RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q NOTES AND QUERIES 287 of incorruptness. The last name of Ho Chung's studio was T’ing-yü-hsien, that is, a pavilion for listening to the rain. The melancholy atmosphere of a rainy day, from the point-of-view of Chinese literary life, has been a special but poetic mood favoured by poets of Sung China in the 13th century. Transferring this sad feeling of listening to the rain as one of Ho Chung's studio names showed that this late 19th century Kwangtung artist certainly shared the Sung poets' feeling of melancholy. With regard to Ho Chung's biography, due to the lack of information his life as an artist is not completely clear, although according to an art history written in 1927 and devoted to Chinese artists in Kwangtung, Ho Chung was over seventy years old when he died. Based on this clue, the chronology of this artist can be ascertained in general. There are 34 pictures all by Ho Chung in the Luis de Camoes Museum in Macau. Among them, a circular fan painting has been inscribed by the artist with the date Keng-tze ✯; a year corresponding to the 26th year in the Kwang-shü * era during the Ch'ing Dynasty, which in turn corresponds to the year 1900. This is a very helpful discovery, since if Ho Chung died around 1900 at the age of seventy-five, he might have been born around 1825. At any rate, Ho Chung must have been an artist chiefly active in the second half of the 19th century and presumably his late years touched at least the first one or two years of the 20th century. From the 17th to the 19th centuries, Chinese painting in Kwangtung certainly developed into a more fruitful stage than in the preceding centuries. Nevertheless, the artistic quality of these Kwangtung paintings was not only less significant than those of the Chiang-nan area, the centre of Chinese painting of that time - but also can hardly be compared with the standard of her neighbouring province, Fukien. For this reason, within these three centuries, artists who were not natives of Kwangtung and were also not first class artists of the Chiang-nan area, but whenever and wherever settled in Kwangtung, were always regarded by Kwangtung art historians as Kwangtung artists. For instance, Wang Hou-lai, a native of An-hui province settled at Pan-yü during the 18th century, was treated as a representative artist for Kwangtung landscape painting. Similarly, Sung Kwang-pao and Meng Chin-i, two artists of the Kiangsu province, lived in Kwang- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q NOTES AND QUERIES 291 * This poetic feeling can be reflected by a Tzu poem written by Chiang Chieh # which reads: "The rain song in youth I heard from song bedroom 樓上 red candle setting behind a satin screen ***** older and travelling I heard rain in a boat # huge river, low clouds, ***› a goose crying in the west wind parted from the flock. $$$ K Now when I hear the rain, in a hermit's cell MET my hair has long turned grey 11 sorrow, happiness, parting, joining are all neutral #46BAH raindrops all night long on the stone steps. Ħ¶¤àa¤N · For the English translation, see John Scott: Love and Protest (1972, London), p. 118. 9 see Wang Chao-yung, op.cit. p.7. 10 Its registration number in the Luis de Camoes Museum is AL 1 No. 10. 11 Chiang-nan is a conventionalized geographic term referring to the vast area of Kiangsu, Chekiang, An-hui and Fukien provinces. 12 See Chuang Shen op.cit. pp. 14-18. There I have pointed out that in the 19th century, the painting styles of Hua Yen and Huang Shen, two artists of Fukien, were followed by the Kwangtung artists. 13 See Chu-tsing Li: "Landscape painting in Kwangtung during Ming and Ch'ing", in Landscape paintings by Kwangtung Masters during the Ming and Ch'ing Period (published in 1973 by the Art Gallery of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong), p. 4. 14 Sung Kwang-pao and Meng Chuii were both artists of Kiangsu province. Followed Li Ping-shou, they came to Kwangtung during the first half of the 19th century. Later, Sung was regarded as the founder of a more laborious and decorative school, while Meng became the forerunner of a different school, less decorative, and mainly stressing the artist's inner self. 15 See Lin Po-ting *** "Brief Notes on the Taiwan painters during the Ch'ing Dynasty”滑朝台灣畫人輯系 history selected in Central Chinese culture and Taiwan AXLA÷ (1971, Taipei), pp. 531-539, 16 See Lin Po-ting: ibid, p. 535. **MFIL 17 See Sohokaku Shogaki **M***, Descriptive catalogue of Chinese paintings and calligraphies in the possession of Bardo Asano (1864-1880), (published in 1973 by the Kansai University in Japan), pp. 143 - 144. As to this catalogue and its editor, see also Kokuro Wakimono + A 'Notes on paintings and calligraphy in the Shohokaku Shogaki Collection and its Author Asano Baido", *NTORE *o****** The Bijutsu Kenkyu ✯ (Journal of Art Studies), No. 35 (1973, Tokyo), pp. 531 - 544. 18 See Chuang Shen: op.cit. p. 21. University of Hong Kong, March 1977. CHUANG SHEN ================================================================================