Zhu Yan’s contemporary Cai Jia (1686-ca 1779), a professional master active in Yangzhou during the Qianlong period as well.60 The figures, arranged along a diagonal, are isolated against a plain background (fig. 14). The first character, walking with a cane, is probably a singer. Behind him, a man playing bamboo clappers and a child acting as his guide are followed by a pipa player. The painting, a small hanging scroll executed in the baimiao (plain outline) style, treats this subject with affection and tenderness. The accompanying poem implies the illusory quality of the phenomenal world.
Fig. 14. Cai Jia, Three Blind Musicians, 18th century. Hanging scroll, ink on paper, 58.7 x 33.5 cm. University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Gift of Mrs. Edward M. Shelton in honor of James Cahill.
42It should be made clear, in conclusion, that the comic mode combined with a moral commentary made evident through direct references to familiar saying (as for the giant coin) or puns (as for the eight blind experts enjoying antiquities), of which Zhu Yan’s scroll is exemplary, accounts for only a certain portion of the works dealing with blind people in the eighteenth century. I hope that recognizing them will encourage further exploration of genre scenes with similar content or intentions.