Status of artists at the imperial court in the early Song dynasty

This paper addresses the status of artists at the imperial court during the early Northern Song dynasty, from the second half of the X century to the middle of the XI century. The problem of the status of court artists illuminates the polarization of the artistic world of the Song. Connoisseurial texts of the late XI and XII centuries adopted the view of an artistic world polarized along lines of social status and profession. Although artists serving at court in the Department of Painting held nominal status as court officials, Song connoisseurs considered them as belonging to the ranks of professional painters, distinct from scholars and other officials who produced paintings. This classification continues to dominate contemporary scholarship. The origin of the social polarization, however, has not been fully explored. This paper explores the historical basis for the commonly accepted division of the artistic world of the Song into officials and professional artists. The author suggests that this division did not occur, as scholarship has often argued with the rise of the literati-painters in the second half of the XI century. Rather, the division took place over a much longer period of time. The court’s decision to limit the privileges available to the institutions that employed technical specialists (including artists) in the first half of the XI century played a key role in the decline of the status of court artists. The contextualization of court artists within the bureaucratic system of the Song government provides crucial insights into their status at court. The jishuguan, or court technical specialists did not belong to the main body of ranked officials, but could receive honorific titles, dignities, prestige titles and other forms of promotion. As Song sources demonstrate, some of the court artists serving during the reign of the first Song emperor Taizong (967-997) received many official privileges, including minor administrative posts in local government. However, as the bureaucratic system of the Song government grew and became more mature, the court tried to separate technical personnel from dedicated administrative officials. Imperial decrees and other historical sources demonstrate that both during and after the Zhenzong (998-1021) period, the court pursued a policy of limiting privileges enjoyed by the jishuguan. The growing distance between narrowly specialized court experts on the one hand and government officials on the other became one of the pre-conditions for the polarization of the artistic world along the axis of social status in the second part of the XI century.