This was to change in the twelfth century. From that time, there survives a calligraphy hanging scroll by Wu Ju 吳琚 (fl. 1140), whose calligraphic style followed Mi Fu 米芾(1051-1107). This scroll is the flrst extant work in hanging scroll format. The hanging scroll quickly became the leading mounting format for artworks from that time up to the present. Initially, most scrolls were of what one might call domestic dimensions, that is, under six feet in length. Over time, greater affluence caused the literati, merchants, and government to build larger receiving halls (tang 堂) in their homes and offices, which increased demand for larger pieces. The shift from album leaf and handscroll to the hanging scroll and its increasing sizes all created greater visibility for artworks.

As art became increasingly public, display became an important value in the creation of visual art. By the Ming 明, artists sometimes wrote out calligraphies that were four feet in width and eight or ten in height, depending on the rise of the hall for which they were commissioned. The mountings of these calligraphies (and paintings) were longer yet. The eighteenth century brought another development, the dui lian 對聯, or double scroll with poetic couplet. Usually these were not of outstanding size. However, with only five or seven characters per scroll, their texts were written in large, imposing characters that guests could easily read ( and be impressed by ) from across a room, and thus made impressive calligraphy available even to those with modest quarters. In this manner, mounting formats progressed from the intimate formats of album and handscroll to the more public format of increasingly larger hanging scrolls and the greater visibility of dui lian texts.

This progression in type and size of artwork and of format represented a growth in public values at the expense of private, elite values. In the preserves of the tight aristocratic elite of the first millennium, the use of albums and handscrolls insured that an artwork was seen only if it was displayed by its owner, so these works were available for viewing only if one knew the owner or had appropriate introductions. The shift to the hanging scroll reflected increasing democratization of society. A prominent example was the Tang dynasty "s requirement that government officials pass a civil service examination. Slowly, this examination was opened to qualified applicants who were not aristocratic, and merit became an important criterion for success at the expense of birthright. This was instrumental in shifting much government power away from the aristocracy to a scholarly elite. It was always a benefit to be from the aristocracy, but China increasingly was ruled by a meritocracy at the expense of the old aristocracy. By the Ming, additional democratization of the upper classes arrived with the rise of powerful merchants who, traditionally of low social status by Confucian values, began to develop a de facto social standing consonant with their wealth and power. In an important cultural development, the nominal values of merchants were modeled after those of the higher-status literati. If learning and connoisseurship among merchants were of a lower order than among scholars, at least the outward trappings of the literati became highly valued among merchants.

Written by Ding Nianxian 丁念先(b. 1906- 1970)

Aristocrats, possessed by an unflappable assumption of natural superiority, favored an exclusiveness that paid little attention to other classes. The literati were more conscious of social status and therefore took more measures to secure it. This was partly because they were from a diversity of backgrounds, sometimes relatively humble ones, and partly because their status was tied to performance rather than birth. Aristocratic birth had an indisputable, innate status. But scholarly status rested on the risks of achievement and performance and was less secure. Merchants, regarded in Confucianism as the lowest rung of society, were less socially secure still. Thus, the literati erected a mythos of attitudes, behavior, skills, and occupations that ideally blended elegance, knowledge, and virtue. Great merchants followed this model, but they were more superficial and uneven in adopting scholarly values. Some merchants became truly cultivated; others acquired little more than the outward signs of culture.

The slow progression of aristocrat, scholar, and merchant was paralleled by an increasing emphasis on the public display of status symbols, and the roles played by artworks in establishing social status were influenced by this trend. If the aristocrats tended to closet themselves with a few friends to view an artwork, the scholar hung his works on the wall in view of not only groups of friends but visitors and servants, while merchants demanded ever larger and more visible artistic formats and mountings. As the higher rungs of the social ladder became more diverse and democratic, and as the need to establish publicly recognized markers of social status became more important to the expanding scholastic and mercantile classes, artworks became subject to increasing public display as badges of status, and there were corresponding increases in the size and visibility of artworks and of their mounting formats.

The progression of artwork formats and mountings toward public display, however, must be qualified in an important respect. Chinese society seldom abandoned old forms and formats but treated them as still-viable modes of expression that were used alongside newer versions. This was true in poetry, for example, where old poetic forms were perpetuated alongside more recent developments. Likewise, while handscrolls and albums lost ground as the dominant media of visual display, they never ceased to be created in any era. Hence, Leon Chang's 張隆延 album is a continuation of the long and uninterrupted history of this format.

This particular album was created when Leon Chang took flyleaves from the Ming edition of Sima Guang's 司馬光 (1019-1086) Ze Zhi Tong Jian 資治通鑑 (General Mirrors for Government ) and sent them to some of his friends in Taiwan for samples of their calligraphy. The Ming edition of General Mirrors 通鑑 is the third of its early editions. One edition was issued in each of the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, and hence the last one is known as the "third dynasty" edition. This album differs from the more typical collector's album, which was usually circulated in an effort to capture the calligraphy of famous artists for the owner's collection. This album was intended as a personal memento for the owner of the work of his friends and fellow artists. The leaves were written out and returned to Leon Chang during 1958 and 1959.

The album contains the work of five artists mounted on unbound leaves:
Cheng Changbo 程澄波 (b. 1902)
DingNianxian 丁念先 (b. 1906-1970)
Wang Zhuangwei 王壯為 (l909-1997)
Dong Zuobin 董作賓 (1895-1963)
Chen Xueping 陳雪屏 (b. 1901)

Cheng Changbo's leaf is in six columns of strong, elegant running script. Its text is from the "Creating Faith Commentary on the 'Mind's Gate to Nirvana.'" The "Mind's Gate to Nirvana" is a sutra to which is attached an ancient commentary on methods for instilling faith in Buddha. Cheng was a senator in the Republican government.

Ding Nianxian's leaf is written in clerical script set in a grid of red lines whose text is the beginning of the text of the "Western Mountain Hower Mountain Temple Stele" of 161. The original was incised into a large slab of rock termed a bei or stele. It is one of two stele texts and styles that Ding normally used in his artistic writings. His works are typically found in formats at two extremes of scale: album leaves or large works four or five feet high mounted as large hanging scrolls. He was a close friend and artistic associate of Leon Chang. The two belonged to an association of visual artists known as the Group of Ten.

Written by Wang Zhuangwei 王壯為 (l909-1997)

Wang Zhuangwei's leaf is covered with a long text from Su Shi 蘇軾(1036-1101), the "Essay on the Biography of Tung Gaozi東皋子傳, one of Su's best-known prose works. Wang writes in a tiny, dense, richly-black running script. A member of the Group of Ten, he was as well-known as a seal carver as he was as a calligrapher.

Dong Zuobin's leaf is written in shell and bone script, an ancient script extant during the fourteenth to eleventh centuries BCE. Dong uses both black and red ink for the text, imitating the original text as engraved or brushed on an ancient ox clavicle. Tong was one of the great scholars of this script.

Chen Xueping's leaf is written in nine columns of graceful running script. Its text is a poem of uncertain authorship that describes a peaceful day full of hot sun as it yields to the ambiguous atmosphere preceding a thunderstorm. Chen was an important member of the Republican government and held a series of high posts.

Members: Alex Chao, Alan J. Berkowitz, Stephen Dydo, Matthew Flannery, Willow Hai, Shida Kuo, Bo Lawergren, Marilyn Wong Gleysteen, Yuan Jung-Ping

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