Preliminary Dossier: Mao Xiang, Memoirist

Mao Xiang (1611-1693), the Handsome Shadow. Mm, dashing, eh?

Preliminary Notes on a figure I've just learned about: the memoirist Mao Xiang:

According to a profile on the website of Oberlin College, Mao was a talented disciple of the calligrapher Dong Qichang 董其昌, but left few examples of his own calligraphy behind (Oberlin has one though -- note to self to look at that if ever in Ohio). As with predecessors Dong Qichang and Yuan Hongdao, the younger Mao was a "bon vivant". C. Mason, author of this piece for Oberlin, goes on to describe the progress of the mind through learning a craft that is a linking narrative among many lovers of beauty, Chinese and otherwise:

The calligraphy of Waiting for the Moon at Six Bridges is not written in the imitative hand of a student; rather it reflects a mature style in which Mao has synthesized elements of Dong's calligraphy with his own. In thus passing through the stages of emulation, divergence, and synthesis, Mao reveals that Dong's influence upon him was not just stylistic, but theoretical as well. Dong, like Yuan Hongdao, felt that tradition was most valuable when mastered and transcended. That belief is embodied in this important scroll, and thus creates a special harmony between form and content that goes beyond stylistic comparisons and resonates on a much higher philosophical plane.

That Mao was a Ming loyalist and a lover of the famous concubine Dong Xiaowan is only briefly mentioned.

Mason refers us to one other source for the life of Mao Xiang that might be worth checking out:

Hummel, Arthur W., ed. Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period. Washington, D.C., 1943, pp. 566-67.

I don't know that I've ever read one of these entries, which is odd and slightly embarrassing.

A short note in hudong.com (which also contains the portrait I placed above) gives his original home town as Rugao 如皋 in today's Jiangsu. There are also some critical comments in the entry:

笔锋墨秀，玄旨微情。俱在有意无意、可想不可到之境。
-- Chen Mingxia 陈名夏,《重订朴巢诗文集序》

清音奔赴，灵想超忽 ; 一笔一洞壑，一转一绝境
-- Du Jun 杜濬《朴巢文选序》, comparing his travel writing to that of Liu Zongyuan

诗律深细，葩采滟发
-- Chen Hanhui 陈函辉on his poetry 《寒碧孤吟序》

婉转以附物，惆怅而切情
-- Ni Yuanlu 倪元璐 on his poetry 《朴巢诗序》

The Hudong author calls Mao's work "Shadow Plum Reminsicences" a classic of biji literature 笔记文章, but offers no critical comments specifically speaking to that.

Baidu.com has a much larger biographical entry that dwells at surprising length on his affair with the courtesan Dong Xiaowan.