Portrait of
Confucius
Purportedly
Tang dynasty (618� 907), undated
Attributed
to Wu Daozi (689�759)
Hanging
scroll, ink rubbed on 2 joined sheets of paper; 194.0 x 62.1 cm
Date
of rubbing unknown
Inventory number: Biaozhou 138
Confucius (551�479 b.c.e.), whose actual name was Kong Qiu, was the preeminent
thinker and political theorist of ancient China.� He was born and raised near Qufu, capital of the small feudal
state of Lu at the base of the Shandong peninsula, and made his living as a
teacher and private tutor using canonical texts.� Distressed by the constant warfare between the Chinese states as
well as the venality and tyranny of rulers, he urged a system of morality and
statecraft that would preserve peace and provide people with a stable and just
government.� For some 14 years he
traveled to several neighboring states but was never successful in inducing any
rulers to grant him high office so that he might introduce his reforms.
In this idealized and conventionalized
portrait placed against a vacant backdrop, Confucius is depicted as an official
dressed in flowing court robes, hands clasped together and standing in a
dignified manner.� Although it bears the
name of the great Tang-dynasty painter Wu Daozi (689�759), the actual date of
execution of this image is probably much later.� The eulogy placed above the portrait is taken from a longer text
composed by the Ming scholar-official Chen Fengwu (1475�1541) and may be thus
rendered: "His virtue is equal to Heaven and Earth; his dao (way)
is the loftiest achieved in the past and in the present.� He explained the Six Canonical Books, and
his statutes will last for ten thousand generations."� Based on Chen Fengwu's eulogy, this portrait
of Confucius probably was not done before the Zhengde (1506�1521) or Jiajing
(1522�1566) reign eras of the Ming dynasty.
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