Is there a connection between Cheng bro. and Peonies?

[elad yaron]

Is there a connection between the Cheng brothers (Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi) and Peony flowers?

I understood there is a connection, they worked in the Emperors garden or something like that?

Yet I cant find an English source for that fact.

Can someone with a good Chinese send me to a source (even Chinese) and explain what exactly is the connection (if exist)?

 

Thanks!

[Luxi]

14 hours ago, elad yaron said:

Is there a connection between the Cheng brothers (Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi) and Peony flowers?

 

Could you explain where that idea came from? I did a blind search but couldn't find anything directly linking any of the brothers to peonies.

 

Maybe I could find something concrete if I knew where you saw that connection mentioned or illustrated? I might be able to address the search to the right place.

 

What little I found is an indirect reference which suggests actually a reverse connection. The Cheng brothers had Zhou Dunyi (周敦頤) as a tutor. Now there is a connection between Zhou Dunyi and peonies. Peonies have been associated with opulence, fame, glory and currying for favour. Zhou, who himself liked lotus flowers, contrasted the Tang hermit poet Tao Yuanming's love for chrysanthemums with the Song painter Li Tang's for peonies:

 

Quote

“ 晋陶渊明独爱菊；自李唐来，世人爱牡丹。”

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_479b2a9b0102wbd1.html

 

Roughly translates as: The Jin (dynasty) hermit Tao Yuanming loved chrysanthemums; since Li Tang came, people strongly love peonies.

 

There don't seem to be any paintings of peonies by Li Tang, of whom few paintings (only one signed) survive and they're all landscapes, so this reference is to his lifestyle. I think this is a dig also for Tao Yuanming,  Neo-Confucians didn't approve of hermits. Judging by the poem you posted a few days ago, Cheng Hao seems an unlikely lover of peonies - his brother was very severe and even less likely to favour peonies.

 

I found no reference to the Cheng brothers working as gardeners. This is also strange, they both sailed through the imperial examination system and became officials quite early in life.

[elad yaron]

I truly understand what you are saying. It was told to me by one of my Chinese teachers,  a major in art history witch I appreciate very much.

I also did not find any connection yet, but when I asked her again she insisted that such a connection exist.

If and when she will have the time she will send me a link, in the meanwhile I will keep on searching, 

but again, thank you so much!

[Publius]

6 hours ago, Luxi said:

晋陶渊明独爱菊；自李唐来，世人爱牡丹。

李唐 is not a person though. It means the Tang dynasty, which is founded by Li Yuan and ruled by his descendants. So Li is Tang's 國姓, i.e. the emperors' family name.

[Luxi]

1 hour ago, Publius said:

李唐 is not a person though.

 

Of course, now it makes sense! I have to say, the idea that it referred to Tang Dynasty crossed my mind briefly but I ran a search to check and found out there was this painter, 李唐 who happened to live at the right time and be honoured by Emperor Huizong...If I had looked 3 entries below on the search page I would have found this entry:

https://baike.baidu.com/item/唐朝/53699?fromtitle=李唐&fromid=22440

 

I'm glad the painter Li Tang wasn't slighted. If he painted this one, he didn't deserve to be slighted.

 

...but do you know anything about a connection between the Cheng brothers and peonies?

[elad yaron]

OK, my teacher sent me a title, and I believe that the reference should be there, although I do not have this copy yet.

But while I will search for it, here it is if one of you have it. I think the connection should appear here:

 

Seduction By flowers: Ouyang Xiu’s Record of the Peonies of Luoyang 欧阳修 《洛阳牡丹记》  

[Luxi]

Very easy to find:

https://baike.baidu.com/item/洛阳牡丹记

 

I had found the link between Ouyang Xiu and peonies and a reference to his treatise, but that doesn't connect directly with the Cheng brothers - except that they were, so to speak on the other side of the fence in what concerns peonies. I haven't read Ouyang Xiu's essay yet but a quick search for Cheng on the Baidu page  above comes up with nothing. 

 

The reference I had found earlier is a review by Patricia Ebrey of a book on aesthetics by Ronald Egan (now the book is on my reading list!)

Review of The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China. By Ronald Egan. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006. 
http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/journal/articles/v47p531.pdf

 Two paragraphs -especially the second- seem especially relevant to the question:

p. 533

"Ouyang Xiu was also in the forefront in writing about another aesthetically-charged topic, floral beauty, the topic of chapter three. Earlier writers had written on bamboo, plum, and chrysanthemum—plants associated with men of virtue. But the delights of the showy peony had been avoided as too sensual. Early in his career when Ouyang Xiu was posted to Luoyang, he became fascinated by the local enthusiasm for tree peonies. In his brief Tree Peonies of Luoyang, Ouyang Xiu lists 24 varieties of tree peonies, explicates their names, and describes local customs concerning the plant. He was aware that over time peonies had become more spectacular and varied, and that this was a result not of nature but human intervention. In his treatise he celebrates the ingenuity of horticulturalists who knew the value of grafting and how to produce hybrids with more petals or new colours. His discussion of cultivation techniques covers selecting sites, improving soil, timing of watering, pinching off buds, fighting insect infestations, and other “hands-on” knowledge. He also wrote of the mania of Luoyang residents during the brief period when peonies were in bloom and the high prices they would pay for great specimens."

 

p.535
"Egan then moves into a discussion of the meaning of wen in Song culture, which he describes as having two sides, the junzi side that centres on Confucian virtues of steadfastness, loyalty, and duty and is averse to the sensuous, and the aesthete side, that valorizes the sensual beauty of lyrics, flowers, and calligraphy (pp. 374–75). Ouyang Xiu was able to balance both sides, but by the late eleventh century, men like Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi  stood for the junzi side while Su Shi and Mi Fu fell to the aesthetic side."

 

So, obviously, the relation between the Cheng brothers and peonies is not a loving one, isn't it? 

 

I'm happy to say peonies won the day. Louyang has an annual Peonies Festival that attracts huge crowds.

 

 

[elad yaron]

Yes, I also found it, and I think I agree with you. There is no clear connection.

While Zhou Dun Yi loved the lotus flower,  Ou-yang Hsiu loved peonies,

now we at least know that it was a very hot subject in the area ?

and until new details will come up that sums up an interesting debate.

I started to really appreciate this forum, thank you all so much!

Good to be in the neighborhood with such nice Chinese culture lovers like you!

[elad yaron]

OK, I just wanted to give here the full answer given to me by my teacher, also because she presented it as "the Chinese way of thinking,"

but also because I just loved that logic way of thinking (well... not to say that logic works in this kind of truth... but yet) :

 

1. the Cheng brothers are from Loyang.

2. Ou-yang Hsiu said EVERYBODY in loyang loved the peonies in this period.

3. Zhou Dun Yi said that he loves the lotus, although EVERYBODY else in loyang love the peonies.

 

Hence: it is common knowledge in China that the Cheng brothers also loved the peonies.

 

well... I know it is not a true statement or a connection, but yet it is not bad at all. thanks to all! ?

[Luxi]

Ha-ha-ha! I love that logic reasoning, it's very mathematical  --- But there is another way of answering the question.

 

Zhou Dunyi was the Cheng brothers' teacher and they later went even further than Zhou in elaborating and establishing their teacher's neo-Confucian ideas. There is not even a hint that the brothers ever went against their teacher. 

 

Zhou said the junzi loved lotus flowers. The Cheng brothers followed the way of the junzi, and, therefore, they must also have preferred lotus flowers to the exuberant peonies.

 

... there is a middle way. The jovial Cheng Hao might have liked peonies, at least a little, in secret. The very strict Cheng Yi would have definitely hated peonies.

 

[elad yaron]

Loved the middle way!