FIVE ART CATALOGUES
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The same deficiency can also be found in Liang T’ing-nan’s art catalogue. In the table of contents of chüan 4 in T’êng-hua-t’ing shu-hua-pa, the titles of 166 items of painting and calligraphy have been listed. Yet beginning with the 125th item, i.e. Fang Fêng-chi’s landscape, the rest have not been recorded. This shortcoming, though it seems to be exactly the same as that found in the Ting-fan-lou shu-hua-chi, shows in fact a certain degree of difference in comparison with the latter, as explained below.
In the table of contents of chüan 4 in T’êng-hua-t’ing shu-hua-pa, below the title of the 126th item of painting (i.e. Fang Hsün-yüan’s landscape) there is a four-small-character note (“i-hsia-wei-k’o” — the blocks for painting the following items have not yet been cut), indicating that the record of items following the 125th title have not been included in the text. Consequently, when a reader, checking through the table of contents, comes across this short note of “i-hsia wei-k’o”, he would understand that the record of paintings and calligraphies in the text ends with the 125th item, and that beginning from the 126th item, only the titles are listed in the table of contents, and so he is well prepared.
However, neither in T’ing-fan-lou shu-hua-chi nor in the supplement of this catalogue did Pan Chêng-wei attach any explanatory note to indicate which items had not been printed. As a result, the reader would presume that the entry in the text would agree with the title listed in the table of contents. He is thus not prepared for the inconsistency of finding the title of a certain painting in the table of contents, and yet not being able to find any record about it in the text. Consequently, when the reader notes the text of chüan 5 or the supplement of this catalogue and cannot locate any entry of the 10 items (i.e., starting from the landscape album executed by the Sung and Yüan artists in the former or the 12 items of painting starting from Wang Hui’s hanging scroll executed in the style of Wang Meng in the latter) and yet later discovers these 22 items of painting and calligraphy in the respective tables of contents of these 2 chüan, he could feel particularly confused and disappointed.
In regard to the discrepancy between the table of contents and the text, in the two art catalogues mentioned above, there is no difference in the nature of deficiency found in Liang and Pan. Only that, in the matter of seriousness, the shortcoming in Liang’s catalogue is less severe.