Mingzhong shuhua lu 閩中書畫錄

Mingzhong shuhua lu 閩中書畫錄 "Record of painters and calligraphers from Fujian" is a book on calligraphy and painting written during the Qing period 清 (1644-1911) by Huang Xifan 黄錫蕃, courtesy name Jiaosheng 椒升, from Haiyan 海鹽, Zhejiang. The book of 16 juan length was finished in 1809. Huang's literary remains are called Huang Jiaosheng yishu 黄椒升遺書.

The compilation documents the names and brief biographies of artists active in the Fujian region from the Tang 唐 (618-907) to the Qing periods. In the preface, Huang recounts that once a fellow townsman, Mr. Zhang 張氏, sent him a draft of the Bamin shuhua ji 八閩書畫記 "Notes on the calligraphers and painters of the eight Fujian regions" by Ding Xizeng 丁晞曾 of Hangzhou, asking him to supplement it. This request prompted Huang to visit the homes of local gentry, where he borrowed and read from their private collections. While Ding's original manuscript recorded just over 200 artists, Huang's expanded version, the Minzhong shuha lu, increased the number to more than 800. The material is arranged chronologically (juan 1-12), and socially, female artists (13), Buddhist monks (14 Ziliu 淄流), immortals and Daoist masters (15 Yushi 羽士, Xianyi 仙迹), itinerant artists (15 Liuyu 流寓), and people from other provinces serving in Fujian (16 Youhuan 游宦).

For his biographies, Huang drew on a large number of sources, including standard histories, local gazetteers, poetry criticism and anecdotes, histories of the arts and officially commissioned writings. Though commendable in its comprehensive effort to gather the names of Fujianese calligraphers and painters across various eras, the Minzhong shuhua lu was compiled by the author, recording the information he gathered over several years. As a result, despite its overall breadth, the work inevitably contains omissions and chronological inconsistencies, a shortcoming that the author himself candidly admits in the preface. Another notable limitation of the work is that all its content is drawn directly from other sources, without the author providing any of his critical commentary or personal assessments. This lack of original insight is often seen as one of the book’s significant deficiencies.

The text is included in the Huang Jiaosheng yishu and the series Hezhong tushuguan congshu 合衆圖書館叢書 (Shanghai 1942).