Portraits of Recluses

Some of the Seven Sages

Li Chi 李. “The Changing Concept of the Recluse in Chinese Literature.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 24 (1962): 234–247.

I enjoyed reading this article, twice. You can actually use it to begin creating a sort of card deck of recluse portraits. I'll begin this list here:

1. Boyi 伯夷 and Shuqi 叔齊

2. Xu You 許由 (Image and story here)

3. Jie Zhitui (Seen here with his Mom; Image and story here; also see an article by Longxi Zhang)

4. Jieyu, the Madman of Chu. cf. p. 239 on "Summons to the Recluse" 楚狂接輿. Also note that Confucius himself half wanted to be a recluse!

5. Zhuangzi, who couldn't abide a selfish recluse

6. The Motif of Refusal: Zhuge Liang, Chen Tuan 陳摶 (p. 244)

6.5 Fake Recluses: Huangfu Xizhi 皇甫希之, the fake recluse 充隱; Du Yan and Wei Suchang, punished for their lies. Also see the joke that embarrassed Xie Anshi.

7. Huiyuan, Tao Qian's Buddhist Friend

8. "Recluses in Society" : Dongfang Shuo, Bai Juyi, Su Dongpo

Tang officials, among whom Bai Juyi learned to be a 中隱

9. Yuan Mei, the Dandy Recluse. I should really find a better portrait of him.

On Yuan Mei, also see Arthur Waley's Yuan Mei, Eighteenth Century Chinese Poet



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Old Recluse List

Recluses on the march. Er, I mean NOT on the march, very much so.

I started cleaning out the expanding divider that I carry around in my backpack, for it has gotten large and unwieldy. I came across some material on recluses that I don't think I had typed up, though I wrote an entryon Tao Qian that seems to have been influenced by these sources.

Li Chi 李. “The Changing Concept of the Recluse in Chinese Literature.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 24 (1962): 234–247.

This is really nice short introduction to the recluse figure as one that changes quite a bit over time; this is illustrated with a series of brief portraits of representative recluses. I especially like Li's opening image of the recluse portrait: "tiny human figures, almost imperceptible among the rocks and pines;" this reminds me of the notes I've taken on a large-format book about Chinese paintings, and the lecture I gave on Chinese portraits.

Berkowitz, Alan. Patterns of Disengagement: The Practice and Portrayal of Reclusion in Early Medieval China. Stanford Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000. I didn't actually get through this, though I made a few notes on the back of the Li Chi's paper, which I printed out in full.

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