The Death of an Artisan: Su Shi and Ink Making

Abstract

abstract:Su Shi’s endorsement of an enigmatic artisan named Pan Gu as “the Ink Immortal” adumbrates the Chinese cultural valorization of ink production during and after the Song period. I parse the poet’s two-part effort to transform ink making into a legitimate field of scholarly endeavor in order to defend poets’ autonomy. In Su Shi’s view, such autonomy depends on controlling the tools that sustain literary self-expression. Resisting the passive position of a consumer, Su first identifies with and then comes to impersonate the artisan’s productive body. This pose was, however, predicated on Su’s struggle to influence the marketing of ink through verse and innovative strategies of inscription. After Su Shi, an inkstick was no longer simply a tool for the production of literature but a venue where distinctions between writing and craft could be transformed—a contested subject and substrate of literary art.䷃锣:本文通過蘇軾有關墨師潘谷的詩作來探討宋代文人與墨工之間的互動關係。蘇軾通過讚揚墨工的自主性以反思文人的身份,其對玩墨與造墨的記載揭示了書寫工具對詩歌創新的影響。從蘇軾筆下之潘谷的形象演变中,我們可以看到一種中國古代特有的媒介自覺性。