Guishimin

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Guishimin, Male, Han, from Nanjing, Jiangsu, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Guqin and its Music (Ⅱ-34). The tradition is documented in Nanjing, Jiangsu. Within the regional tradition and school record of Guqin and its Music in Nanjing, Jiangsu: The Jinling school is both an important school of the art of the Chinese guqin and one of the most representative and influential folk music schools of the Nanjing area; it occupies an important place in the history of Chinese guqin music and has had a relatively great influence on later schools such as the Shandong Zhucheng school. It is confirmed by the materials so far recovered by archaeology that the form of the guqin was already complete by the Han dynasty at the latest. The Jinling school is one of the schools of the art of the Chinese guqin; it was formed at the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing, and its artistic activity was concentrated chiefly in the Nanjing area of Jiangsu. At the end of the Qing and the beginning of the Republic the Jinling school produced such representative figures as Huang Mianzhi and Yang Zongji, and the Jinling Qin Society founded by Huang Mianzhi let qin circles fully appreciate the Jinling manner. In 1934 Wang Xinkui, Xu Yuanbai, Xia Yifeng and others initiated the founding of the Qingxi Qin Society, which enlivened the Jinling qin world while persisting in artistic exchange and the training of talent. In December 1954 the Nanjing Music Society was formally established, containing a guqin group which afterwards became independent under the name “Jinling Qin Society”. The artistic activity of the Jinling school was forced to stop during the Cultural Revolution and was restored after 1978.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnicity, born in January 1953 in Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province. Influenced by his family environment from childhood, he was deeply fond of the traditional qin, chess, calligraphy and painting. In the early 1970s he became a student of Mei Yueqiang, a renowned qin master and prize disciple of Xia Yifeng, the leading figure of the Jinling school. He studied with him for eleven years and also received long-term guidance from his senior fellow disciples Zhang Zhengyin and Deng Wenquan, thus receiving the orthodox transmission of the Jinling school. During this period he also received careful guidance over many years from the older-generation qin master Cheng Wujia and others, and he travelled constantly to seek out famous masters in various places, benefiting greatly. After more than forty years of devoted study he gradually formed a style centred on the Jinling school while absorbing the strengths of many others, and a qin style that is refined and dignified, rigorous and standardised, rooted in antiquity without rigidity, steady and magnanimous, upright with inner depth, and serene while revealing undercurrents. For more than ten years he has carried out intangible cultural heritage transmission activities in many universities, middle schools and primary schools, assisting higher education institutions in establishing guqin societies and teaching in person. Over the years he has taught numerous students and has formally accepted nineteen indoor disciples, exerting considerable social influence in the transmission of the Jinling qin school. Within the documented technical tradition of Guqin and its Music in Nanjing, Jiangsu: The guqin, also called the “qin” or the “seven-stringed zither” and otherwise known as the “green damask” or the “silk paulownia”, is a flat-lying plucked string instrument. The art of the guqin is the oldest and most artistically accomplished of instrumental performance forms in Chinese history and the one most marked by national spirit, aesthetic taste and traditional artistic character; besides the solo it also includes the qin song, in which singing and playing go together, and the ensemble of qin and xiao. Through the creative development of qin players and men of letters of successive generations the art of the guqin grew steadily more mature and complete; it entered into a close relationship with social life, history, philosophy and literature, and made great achievements in the accumulation of pieces, performing technique, the study of temperament, modes of transmission and the craft of making qin, displaying a rich humanistic content. In history the Jinling school borrowed from and complemented other qin schools, promoting the all-round development of the art of the guqin. In long artistic practice the Jinling school fused the northern and southern qin manners into one and formed its own distinctive style in rhythm, fingering and musical mood. It stresses that a qin player should have all-round artistic cultivation, holding that only by the road from “the unity of qin and heart” to “the unity of heaven and man” can one reach an artistic realm at once refined and fastidious, clear and free of vulgarity. The Jinling school maintains that the qin song and the qin piece should coexist and opposes monotonous sameness; its fingering is supple and fine, its performing style free and easy, full of rise and fall, and it is especially good at winning by “pause and stress”. The Cai Family Five Pieces, The Ospreys, The Autumn Frontier, Three Variations on the Plum Blossom, Evening Song of the Drunken Fisherman and Mist and Clouds over the Xiao and Xiang are among its representative qin pieces. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The Cai Family Five Pieces": Representative qin pieces of the Jinling school include The Cai Family Five Pieces, The Ospreys, The Autumn Frontier, Three Variations on the Plum Blossom, Evening Song of the Drunken Fisherman and Mist and Clouds over the Xiao and Xiang. "The Ospreys": A representative qin piece of the Jinling school, also among the pieces reconstructed by later players of the school. "The Artistic Realm from the Unity of Qin and Heart to the Unity of Heaven and Man": The Jinling school stresses that a qin player should have all-round artistic cultivation, holding that only through the unity of qin and heart can one reach a refined, fastidious, clear and free realm.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He is a representative bearer of guqin art (Jinling qin school), a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Guishimin · National Representative Bearer Archive