Jade Reader Yang Boda
China News Weekly reporter/Bao Anqi
Issued in the 1011th issue of China News Weekly on June 9, 2021
Yang Boda remembers that not long after he entered the Forbidden City in the 1950s, Dean Wu Zhongchao advocated "reading paintings" and "reading characters". Although only two or three years of work, he could not stop it because of the "anti-Rightist", but the word "reading" has affected it. His whole life.
He felt that the pain and joy of his 70-year cultural relics career came from this "reading" word.
In his early years, he read very mixedly. He has studied gold and silverware, enamelware, glassware, ivory rhino horn carving, Qing Dynasty paintings, etc., and is a miscellaneous expert in the Forbidden City.
It wasn't until his retirement in 1992, when he was over 60, that he really focused on reading jade and became the leading jade scholar in China.
Xu Lin, a research librarian at the Palace Museum and chairman of the Jade Professional Committee of the Chinese Society of Cultural Relics, told China News Weekly that in the last few years of Yang Boda’s life, other topics could no longer attract him any interest, but as long as the mention of jade and jade Culture, he immediately became interested in talking.
When he was hospitalized in the second half of 2019, once everyone went to see him. He talked endlessly about the development of jade in the hospital bed. He talked for two or three hours. Everyone was afraid that he would be tired, but it was difficult to interrupt him.
On May 21, 2021, the 94-year-old former deputy director of the Palace Museum Yang Boda passed away.
Yang Boda often said before his death that jade culture is deeply rooted in the cultural genes of the Chinese nation, and is the first cornerstone of Chinese civilization and a watershed between Chinese and Western cultures.
He admired the aesthetic theorist Wang Xun's exposition on the beauty of jade: just as Westerners believe that "all art tends to music", in China, it can be said that all art tends to beautiful jade.
"Spring Water" and "Autumn Mountain"
Yang Boda's first relationship with jade can be traced back to 1959.
At that time, under the direction of the director Wu Zhongchao, the Forbidden City began to clean up the warehouse.
Experts formed a grading group to classify various cultural relics into one, two, and three levels, and then conduct "three checks" (that is, the three checks of cultural relics, treasury cards, and account books are consistent) and cataloging.
Yang Boda, then deputy director of the Art History Department of the Forbidden City, was in a team of three with an old researcher from the Forbidden City and an old antique dealer from Liulichang. They were responsible for grading and sorting the collection of Qing Dynasty jade.
In the summer of 1959, the three of them spent three months looking at more than 10,000 pieces of Qing Dynasty jade, almost one third of the jade collection of the Forbidden City.
They set up a table in the shade outside the warehouse, and the custodians kept carrying out large and small jade wares, sweating profusely.
They just look at them one by one, and they can see thirty or forty pieces a day.
At that time, there were "three great masters" (Tanglan, Chen Wanxing, Xu Bangda) and "four categories" (calligraphy, bronze, painting, and ceramics) in the cultural relics of the Forbidden City. It has not yet become the focus of his attention.
He discovered that the identification of jade has a feature that is different from calligraphy, calligraphy, and bronze, that is, no standard instrument for identification can be found.
The jade articles in the Forbidden City are all handed down jade articles.
Except for the few who can find out the ins and outs of the ancient jade, most of them come and go without a trace. The unearthed jade articles that are fashionable without a certain age are used as a reference. They can only rely on a small review of the collector’s often-saying "spreading thread". Experts say that the jade articles in various descriptions are from what age.
Yang Boda also noticed that in this batch of ancient jade, there are two types of jade that are quite different from other jade wares. One is the falcon swan and the other is the deer in the mountains and forests, which are full of special mountain and forest wild interest and the atmosphere of the North.
He studied art history, and felt that the deer jade in the mountains and forests had similar styles with the Liaoqing Tomb landscape murals, and the "Autumn Forest Group of Deer" and "Danfeng Yo Deer" painted by the Liao and Qidan painters collected in the Forbidden City.
Tussah leaves are also a unique element in the paintings of the Liao Dynasty, completely different from the pine, cypress, bamboo and plum commonly used by the Han people.
He therefore guessed, could this be Liao and Jin’s jade?
At that time, most of the folk Tibetan jade in the antique circle was Ming and Qing jade, so several experts around were only familiar with Ming and Qing jade.
The antique industry has only a general "fine" standard for judging Song jade. The Northern Song and Southern Songs do not distinguish between them, and they even ignore the Liao Jin jade.
Therefore, Yang Boda can only put this question in his mind.
This question became a long foreshadowing, which was brewing in his heart until the 1980s.
In 1981, Yang Boda was invited to participate in the 200th anniversary celebration of Mulan Paddock, met Manchu scholar Buni Alin, asked him about Manchu customs and culture and Liao and Jin history, and introduced him to the vice chairman of the Chifeng CPPCC and former archaeological team. The captain’s expert on the history of Liao and Jin, Su He, the three had a very happy conversation.
During the conversation, Yang Boda learned a key word "Nabo".
"Nabo" is the Khitan language, which means where the Liao Emperor's camp is located.
Soon, Bo Yang arrived in Acheng, Heilongjiang for a meeting.
Acheng was the capital of the Jin Dynasty. In the Acheng Museum, he saw the unearthed copper swan.
As soon as he saw the flying swan, he felt that the answer was closer.
Inspired by this, he reviewed "Liao History" and "Jin History" again.
According to the "Liao History·Yingweizhi" record: "Liao Kingdom is full of deserts, soaking in the Great Wall, so it can be governed by appropriate conditions. Fall and winter break the cold, spring and summer summer heat, fishing with water plants, every year is normal. There is a place to walk, which is called'Nanbo'." According to the literature, the Liao Emperor "Nanbo at four o'clock", spring hunting mainly hunted swans (falcon is Haidongqing), and autumn hunting mainly hunted deer.
After the Nvzhen people destroyed the Liao Dynasty and built the Jin Dynasty, they still followed this custom, but no longer used the Khitan language "Nabo", and changed Chunshou and Qiushou to "Chunshui" and "Qiushan".
In 1983, he published "Chunshui" and "Autumn Mountain" Jade of Jurchen Nationality" in the journal of the Palace Museum. He named the falcon swan jade "Chunshui" jade, and named the deer jade of the mountains and forests "Autumn Mountain" jade. It should be the jade of the Liao and Jin dynasties.
So far, after more than 20 years of searching, an archaeological mystery has finally been revealed in his hands, and it has become his masterpiece of reading jade.
National Treasure Jade "86 Project"
In the 1980s, Boda Yang also participated in an emerald national treasure project.
How the four national jadeite treasures were handed down is difficult to say now. It is only known that they came from Menggong, Burma, and were imported into the inland in the late Qing Dynasty.
Wang Shusen, a veteran artist from the Beijing Jade Factory, saw these four jadeites in the 1950s, and never heard of them.
In July 1980, he told the reporter of the "Beijing Evening News" about this matter. The reporter published an article under the title "Where is the National Treasure".
A few days later, Zhai Weili, director of the Reserve Department of the Material Reserve Bureau of the State Planning Commission, came to the factory and told Wang Shusen: "The treasures are stored properly." After that, the Arts and Crafts Corporation of the Ministry of Light Industry and the Beijing Jade Factory reported to the higher authorities, requesting Use these four jadeites to make large-scale arts and crafts treasures.
Leaders such as Wan Li and Zhang Jinfu approved the report and directed the Ministry of Light Industry to be responsible.
The Material Reserve Bureau first organized a treasury jade identification team of 14 people.
The conclusion of the appraisal is: the four pieces of jade are produced in Myanmar, the total weight of the four pieces of raw materials is 803.6 kg, and the current price is 15 million yuan.
The Ministry of Light Industry and the Arts and Crafts Corporation organized a theme review committee composed of 15 people, and Yang Boda was one of the members.
In November 1982, the Ministry of Light Industry hosted the first deliberative committee meeting at the Beijing Jade Factory.
At the meeting, Yang Boda suggested that he should learn from the experience of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty in the production of "Dayu Controlling the Water and Jade Mountain".
"Dayu Controls the Water Jade Mountain" is the pinnacle of Qing Dynasty emperor jade, and it is also the world's largest jade sculpture.
After three deliberations, it was preliminarily agreed that material No. 1 would be Mount Tai ("Daiyue Wonders"), material No. 2 would be aromatherapy ("Scent of Fragrance"), material 3 would be a flower basket ("Range Rover"), and material No. 4 would be inserted Screen ("The Four Seas").
The jade was constructed and produced by the Beijing Jade Factory. It was named "Project 86" because it was planned to be completed in 1986.
However, due to the extreme difficulty, it was actually completed in 1989.
Guo Shilin is the chief designer and chief sculptor of No. 4 material.
He recalled that Yang Boda took them several times to the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace to observe ancient jade artifacts.
Guo Shilin saw a large number of ancient jade works in the warehouses of the Forbidden City, and also saw Cixi's bird and phoenix jade interstitial, which is generally invisible to the outside world, in the Summer Palace.
Guo Shilin remembers that Yang Boda was very interested in jade making craftsmanship every time he came to the jade factory. He would ask the craftsmen how to dig the sphere of Huaxun, how to divide the large jade piece on the screen, and how accurate the hollow jade chain is. Think about it and so on.
Cui Qiming participated in the production with his master Guo Shilin.
He recalled that Yang Boda often came to the jade factory to give lectures to everyone, such as the changes and characteristics of jade dragons in the past dynasties, and the mountains of the Forbidden City (a type of jade sculpture based on landscapes).
Yang Boda has seen dozens of Shanzi works from Song to Qing dynasties in various sizes in the Forbidden City.
According to his analysis, the layout of these mountains adopts the "three-distance method" of lofty, far-reaching, and peaceful. The surface of the rocks is decorated with trees, flowers, and plants. The proportions of characters, birds and beasts are reasonable, dynamic and natural, and they have both form and spirit.
Following the design and production, Boda Yang became more interested in the research of jadeite.
Chinese jade is recognized as beautiful jade as amphibole jade represented by Hetian jade and pyroxene jade with Menggong jade as the main body. The former is called nephrite and the latter is called jadeite.
Traditional Chinese culture has always regarded Hetian jade as the "true jade", and initially rejected jade.
But in the late Qianlong period, the price of jadeite rose, "far above real jade."
Unlike Hetian jade, which advocates white jade, jadeite wins with high green. This kind of watery green can not be found in Hetian jasper and Manas green jade.
Yang Boda believes that the emerald green aesthetic of jade has local characteristics and common people's taste, which can be seen from the description of jadeite texture, such as "glass ground", "egg white ground", "snot ground", "muddy water ground", and "dog shit ground".
The Yunnan people describe the beauty of jadeite not as "warm and moist", but with the easy-to-understand word "water" to describe it as transparent, clear, rippling, and flowing like water.
They have a keen sense of the "water head" of jadeite, which is a kind of talent that foreigners want to learn but are not easy to get.
Compared with tens of thousands of years of jade culture, jadeite has only three to four hundred years from the time it emerged to penetrate into the jade altar to occupy the top spot.
The literati lamented: "This is the special spot for the beauty of mountains and rivers, and it is the luxury of today." Yang Boda believes that the jade culture is a mutation and distortion of the ancient Chinese jade culture in modern society, and it has transformed the implicit wealth of the traditional jade culture. The functions were exposed nakedly, shaking the ethical foundation of traditional jade culture.
Nowadays, jadeite products have replaced Hetian jade in jewelry, and are as equal as Hetian jade in terms of decoration, and far surpass Hetian jade in terms of large sculptures. Therefore, four jade national treasures were born.
Jianyu Jianghu
In 1992, Yang Boda retired from the Palace Museum (later re-employed as an expert in the hospital until 1997).
From then on, he officially turned to the study of jade.
It is not without ideological struggle to make such an academic turn, because as a miscellaneous expert, he has accumulated a lot of research materials in many aspects such as sculpture, crafts, and Qing Dynasty paintings, but he sees a huge opportunity in it.
In the 1980s, the jade craze rose, especially with the excavation of the tombs of the "Chongyu Tribe" of Hongshan Culture and Liangzhu Culture, the study of jade has become increasingly important.
Obviously, it is the right time for jade to get rid of the status of "miscellaneous" and become an independent and important category.
Also in 1992, the Jade Research Committee of the Chinese Society of Cultural Relics was established in the Forbidden City Shufangzhai, and Yang Boda was elected as its president.
The first thing before him is the chaotic image of ancient jade distinguishing falsehood.
At that time, the wind of collecting ancient jade was fierce, and the wind of forging ancient jade was also fierce, and it quickly burned throughout the Chinese cultural circle.
Yang Boda sighed that perhaps collectors are destined to eat fake ancient jade, and only after paying enough tuition fees can they become experts.
On the other hand, in the 1980s, with the large-scale excavation of tombs in the Hongshan Culture and Liangzhu Culture, the problem of no standard instrument for ancient jade identification has been greatly changed.
A large number of burial objects were unearthed in the two tombs, of which jade articles accounted for more than 90%.
Some of these "standards of identification" constitute the context of the development of China's more than 8,000 years of jade artifacts. If a collector does not grasp this context, he will have to wander in front of the jade treasure house and never get in.
However, it is not enough to master the identification standard device, and a reverse "forgery identification model device", also called "forgery identification living fossil" is also needed.
To be able to serve as a model, one must have physical evidence, and the other must be typical.
These prototypes are hidden in the vast sea of ancient jade handed down. A typical one is the white jade double child ear cups collected in the Forbidden City.
Emperor Qianlong was also a victim of ancient jade fraud.
In the eighteenth year of Qianlong, when he admired the white jade double ear cups, because of its external qin (Qin color is the yellow, red, white, black and other colors stained by the environment in the tomb of the jade), he "stayed his hands". When he became suspicious, he consulted Yao Zongren, a jade worker. Yao explained that the cup was made by his grandfather and introduced the method of dyeing jade: coating it with amber, and then grilling it over a gentle fire.
Qianlong recorded the incident as "The Jade Cup".
Yang Boda also touched this cup. The table Qin did "retain his hands" and did not feel smooth. It looked like an adhesive left on the wall of the bowl after drinking the porridge. .
The white jade double-child ear cups made him appreciate the value of a model for identifying fakes.
He worked hard to find clues from the papers, and went to the brothers' museums to conduct field investigations. After several years of exploration, he obtained dozens of valuable forgery-identifying prototypes.
In 1992, the National Cultural Relics Administration formed the National Cultural Relics Appraisal Committee, which comprehensively approved the first-level cultural relics of the cultural relics departments of all provinces and cities across the country.
Yang Boda participated in the third round of appraisal.
The identification is divided into three categories: bronze, ceramic and jade miscellaneous. Yang Boda is in the jade miscellaneous group.
Liu Dongrui, secretary-general of the National Cultural Relics Appraisal Committee, recalled that Yang Boda worked very hard. He would use a small ruler to measure a cultural relic.
When Shenyang appraised a red lacquerware from the Xuande period of the Ming Dynasty, the appraisal team members passed a round and thought it was OK. When he arrived at Yang Boda, he said "slowly".
He explained that there are still a lot of such lacquerware in the Forbidden City storerooms. This is a needle-engraved piece during the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty. "Xuan De".
Everyone took a closer look and suddenly realized.
After retiring, Yang Boda often received invitations from collectors to appraise cultural relics. He generally declined politely and often advised some experts: "You must be careful of your eyeballs." But the world is unpredictable, and he himself has suffered once. Called a painful experience.
In 2003, Xie Genrong, a real estate developer, led a bank branch manager and vice president to visit his Genrong Exhibition Hall in order to defraud the bank's trust.
In the exhibition hall, a "golden jade dress" and a "silver jade dress" are accompanied by an "appraisal report" signed by 5 cultural relic experts including Shi Shuqing and Yang Boda, showing that the two jade dresses are worth about 2.4 billion.
In fact, this was just Xie Genrong who asked someone to string together jade pieces bought on the market.
In 2008, the national audit department discovered the bank’s problems during the audit and fraudulent loans occurred.
In December 2009, Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court sentenced Xie Genrong to life imprisonment for the crime of loan fraud.
All of a sudden, the "appraisal report" issued by five experts became the focus of public opinion.
In an interview at the time, Yang Boda said that he was only invited by a friend to attend a "small gathering."
The convener is the former secretary-general of the China Collectors Association and has had friendships for many years.
As for the viewing process, I didn't open the cabinet or get started, I just walked around the glass cabinet.
He felt at the time that there was no need to be true to these collectors, tell him the truth, that his things were wrong, and the friendship might be gone.
The gathering of private collectors felt helpless, but I had no choice but to follow the crowd.
Yu Ming and Yang Boda have known each other for many years. After Yang Boda retired, he often handled affairs related to meetings and events for him.
Yu Ming told China News Weekly that experts at that time would inevitably take part in some so-called "human relations activities", thinking that they are all human beings, and sometimes they need to be done in order to promote jade culture.
He saw that the Xie Genrong case had dealt a major blow to Yang Boda.
Since then, Yang Boda has never signed for a private appraisal.
The beauty of jade lies in its purity
The identification and identification of ancient jade is only the practice of jade. If the research only stays here, it is "lack of connotation". What Yang Boda wants to achieve is to improve from "tool" to "dao".
Guo Dashun, then deputy director of the Liaoning Provincial Department of Culture and director of the Liaoning Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said that at that time, some people in the academic circle believed that jade studies were difficult to stand up as a discipline, and Yang Boda's ideas were advanced.
In 2001, the Jade Research Society successfully hosted the "Chinese Hetian Jade Culture Academic Seminar" in Qiemo County, the main producing area of Hetian jade in Xinjiang.
Yang Boda sighed, three years of preparations, and a journey of thousands of miles.
Participants traveled by car for 18 consecutive hours, crossing the Taklimakan Desert, the sea of death in the Tarim Basin, and finally arrived at the venue late at night.
Yang Boda believes that Hetian jade is the key to grasping the development history of ancient Chinese jade.
Hetian jade is the elite of jade, the leader of all jade, and the "true jade" respected by Confucianism.
"The ancients distinguished jade, the first virtue is the second symbol." Virtue is the texture of jade, and symbol is the color of jade.
The mineral grain size of Hetian jade is very small, and the arrangement is in a "felt-like structure", that is, it is uniformly and non-directionally densely distributed like a felt, so it presents a warm, shiny, tough and meticulous texture.
This kind of "warmness" is in line with the noble character of "gentleness and honesty" admired by Confucianism, so there are sentences such as "a gentleman is like a jade", "a gentleman is like a gentleman, such as Guirubi".
As for how to identify Hetian jade, the ancients once said: "The western and northern jade sounds are heavy, but the nature is gentle, and those who admire them are beneficial to the human spirit; the eastern and southern jade sounds are light and clean, but the nature is cool, and the people who admire the spirit are beneficial." Yang Boda said. The Western jade refers to Hetian jade. "The jade has a heavy sound and gentle nature" is in line with the impression and feeling he has obtained from long-term observation and rubbing of Hetian jade, while the southern jade refers to the jade produced in Liangzhu culture and other regions.
The jade of Liangzhu Culture has been tested, and most of them are tremolite and actinolite. The hardness of these two types of jade is 5.5-6 degrees, which is slightly softer than Hetian amphibole jade (hardness 6-6.5 degrees). Not "true jade".
Although they belong to the same family in mineralogy, ancient jade is not only mineralogical jade, but a cultural phenomenon and conceptual jade.
"The Light of Witch Jade" published by Yang Boda in 2005, deeply researched the tentacles of prehistoric jade.
In the archeological excavations of prehistoric civilizations such as Hongshan Culture and Liangzhu Culture, the value of prehistoric jade has become more and more prominent.
The archaeology community first proposed the reconstruction of Chinese prehistory in the early 1990s, and the study of prehistoric jade has become a new force in the study of prehistory.
Yang Boda pointed out that in prehistoric society, the value of jade is not beauty, but a divine object.
He attributed the development path of Chinese jade culture to witch jade-Wang Yu-min jade, and believed that jade culture is the traditional cultural gene of the Chinese nation.
Zhang Hongming, director and investigator of the Comprehensive Division of the Anhui Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, believes that Yang Boda’s jade research paper has a distinctive feature, that is, the argument may not be the most rigorous, but the conclusion is shocking, logical and sparkling with thought. Therefore, he Become a staged and integrated figure in jade culture research.
In 2013, Yang Boda stepped down as the chairman of the Jade Professional Committee of the Chinese Society of Cultural Heritage and served as the honorary chairman. Wang Yamin, the former vice-president of the Palace Museum, took over as the chairman.
Wang Yamin told China News Weekly that Yang Boda is an expert and scholar-type leader with very rigorous academic research. It was during his tenure as the vice president of the Palace Museum that he began to emphasize "academic palace".
He felt that Yang Boda's research benefited from the massive collection of precious collections in the Forbidden City, so the starting point was very high.
Many experts in the study of cultural relics are very in-depth and meticulous in microscopic research, but Yang Boda can look at the big picture and start with the details.
"He often said to me that we must have a high level of thinking, a wide field of vision, and a unique perspective on research methods."
Xu Lin, who works in the Jade Group of the Artifact Department of the Palace Museum, has taken over as the chairman of the Jade Professional Committee of the Chinese Society of Cultural Heritage from August 2019.
Every time she went to Yang Boda's house, she almost saw him writing at the desk in the small living room, with his head buried in the manuscript, surrounded by books.
She often receives a call from Yang Boda at 8 or 7:50 in the morning, asking her to help check an information.
Yang Boda does not know how to use a computer, and a large number of academic articles are written by himself. Xu Lin and other Forbidden City staff are often needed to help check information or archaeological reports on the Internet.
In the years before his illness and hospitalization in 2019, he worked until two o'clock in the evening every day.
Xu Lin feels that he seems to have a sense of mission and must finish some things in his lifetime.
Yang Boda admires another jade reader, Wang Xun, the founding director of the Art History Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
In 1988, when Yang Boda was the editor-in-chief of "Complete Collection of Chinese Jade Articles", he searched through jade materials and discovered the paper "The Value of Jade in Chinese Culture" written by Wang Xun in 1938.
Wang Xun, a graduate of Southwest Associated University, had been close to Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin. He was mistakenly classified as a "rightist" in 1957 and died young at the age of 54.
When Yang Boda's research progressed from jade to jade culture, he remembered this article and found out to reread it. He was deeply shocked by the brilliance of his theory after 70 years.
Wang Xun wrote that the beauty of jade's color and luster is mysterious, one of the most complicated, most indescribable, and most uncertain color and luster, and it is this that makes Chinese people "untiring in love".
From this, Yang Boda thought of the beauty of the color of jade that he had experienced all the year round in reading jade.
The most respected mutton white jade among the jade is not pure white, but is similar to mutton. The white reveals a slight and changeable blue color.
Not only mutton white jade, but all jade is hard to find the standard color.
This point can only be realized by the purchasers who have been working hard in the jade market all the year round, the jade researchers with rich experience, and the collectors who love jade like life, and get infinite pleasure from it.
Wang Xun believes that, in the final analysis, the beauty of jade lies in its purity, not moving in a specific form, but illusory, fluid, and indescribable. This is the same as the essence of music.
Yang Boda thought that he himself and some colleagues would often have this kind of unspeakable trance when they saw a piece of wonderful jade material. The old players called it "can't tell, can only understand," and it seems "pedantic". It's like a "smart" state.
"Aesthetic education has the quality of emancipating the mind." In the article "The Jade Aesthetics in the "Value of Jade in Chinese Culture"", Yang Boda used Hegel's famous saying to end the gaping soul of two generations of jade readers. dialogue.
China News Weekly, Issue 33, 2021
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