Huajian 畫箋

Huajian 畫箋 "Notes on painting" is a book on painting written during the Ming period 明 (1368-1644) by Tu Long 屠隆 (1542-1605), who was a prolific writer, producing, among others, the collection Kaopan yushi 考槃餘事, of which the Huajian is a part.

The Huajian consists of 26 entries on painting. Each entry discusses a single topic, ranging from appraisal, likeness, the history of painting, painting schools, the use of sketchbooks (fenben 粉本), the copying of model paintings (linhua 臨畫) to embroidery paintings (xiuhua 繡畫), the grading of paintings (pindi hua 品第畫), to techniques of mounting, presentation, and conservation. The scope of Huajian is remarkably broad. However, the writing is very concise, often only touching on a subject without in-depth discussion. Aside from some methods on collecting and storing paintings, the most theoretically valuable content lies in its views on artistic conception and interest (yiqu 意趣) found in the entries related to Tang 唐 (618-907), Song 宋 (960-1279), Yuan 元 (1279-1368), and Ming painting, as well as on methods of learning to paint.

The text is included in the series Shuofu 説郛, Meishu congshu 美術叢書, Zhongguo shuhua quanshu 中國書畫全書, Baoyantang miji 寶顏堂秘笈 and Congshu jicheng chubian 叢書集成初編.