宋代 文人의 文具癖-먹과 벼루를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper examines the aesthetic appreciation and collection of stationery of the Song Dynasty literati. Prior to this era, there had been only a few literary works which had explicitly affirmed items such as paper, writing brushes, inkstones and ink sticks, and they had mainly focused on their use as tools of transcription. Stationery had not been seen as something that could be appreciated aesthetically, in itself, but rather as merely practical, and had therefore rarely been collected. This may be both because the use of stationery was not widespread enough to make it easily collectible, and its quality had not reached a level that made it worth evaluating and appreciating aesthetically. However, in the Song Dynasty, with the development of the handicraft industry and the resultant increase in the distribution of various stationery products, writers began to assess such items as they would art works. This paper focuses on changes in the daily lives of writers and in the exchanges between them caused by this new focus on inkstones and ink sticks. The findings of this study can be summarized as follows. First, the degree of the Song literati’s fascination with stationery was strong enough to be described as an obsession. Second, the names of the craftsmen who made this stationery functioned as trademarks on these objects, and the perception arose of a hierarchy among items of stationery, with some being viewed as masterpieces. As a result of recognizing these skills, writers began to engage in exchanges with craftsmen, and to collaborate with them. Third, stationery became an important medium of exchange between writers. They described their appreciation and evaluation of such items as a source of joy and an “obsession” that was exclusive to them. This demonstrates that they regarded their affection for stationery as a special characteristic that was limited to them, and this perception positioned stationery as a symbol of the sophistication of the literati.