The Song of Iron Painting

The Song of Tiehua (Iron Painting)

Dr. Qin Fang, Associate Professor of History

Student Fellows: Kyle Parks (2016, 2017), History; Noah De La Garrigue (2018), History; Juliette Marchman (2019), Asian Studies, Olivia Usilton(2021), History

Funded by McDaniel College Student Faculty Research copyright 2021, please contact the authors if you need citation.

The Song of Tiehua, as a genre, appeared around 1754, when Liang Tongshu started to initiate a celebratory ancient style poetry in honor of iron painting, its founding creator Tang Peng, and his reflection upon the art and learning. His friends who served in the Hanlin Academy with him together, rhymed him immediately in a literary gathering in his backyard. The literary gathering was successful that Liang decided to send these poems titled “The Song of Tiehua” back to his friends in Jiangnan for further and more rhymes. It was unknown whether Liang had planned for the anthology of the Song of Tiehua for publication, a common practice among literati in the Ming and Qing periods.

Welding and hammering techniques featuring in an iron painting of the Qing period preserved in Anhui Museum, photo by Qin Fang, 2015, Hefei, Anhui, China.

Nevertheless, these Song of Tiehua seemed to have never been published and they have scattered in the individual poetry collections between 1750s and 1920. The genre has continued and becomes an important genre of  tiehua writing, by which many literati would embark upon for their understanding of tiehua, its production, its hammering skills, its consumption, dissemination, and its cultural and social meanings associated with literati cultural and literary identities.

The Song of Tiehua poems become a crucial documentations for historians to understand the history of tiehua since no other documents about tiehua were available. Wrought out of iron, tiehua seems to endure longer than the iron. In fact, iron was easily rusted away and disappeared gradually if no appropriate protection have been carried out. The warfares between 1750s and 1920s also destroyed and washed away many tiehua, which makes it impossible for historians to restore the history of tiehua. More important, blacksmith, who had made brilliant art of tiehua but barely read and write, left almost no documentation of the art and their reflections on tiehua in words. Therefore, the literati writings such as the Song of Tiehua become the rare documents for historians to investigate tiehua between 1750s and 1920s.

In the past couple of years, students and I re-collected the poems of the Song of Tiehua scattered in the individual poetry collections between 1750s and 1920s, thanks to McDaniel Summer Research Grant. We also collaborated to translate these together so that they could be read and available to the public.

The following pieces are arranged chronically, which could be read separately in each post.  The author and publication date have provided in each post. Historical background has provided if needed.

  1.  “Artificers’ Records (Kao gong ji)” Zhou Li (Rites of Zhou),  c.a.500 BCE

 

  1. Wei Zhihuang. “The Song of Tiehua”

 

  1. “The Biography of Jin Junsheng”, Jiande Local Gazetteer (1730s)

 

  1. Liang Tongshu. The Former Song of Tiehua (1754)

 

  1. Liang Tongshu. The Later Song of Tiehua (1754)

 

  1. Wei Qianheng (1720-1796). The Song of Tiehua. 1754

 

  1. Wang Fengyi (Wang Tinghe). The Song of Tiehua (1754)

 

  1. The Song of Tiehua (1756)

 

  1. The Song of Tiehua. Liangzhe youxuan xulu, juan 27. 1800

 

  1. The Song of Tiehua (1755)

 

  1. The Song of Tiehua (1754)

 

  1. The Song of Tiehua (1754)

 

  1.  “The Song of Tiehua” Huhai shizhuan, juan

 

  1. Huang Yue. “The Song of Tiehua” Yi zhai ji (Poetry Collection of the One Studio) (1778)

 

  1. Wang Mingshen The Song of Tiehua (1732-1797)

 

  1. Huang Yue. Yuhu Bamboo Branch Lyrics (No. 19).

 

 

  1. The Song of Tiehua. (1797)

 

  1. The Song of Tiehua

 

  1. The Song of Tiehua

 

  1. Zhao Yi. The Song of Tiehua

 

  1. Chen Wensu. The Song of Tiehua

 

  1. Wang Ze (1759-1842). The Song of Tang Tianpeng’s Tiehua

 

  1.  “Iron Painting” in Lenglu Zazhi, juan

 

  1. The Song of Tiehua

 

  1. The Song of Tiehua

 

  1. Xu Ren. Iron Orchid

 

  1. Cao Shouming. The Song of Wuhu Tiehua

 

  1. Wang Tao’s The Song of Tiehua

 

  1. Shen Tinghe. The Song of Tiehua

 

  1. Ye Sima. The Song of Tiehua

 

  1. Cai Er’kang. The Song of Tiehua

 

  1. Master Drunkard Moon Immortal. The Song of Tiehua

 

  1. Master Watching Flowers in Mists. The Song of Tiehua