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Hi,
I'm helping my grandfather identify a set of six large calligraphy panels. I've worked out from the first line that it is Wang Wei's poem "紫梅发初遍", but have struggled to determine anything else about it. The last panel gives the 36th year in the sixty year cycle, but doesn't seem to indicate a reigning period. I've also been unable to work out the character before 'dao ren'.

Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Zac

Here are the seals from the first and last panels respectively.

zac for a clue to the character take a look at the seal in the upper right corner. likely Ping'an is a location, Guan x dao ren is the painter's nickname.

Thanks Rat!

not being an expert on calligraphy, the thought occurred to me that this might be a Japanese work rather than Chinese. I did not find anyone with the Guan x daoren nickname in my main reference on Chinese artists.

Thank you for checking your sources.
I've been searching online for any artists with 'Guan x' as name, but haven't found any characters that match up.
I'm thinking the next step would be to post the seals on a Chinese speaking forum and see if anyone can read them.

can't hurt. for what it's worth, my reading of the character you are stuck on is "e" in chinese, the character for goose, comprised of the character "wo" (I, me) above the bird ("niao") radical. as you may know, the calligrapher Wang Xizhi was well known for appreciating the fluid necks of geese. there's a Qian Xuan painting of Wang Xizhi viewing geese in the Metropolitan Museum. (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1973.120.6)

I'm still wondering if it's chinese or japanese.

Thanks rat - I can see the character resemblance in the calligraphy; nice work!
I've not yet had any replies from the Chinese forum... I may need to find one specifically dedicated to identifying artists.


Unfortunately "觀鹅道人" does not return any results : (
And I presume the search would encompass Japanese sites containing the same characters...

I've been trying to work out the seal characters myself; so far it seems that the first square seal contains: X印X原
and the second square seal appears to be 東皋.

I note that there is a Qing artist by the name of Dong Gao...but I'm not getting my hopes up.

You could be quite right, I'll take a look. Meanwhile, there's a calligraphy and seals expert who posts here occasionally named "mikeoz" who thought the following:

The four character name seal gives a given name of "Zhi Yuan" §Ó­ì.

The second seal reads DongGao ªF¯o, which was apparently one of the pen-names of Wanj Ji (585-644) one of the "Four Heroes of Early Tang (ªì­ð¥|ªN):"

(Big 5 characters)

Fantastic! Thanks Rat and Mikeoz. I would never have worked out the 志! (zhi)

Is it safe to assume that it is unlikely to be an original Early Tang piece? I will be careful not to raise my grandfather's hopes!

One step at a time, we're getting there...

you are correct, it's not an early Tang piece! I am wondering if the character Mikeoz suggested is "zhi" might instead by "zhong" (the character for middle, above that for heart) not sure of the first character yet.

re the Dong Gao, characters, that's a nickname for at least 11 different artists, none of whom seems to share any of the other nicknames on these seals or signature. Only one was a calligrapher, and that one was known for a different scripty type that this. I am still leaning Japanese. Will see if I can find someone who can help read this.

Thank you for your persistence with this, Rat!

I can see what you mean about the 'zhong'...i was originally assuming it to be the zhong radical.

How does one distinguish between Japanese and Chinese calligraphy like this? Is it through differences in the meaning of characters?

I'd think it's more about calligraphic style and seal carving style, neither of which I know enough about, and in some cases one will see terms in an inscription or usage that are used only in one country; the characters of the poem obviously have the same meaning, and here the signature is can be read either as Chinese or as a Japanese person taking a Chinese style nickname. It's not obvious to me that it's Japanese, it's more of a hunch that I want to rule out, since this seems like a decent piece but one we can't find the Chinese creator of. Then again there are lots of Chinese artists who for some reason or other have left behind a work that has survived them but about whom we otherwise know nothing, so this could be that too. or we just haven't looked hard enough.

Unfortunately the Chinese forum has been unresponsive. I've also been a little busy lately, but I'm trying to work out the characters beneath 'guan' in the first seal.

We may not be able to identify the artist, but I'm hoping at least to be able to translate the seals. Ruling Japanese in or out would also be pretty significant! ; )

Could it be a student's work? The calligraphy
shows major pauses before the decision to go
with the flying white technique. Does not seem
like the natural movement of lifting to the
bristles that identifies good flying white

You could be right John R. I know next to nothing about calligraphy technique.
But I hope not, because that makes it unlikely we'll identify the artist : (

it seems to happen most frequently when the artist is moving from left to right with the brush, not sure it indicates less experience or more striving for effect. the ink is quite wet and heavy elsewhere.

Zac, a fellow from New Zealand who is quite excellent at tracking down Japanese artists will have a look at some point when he gets a chance, he may find something we have missed.

zac the character under guan in the first seal is also "e", or geese.

Oh!
I guess I should have thought of that...

So we have 觀鵝, X印忠原, and 東皋.

We also know that it's a Wang Wei poem, that it's dated with the 36th/60 year cycle, late summer, and then has 平安 before the artists nickname.

I noted previously that there wasn't an era name with the date, and I checked, but could not find a Chinese era name '平安'. However, since you've suggested that it might be Japanese, I've found that there was a 平安/Heian period in Japan, from 794-1185, which was, apparently, the 'golden age' of Japanese calligraphy.

Does it seem plausible to you that the 平安 might refer to the Heian period?

Good news Zac: David Wood, the gentleman from New Zealand I referred to earlier, did some sleuthing and identifies your man as a Japanese artist:

"Nagata Kanga - ÓÀÌïÓ^ù[ - 1738-1792.
ÖÒÔ­ is read Ch¨±gen, part of his g¨­, T¨­sai Ch¨±gen."

Thus the signed "guan e dao ren" (using Chinese pronounciation) makes use of the artist's given name "Kanga", and the seal element that Mikeoz identified as the Chinese characters "zhi yuan" should be "zhong yuan", or as David Wood points out, the Japanese Chugen (long "u").

Many thanks to rat, David Wood, and Mikeoz for identifying the artist!

For posterity, the artist's name is
Nagata Kanga - 永田觀鵞 - 1738-1792.
忠原 is read Chūgen, part of his gō, Tōsai Chūgen.

I've attached the complete series of panels.

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