Picture scroll of Gu Kaizhi’s female benevolence and wisdom (copy of Song Dynasty)

[Gu Kaizhi’s Painting of Women’s Benevolence and Wisdom (copied from the Song Dynasty)]

The Painting of Women’s Benevolence and Wisdom is a silk version with light ink, 25.8 cm vertically and 417.8 cm horizontally
The Painting of Benevolence and Wisdom of Lienv is a copy of Gu Kai’s work in the Eastern Jin Dynasty
Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty indulged in wine and lust, and trusted the Zhao Feiyan sisters. The power of the court fell into the hands of relatives, endangering the Liu regime. In response to this situation, Liu Xiang (77-6 B.C.), the doctor of Sun Guanglu, the fourth king of the Yuan Dynasty of Chu, collected the materials of the virtuous concubines, virtuous wives, and beloved concubines recorded in the poetry books since ancient times, compiled them into a book called “Biography of Lienv”, and submitted them to Emperor Cheng of Han Dynasty. He hoped that he could draw lessons from them to safeguard the political power of the Liu family. The whole book is divided into seven volumes according to women’s feudal code of conduct and morality and the consequences of governance and chaos brought to the country, namely, the “benevolence and wisdom volume”
The Renzhi volume collects 15 stories about women. This volume is a fragmented version, in which seven stories, including “Deng Man of Chu Wu”, “Mrs. Xu Mu”, “Cao Xi’s wife”, “Sun Shuao’s mother”, “Jin Bo Zong’s wife”, “Ling Gong’s wife”, and “Jin Yang’s uncle Ji”, are preserved intact. The three stories of “Qi Ling Zhong Zi”, “Jin Fan’s mother” and “Lu Qi’s roommate” are only half of them, and the other five stories are all lost. The right half of the “Lu Qi’s roommate” and the left half of the “Jin Fan’s mother” are wrongly spliced together, which makes people mistakenly think it is a story
This volume has preserved the system of dress and crown in many places in the Han Dynasty. For example, men wear the Jinxian crown on their heads, wear curved long-sleeved gowns, tie ribbons on their waists and hang long swords; The woman wears a bun and deep clothes, especially the eyebrows painted with vermilion, which is a new makeup imitating Zhao Zhaoyi. These all show the customs and fashion of a specific period. Also, the carriage on which Bo Yu was riding was called the “light carriage”, which was also the shape of the Han Dynasty. It was very detailed and error-free. These can be found in a large number of Han Dynasty stone reliefs, bricks and murals
In the lacquered screen painting “The Ancient Sage of Lienv” unearthed from Sima Jinlong Tomb in the Northern Wei Dynasty, it shows that the Duke of Wei Ling and his wife sat at night and heard the sound of the carriage. Compared with the same content shown in this volume, both the composition and the gesture of the characters are very similar, which can be confirmed that it is from the same ancient version as the “Renzhi Map of Lienv”. While in the process of spreading, the latter is more faithful to the original
According to the “Book of Han Dynasty”, Liu Xiang presented the “Biography of Lienv” to Emperor Cheng of Han Dynasty, and also presented the “Ode to Lienv”, which was painted as a screen. After the fall of grace, Ban Jieyu of Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty once said in her poem that she saw the “The Painting of Women” in the palace and used it as a warning to herself. These are all contained in the Book of Han written by Ban Gu. In the stone and brick portraits of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there are many themes that represent the stories of women. The history of painting also records that Cai Yong once created the “Little Row of Women”. During this period, the large number of “Lienvtu” appeared not only for the need of the political struggle of the court, but also for the purpose of widely promoting women’s moral education in the society, so as to maintain the feudal order
According to the many customs of the Han Dynasty preserved in the “Renzhi Map of Lienv” and the simplicity of its composition, it is speculated that this volume should have originated from the Eastern Han Dynasty, while the ancestor was created by Liu Xiang. After removing the traces added by the repeated copying of later generations, we can still see the artistic brilliance of the court painting of the Han Dynasty two thousand years ago. Its characters have rough and smooth lines and accurate modeling. Especially the depiction of women is light and graceful, especially wonderful. The composition and layout are in the same line with the stone reliefs of the Han Dynasty. There are many copies of “Lienv Zhuan” and “Lienv Ren Zhi Tu” in the Song Dynasty. This is the only one that has been preserved, especially precious.