Shushi 書史

Shushi 書史, also called Mi Haiyue shushi 米海嶽書史, is a book on calligraphy written by the great Song-period 宋 (960-1279) master Mi Fu 米芾 (1051-1107), who also wrote a similar book on painting, Huashi 畫史.

The Shushi critically describes the calligraphies of ancient masters from the Western Jin 西晉 (265-316) to the Five Dynasties 五代 (907-960) periods. It also explains which kinds of paper were used and how calligraphies were mounted and stored. Mi Fu gives a detailed account on the history of calligraphy and analyses how to discern an old original from a forgery, or how to identify a certain master from his style. This was very important because many calligraphies had been wrongly attributed to other masters, like one calligraphy owned by Wei Tai 魏泰 (c. 1100) that was believed to be an original of Yu Shinan 虞世南 (558-638), but Mi Fu proved that it was a product of the monk Zhiyong 智永 (c. 600). There were other calligraphies attributed to Zhiyong that were in fact products of Zhong Shaojing 鍾紹京 (659-746) or Ouyang Xun 歐陽詢 (557-641).

Mi Fu examines the origin of the calligraphy Huang Su Huangtingjing 黃素黃庭經 and compares Wang Xizhi's 王羲之 (303-361) Huang Mazhi shiyu tie 黃麻紙十余帖 with Ouyang Xun's Gushi shiyu tie 故事十余帖 and Zhang Dian's 張顛 (Zhang Xu 張旭, 685?-759?) Juantie yijuan qiba zhang 絹帖一卷七八張. Mi Fu's book is a very reliable source and gives an excellent impression about the methods by which Song-period connoisseurs evaluated ancient art works. Mi says in the last part of his book that while paintings could be copied (mo 摹), this was hardly possible for calligraphies. Most unsuccessful was, in his opinion, the forging of seals. He then adds an interesting paragraph about fortune-telling for state offices on the base of their private seals (xiangyinfa 相印法 "method of [prognostication by] inspection of seals").

The Shushi is included in the series Baichuan xuehai 百川學海, Shuxue huibian 書學彙編, Wangshi shuhua yuan 王氏書畫苑, Shuofu 說郛, Hubei xianzheng yishu 湖北先正遺書, Siku quanshu 四庫全書 and Meishu congshu 美術叢書.